Attitudes toward family obligations among American adolescents with Asian,Latin American, and European backgrounds

This study was designed to examine the attitudes toward family obligations among over 800 American tenth (M age = 15.7 years) and twelfth (M age = 17. 7 years) grade students from Filipino, Chinese, Mexican, Central and South American, and European backgrounds. Asian and Latin American adolescents po ssessed stronger values and greater expectations regarding their duty to as sist, respect, and support their families than their peers with European ba ckgrounds. These differences tended to be large and were consistent across the youths' generation, gender, family composition, and socioeconomic backg round. Whereas an emphasis on family obligations tended to be associated wi th more positive family and peer relationships and academic motivation, ado lescents who indicated the strongest endorsement of their obligations tende d to receive school grades just as low as or even lower than those with the weakest endorsement. There was no evidence, however, that the ethnic varia tions in attitudes produced meaningful group differences in the adolescents ' development. These findings suggest that even within a society that empha sizes adolescent autonomy and independence, youths from families with colle ctivistic traditions retain their parents' familistic values and that these values do not have a negative impact upon their development.