How European American and Taiwanese Mothers Talk to Their Children About Learning

How European American and Taiwanese Mothers Talk to Their ChildrenAbout Learning

Jin LiBrown University

Heidi FungAcademia Sinica

Roger BakemanGeorgia State University

Katharine RaeNew York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell

Medical Center

Wanchun WeiBrown University

Little cross-cultural research exists on parental socialization of children’s learning beliefs. The current studycompared 218 conversations between European American and Taiwanese mothers and children (6–10 years)about good and poor learning. The findings support well-documented cultural differences in learning beliefs.European Americans mentioned mental activities and positive affect more, whereas Taiwanese mentionedlearning virtues and negative affect more. Mothers, especially European American, reciprocated their chil-dren’s talk about mental activities, learning virtues, and negative affect. Children, especially Taiwanese, recip-rocated their mother’s talk about positive affect. Mothers invoked more mental activities and positive affectwhen discussing good learning, but more learning virtues and negative affect when discussing poor learning.These findings reveal a source of cultural differences in beliefs and potential enculturation.

Among the many factors associated with children’sacademic achievement, one of the significant, yetless well understood, is children’s learning beliefs(Li, 2012) that guide their learning (Archambault,Eccles, & Vida, 2010; Stipek & Mac Iver, 1989).Traditional research tends to describe children’slearning beliefs as their sense of competence (Stipek& Mac Iver, 1989) or theory of intelligence (Dweck,2006), value attached to various school subjects(e.g., Eccles & Wigfield, 2002), as well as affect towardlearning specific subjects (e.g., math and reading) orschool in general (e.g., liking; Baker & Scher, 2002;Ladd & Dinella, 2009; Valeski & Stipek, 2001).

Learning beliefs are not learning itself or strictlyachievement motivation per se (Li, 2012), althoughlearning beliefs are likely involved in both processes.

Built on previous research, children’s learning beliefshave been conceptualized recently as a set of related,but more abstract or metaideas about learning (Li,2004; Sobel, Li, & Corriveau, 2007). Learning beliefsconcern how children view themselves as learners;they include their thoughts about the purpose oflearning (e.g., whether to become smart), the learningprocess (e.g., by thinking or effort), their feelingabout learning (e.g., fun vs. boredom), and theirregard of the social aspects of learning (e.g., view ofachieving peers). Children’s learning beliefs are likelyconstructed in their repeated learning experiences andinteractions with parents, teachers, and peers.

Research focusing on children’s learning beliefs(Li, 2004; Li & Wang, 2004) has documented thatpreschool children begin developing learning beliefs,and different children view learning differently.Children’s understanding of learning becomes moresophisticated as they grow older and gain morelearning experiences in and outside school (Sobel

This research was supported by Chiang-Ching Kuo Founda-tion. The author thanks Katherine Mason, Wen-chi Yi, Chi-hanLiang, as well as many other research assistants for their assis-tance with data collection; and Qinglan Peng, Ana Lopez, andCaroline Segal for their contribution to data coding. Specialthanks go to children and parents who made this study possible.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed toJin Li, Education Department, Brown University, Box 1938, 340Brook Street, Providence, RI 02912. Electronic mail may be sentto [email protected].

© 2013 The AuthorsChild Development © 2013 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.All rights reserved. 0009-3920/2014/8503-0027DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12172

Child Development, May/June 2014, Volume 85, Number 3, Pages 1206–1221

et al., 2007). Furthermore, their learning beliefsinfluence how they learn and how they achieve (Eccles& Wigfield, 2002; Huntsinger, Jose, Liaw, & Ching,1997; Ladd, Buhs, & Seid, 2000; Li, Yamamoto, Luo,Batchelor, & Bresnahan, 2010; Mantzicopoulo, Patrick,& Samarapungavan, 2008).

Cultural Influences on Children’s Learning Beliefs

Children are not born with set beliefs, but theydevelop them as they grow older. One importantsource of influence is their culture (Correa-Ch�avez& Rogoff, 2009; Rogoff, 2003; Serpell, 1993; Tobin,Hsueh, & Karasawa, 2009). Although children’slearning beliefs may require basic and commoncognitive capacities such as theory of mind,self–other differentiations, and acquisition of socialnorms and standards, research documents thatdifferent cultures have different learning models thatinfluence children’s learning beliefs (Alexander, 2000).Western (European and European-heritage) and EastAsian cultures offer good contrastive examples.

