The relationship between self-esteem and parenting style - A cross-cultural comparison of Australian and Vietnamese Australian adolescents

Within Western cultures, self-esteem consistently has been demonstrated to be inversely related with parenting styles characterized by low levels of a cceptance and high levels of overprotection (i.e., affectionless control). Although in traditional collectivist cultures there may be a preference for this parenting style, within a strong collectivist framework it is not tho ught to have a negative impact on self-esteem. However, for immigrant adole scents, the cultural context of collectivism may no longer support such a p arenting style as adaptive, particularly because they tend to acculturate m ore quickly than their parents. To investigate this proposal, 118 Vietnames e Australian and 120 Anglo-Australian adolescents, aged 11 to 18 years, wer e recruited. They were administered the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory; the Parental Bonding Instrument, an acculturation measure; and two subscale s of Eysenck's Personality Questionnaire. As expected, parenting characteri zed by high levels of overprotection and low levels of acceptance related n egatively with self-esteem for both samples of adolescents.