Family socialization of ethnic identity among Chinese American pre-adolescents

Abstract

The linkage between family structure, language, and ethnic identity is investigated to find out the effects of two major socialization mechanisms: one, family cultural transmission, and the other, structural symbolic interaction. The data on Chinese-American children indicates that family language proficiency is retained mainly through parental teaching; thus, first-born children and those with fewer siblings were favored. The construction of ethnic identity by children has followed a different process. Volition and social construction by children themselves, as predicted by structural interactionists, were found to have some influence in determining their version of ethnicity. The evidence further suggests that children reacted negatively to parental pressure to retain Chinese identity and that family structure, e.g. sibling size or birth order, also delimits a range for these children’s reactions and identity formation.