Western cultures hold the view that the purposeof learning is to understand the world, to developone’s mind, to achieve personal insights and crea-tivity, and to be the best one can be (Li, 2012).The learning process requires one to be activelyengaged, to use one’s mind to explore and inquireinto the world, to challenge existing knowledge, tocommunicate one’s ideas and opinions (Bianchi &Robinson, 1997), and to experience enjoyment andfun (Covington, 2000; Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Deci& Ryan, 2000). Because this model highlights themental and affective positivity, negativity may beavoided (Ruble, Eisenberg, & Higgins, 1994). Such acultural learning model has been characterized asmind oriented (Li, 2003).

As a result of Confucian influence, East Asiancultures regard the purpose of learning more as agoal for one’s moral and social self-perfection ratherthan mental development per se (Watkins & Biggs,1996). This cultural learning model further empha-sizes what has been described as the “learningvirtues” of diligence, self-exertion, endurance ofhardship, perseverance, concentration, and humility(Hess & Azuma, 1991; Li, 2003). One’s learning isalso more strongly geared toward social contribu-tions to the family and community. Communica-tion, particularly verbal self-expression and positiveaffect, is less stressed than one’s devotion to study(Iyengar & Lepper, 1999; Li, 2002; Stipek, 1998).However, learners may be quite willing and opento discuss their setbacks and inadequacies intheir learning and associated negative feelings (Ng,

Pomerantz, & Lam, 2007; Stipek, 1998). Because ofits focus on personal virtues, this cultural learningmodel has been referred to as virtue oriented (Li,2012).

Research has shown that European Americanchildren as young as 4 years begin to express learn-ing beliefs that resemble their mind-oriented learn-ing model. Likewise, their East Asian age-matesalso begin to articulate learning beliefs that reflecttheir virtue-oriented learning model. As they getolder, children’s learning beliefs become moreconsistent with their respective cultural models (Li,2004). This developmental process continues throughthe early elementary school years and possibly further(Li, 2006; Sobel et al., 2007). It is important to stressthat despite these differences, children from thesecultures also share commonalities. Many studies thatfound differences also found similarities. It is our viewthat cultural differences are a matter of degree,not presence or absence of beliefs and behavior.Still, understanding how children develop learningbeliefs either commonly or differently is crucial forchildrearing and education.

Importance of Parental Socialization for Children’sLearning Beliefs

How do children develop their learning beliefs?One significant shaping force is parental socializa-tion. A large body of research on parental socializa-tion documents its consistent effect on children’sintellectual development and academic achievement(Bornstein, 2006; Bradley, 2010; Burchinal, Peisner-Feinberg, Pianta, & Howes, 2002; Morrison, Rimm-Kauffman, & Pianta, 2003). Although children’sschooling plays an important role, parental socializa-tion is the primary influence during early years(Huntsinger & Jose, 2009; Morrison et al., 2003) andcontinues throughout child development (Fan &Chen, 2001; Grolnick & Slowiaczek, 1994; Hill &Tyson, 2009; Jeynes, 2005, 2007; Pomerantz,Moorman, & Litwack, 2007). Parental socializationfor children’s intellectual development has beenposited to consist of two parts: parents’ knowledgeand beliefs and parenting practice (Bornstein, 2006).The former concerns what parents know aboutchildrearing in this domain, that is, their conceptionsof and beliefs in children’s cognitive capacities,developmental processes, and their own role in thisprocess (Bornstein, 2006; Harkness & Super, 1992).Parenting practice refers to what parents actually doto socialize their children. In general, parenting prac-tice is guided by parents’ knowledge and beliefs(Bornstein, 2006; Harkness & Super, 1992).

Mothers Talk to Children About Learning 1207

Research shows that parental intellectual sociali-zation is influential in shaping children’s thoughtsand behaviors (Bornstein, 2006; Bradley & Corwyn,2005; Corriveau & Harris, 2010; Harris, 2012; Heath,1983; Sigel, 1998). In such processes, parents guide,model, and reward thinking, emotions, and behav-iors that they value and discourage thinking,emotions, and behaviors that they do not value.Children internalize like ideas, norms, and values(Eccles-Parsons, Adler, & Kaczala, 1982; Morrisonet al., 2003; Sigel, 1998). Their learning beliefs areposited also to be shaped by parental socialization(Li, 2012).

Parental Socialization of Children’s Learning Beliefs inthe Two Cultures

Despite extensive research on the effect of paren-tal socialization on children’s intellectual outcomes,there has, however, been scant research that directlyaddresses parental socialization of children’s learn-ing beliefs in Western and Asian cultures. Neverthe-less, there is some comparative research on thistopic. Earlier attempts (e.g., Choi, Bempechat, &Ginsburg, 1994; Stevenson & Lee, 1990) used eitherinterviews or scales to elicit parents’ reports on theirsocialization practice or children’s related percep-tions. Findings generally indicated that both Euro-pean American and Asian parents stress value ofeducation and educational excellence. However, theformer group emphasizes ability and the lattergroup, effort (Stevenson & Lee, 1990). Children tendto internalize their parents’ views.

