Adolescent-parent relations in Hong Kong: Parenting styles, emotional autonomy, and school achievement

This 4-phase study of Hong Kong Chinese adolescent-parent relationships (90 6 adolescents and 1,091 parents) revealed the following: (a) Adolescents an d their parents differ in their perceptions of parenting style. (b) Autonom y is negatively associated with parents' perceived authoritative parenting style and school achievement. (c) Neither parenting style nor measures of p arents' beliefs in training their children (R. Chao, 1994) are associated w ith self-reports of school achievement. However, (d) parents of students fr om the highest (Band 1) academically oriented schools in Hong Kong rated th emselves as higher in authoritativeness and lower in authoritarianism than parents of adolescents from the lowest academically oriented (Band 5) schoo ls. Findings are discussed in relation to posited differences in adolescent -parent relationships in Western and Chinese cultures.