| Author: | Ting, Oi-tai |
| Title: | An exploratory study on parental expectations on adolescent-child's behavioral performance and the adolescent's self-expectations in contemporary Hong Kong |
| Degree: | M.A. |
| Year: | 1996 |
| Subject: | Teenagers -- China -- Hong Kong Parent and child -- China -- Hong Kong Self-perception adolescent psychology Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | Department of Applied Social Studies |
| Pages: | iv, 119 leaves ; 30 cm |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | One's self concept is central to an individual especially during his/her adolescence. It is believed that one can live a more satisfactory life if he/she has successfully gone through this identity formation process. In order to develop a positive self-concept, parental factor plays an important role in the formation process as it shapes one's self-expectation which is an major element in building one's positive self-concept. The aim of this research was to explore the parents' expectations and adolescents' self-expectation and its formation. It would be followed by the examining conflict of expectations between generations. Hong Kong is a place where the West meets the East. Being a colony of United Kingdom more than one hundred years, the education system of Hong Kong was inevitably developed according to the British system. Despite the influence from the Western culture, the youngsters in Hong Kong are still under the shadow of traditional Chinese culture ( Choi, 1987). As a result, adolescents are under a more pluralistic cultural influence when shaping their self-expectation. To purely employ a Western concept or measurement tool of 'self' could not fully discover a whole picture of parents' and adolescents' self-expectation, therefore, a combination of Western and Chinese concept of self was adopted to develop the conceptual framework in the study. The study employed a qualitative methodology with in-depth interviews for one family. A lower-class family with parents and adolescent-child was interviewed. The findings revealed that both parents' expectation and adolescent's self-expectation were strongly influenced by the traditional values of Chinese socialization goal and values. First of all, parents still placed high expectations on child's moral development, filial piety and scholastic competence. Moreover, different parental expectations on the domain of filiality in relation to different genders was revealed. The sampled parents expected sons instead of daughters to take care of them as daughters were perceived as outsider after married. Although the sampled adolescent valued peer relationship very much which her parents tend to oppose, she weighted filiality and siblings relationship as important than peer relationship. Furthermore, conflict of expectation between generations was great due to the different expectations between parent-child especially at the domains of scholastic competence and peer relationship. The adolescent-child's inner conflict was also great as she was incompetence in fulfilling her parents' high expectations. Based on the research findings, it was recommended that increasing social workers' awareness of cultural influence on one's expectation would come first in our service provision. No one can provide an effective and humane intervention without acknowledging the cultural influence simply because it is an essence in everyone's life-long development. As family still plays an important role in adolescents' development, a more holistic and integrated youth and family service are recommended. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | restricted access |
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| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| b13978378.pdf | For All Users (off-campus access for PolyU Staff & Students only) | 3.76 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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