More recent research delved more into the actualsocialization process. For example, Huntsinger andJose (1995, 2009) conducted longitudinal researchon how European American and Chinese Americanparents instruct their children in math, from kinder-garten to later elementary grades. Their multiformatdata on amount of talking, sequences, and styles ofinteraction showed some commonalities, but alsoimportant cultural differences. Common patternsinclude basic question–answer, statement–agree-ment, and directives–compliance between parentsand children. However, European American par-ents talked more, were more social, and expressedmore encouragement, warmth, and humor towardtheir children. Chinese American parents talked lessand were more serious and orderly. Children inter-acted similarly with parents. This research furtherfound that Chinese parents used more formal andsystematic teaching methods and organized theirchildren’s daily time more for academic learning.European American parents’ methods were more

informal. During teaching, Chinese American par-ents engaged their children in more focused prac-tice than self-exploration and left more quiet timefor them to work alone. They also corrected theirchildren’s errors and expected them to concentrateon tasks more. By contrast, European Americanparents encouraged more verbalization from theirchildren, praised them more, and asked andanswered more questions.

Relatedly, Ng et al. (2007) surveyed the responsepatterns regarding academic achievement amongHong Kong Chinese and European American moth-ers and their elementary schoolchildren and alsorecorded interactions in response to good versuspoor achievement. They found that European Ameri-can mothers generally emphasized the positivity oftheir children’s achievement and still tended to high-light the positive aspects even when their childrenachieved poorly. By contrast, Chinese parentsfocused on the inadequacies of both achievement sit-uations. Thus, Chinese parental socialization is moregeared toward urging their children to improvethemselves regardless of their achievement, andEuropean American parental socialization stresseschildren’s strengths to encourage them further.

These informative findings point to the need tostudy parental socialization for children’s learningbeliefs more comprehensively. Although previousstudies hint at what learning beliefs parents mighttry to instill in their children and what learningbeliefs children themselves might develop, theresearch by Huntsinger and Jose (1995, 2009) tar-geted explicit parental teaching of math in primaryschool. Hence, the results bear less clearly on chil-dren’s metaideas about learning, that is, their learn-ing beliefs in general, which was the central focusof our study. Likewise, the study by Ng et al.(2007) revealed more mothers’ own beliefs ratherthan children’s beliefs emerging in the very processof the maternal socialization effort. Given that chil-dren from preschool to middle childhood alreadyhold rich and sophisticated learning beliefs asreviewed previously, it is important to understandhow parents socialize children for their learningbeliefs in general.

A particularly effective form of parental sociali-zation is parent–child talk. Research has docu-mented that parent–child talk is a powerful shapingforce that predicts children’s memory, moral, andsocioemotional development (Fivush & Nelson,2006; Laible & Thompson, 2002; Van Abbema &Bauer, 2008). However, there is little research atten-tion to this source for children’s learning beliefsacross cultures.

1208 Li, Fung, Bakeman, Rae, and Wei

The Present Study

Our study was conducted to address thisresearch gap by looking at how mothers from thesetwo cultural backgrounds socialize their children indeveloping their learning beliefs. We targeted Euro-pean American and Taiwanese mothers and theirearly elementary school children. These two coun-tries are comparable in that both are democracieswith similar educational systems and levels of eco-nomic development. However, they differ markedlyin their cultural traditions and childrearing prac-tices, with the European American culture being anexample of the West, and the Taiwanese an exam-ple of the Confucian-heritage cultures (Miller, Fung,Lin, Chen, & Boldt, 2012). Therefore, these twogroups offer a reasonable basis for our comparativepurposes. We targeted this age group because wewere interested in understanding the increasingparental socialization of their children when theyattend formal schooling (Morrison et al., 2003).

The empirical paradigm involved providing atopic about learning and recording the mother–child conversations that resulted, following a com-mon method for studying memory developmentamong European American (Fivush & Nelson, 2006;Van Abbema & Bauer, 2008) and Asian (Doan &Wang, 2010) children. This method has two advan-tages. First, it allows the dyad to talk about learn-ing in the past. Discussing events and experiencesthat have already taken place affords the opportu-nity for the child to reflect on, characterize, explain,and interpret his or her learning. Similar to memoryconstruction, such a process is likely to aid the childin constructing learning beliefs. Second, this methodcaptures real (in real time, albeit neither spontane-ous nor “natural”) parental socialization effort andaction.

