A CONCEPTUAL-MODEL FOR STUDYING PARENTING BEHAVIORS IN IMMIGRANT POPULATIONS

Transition is a concept common to migration and parenthood. Immigrants leave their homeland, experience the chaos of moving, then begin life in anew country. A new parent relinquishes an identity, waits for the birth of an infant, then develops an altered identity with reconfigur ed relationships. Belsky's theoretical framework is modified to illust rate the determinants of parenting in immigrants who make the transiti on to parenthood and cultural transition simultaneously. The primary f ocus is on the contextual determinants of premigration, postmigration, ethnicity, and the sociopolitical environment. Possible directions fo r nursing practice and research are proposed.