Self-concept and parental values: influences on the ethnic identity development of biracial children

Posted in Asian Diaspora, Dissertations, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive on 2013-03-07 01:30Z by Steven

Self-concept and parental values: influences on the ethnic identity development of biracial children

San Jose State University
August 1994
46 pages

Julie Mari Oka

A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Department of Psychology San Jose State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts

In this thesis self-concept was measured across three ethnic groups (Japanese-American, Caucasian, and Japanese-American/Caucasian biracial). Forty-eight children divided by ethnicity and gender completed a self-concept measure and a perspective-taking measure. The perspective-taking measure was dropped from the study due to a ceiling effect. The self-concept measure yielded three scores for each child which included an overall self-concept score as well as scores for behavioral and physical self-concept.

Biracial boys and Caucasian girls scored highest when compared to other groups on overall self-concept. Furthermore, biracial boys scored highest on physical self-concept. Biracial girls scored lowest on both subscales. Girls scored significantly higher than boys on behavioral self-concept.

Parents completed a parental questionnaire designed to assess the extent to which parents would like their children to exhibit values and behaviors considered to be traditionally Japanese-American. Although not significant, mothers of biracial children tended to report more of a preference for their children to display traditional Japanese-American values.

Read the entire thesis here.

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