On the basis of the shared formal schooling butalso the two cultural learning models and children’slearning beliefs, we developed hypotheses aboutboth common and culturally different socializationemphases and child responses. For commonalities,we expected that both groups of mothers wouldaddress what school demands, that is, children’sneed to engage in and ways to enhance learning.When children show good learning attitudes andbehaviors, parents would encourage them and elab-orate on positive affect. However, when childrendisplay poor learning attitudes and behaviors, par-ents would discuss ways for them to improve,which would evoke more parental guidance includ-ing virtue talk and negative affect. Mothers andchildren would be attentive to each other’s ideas

and concerns. However, because mothers play theleading role, their children would exhibit a greatertendency to follow their mothers than vice versa.

For cultural differences, we hypothesized thatEuropean American mothers would emphasizemore the mind and related processes such as think-ing and analysis, as well as positive affect, to pro-mote children’s motivation and learning. However,European American mothers and children wouldfocus less on learning virtues and negative affect.The dyads would be more likely to follow up oneach other’s themes of mental activities and positiveaffect. Similarly, also based on their cultural learn-ing model, Taiwanese mothers would focus moreon learning virtues, but less on the mind and men-tal processes. Instead, the dyads might be quiteopen to discussing children’s inadequacies andnegative affect.

We did not set out to investigate gender as amoderator and hence did not have clear hypothesesabout gender effects. This was due to the fact thatprevious comparative research on this type ofsocialization for this age group did not yieldunequivocal gender differences (e.g., Huntsinger &Jose, 2009; Huntsinger, Jose, & Larson, 2000;Huntsinger et al., 1997). Nevertheless, we took acautionary approach not to exclude potential gen-der effects for our child sample.

Method

Participants

Participants were 102 European American and116 Taiwanese mothers with children 6–10 years ofage attending elementary school. We targeted thisage group because research has consistently shownthat early elementary schoolchildren share the aca-demic task of learning to read (whereas older chil-dren more read to learn; Felton, 1998; Magnuson,Ruhm, & Waldfogel, 2007; Snow, Burns, & Griffin,1998). These two groups would allow us to exam-ine whether and how their parental socializationwould differ during the elementary school years.

We recruited European American dyads fromMassachusetts and Rhode Island; all Taiwanesechildren, from Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. Allchildren lived with both parents, and all EuropeanAmerican and most Taiwanese families were frommiddle-class backgrounds. European American par-ents had more formal education: 94% of mothersand 91% of fathers had completed college; compa-rable percentages for Taiwanese parents are 38%and 49% (although an additional 36% of the


mothers and 27% of the fathers had some college).Taiwanese children were more often boys (50% vs.42%) and slightly older (8.8 vs. 8.6 years, SD = 1.0for both), but these differences were not significant,v2(1, N = 218) = 1.24, p = .25, and t(216) = 2.14,p = .20, respectively. Schools distributed our recruit-ment information; parents signed consent forms,and children gave verbal assent to participate.

Procedure

Before recording conversations, we asked eachmother to identify two real learning incidents thathad happened to her child, one showing a goodlearning attitude or behavior and the other showinga poor learning attitude or behavior. Instructionswere printed on two 8 9 5.5 in. cards. For goodlearning they were as follows:

Recall an actual incident where your childshowed, in your judgment, good attitudes orbehavior in learning. It could be in school or out-side school. The incident does not need to besomething that you personally witnessed. Butyou should know about it in some detail to talkabout it with your child. You have unlimitedtime to talk about this incident, and the conver-sation can go in any direction.

The instructions for poor learning were the sameexcept that the word “good” was replaced with “notperfect.” To randomize the order in which theytalked about these two incidents, mothers drew oneof the two cards. To reduce any researcher effect, theinterviewer left the room when the mother begantalking to her child. When the mother was done withthe first incident, the interviewer gave her the secondcard. Most European American and all Taiwaneseconversations were recorded by female interviewers.All interviews were audio recorded and transcribedverbatim by native speakers.

Because mothers and children were left alone toconverse, not all conversations were about learning.Some mothers from both cultures talked aboutsocial topics such as children’s friendship, siblingrelationships, hygiene, and house chores. Theseconversations were not analyzed further; we pro-vide details when describing particular analyses.

Structural Analysis

One set of analyses was concerned with overallstructural characteristics of the conversations. Struc-tural analysis is a common approach in discourse

analysis of human communication (Atkinson &Heritage, 1984). This approach provides a globalpicture and contour of the communication underinspection. Several structural elements might beselected, but we focused on the four most relevantto our research goals: duration of the conversations(recorded to the nearest second), the number ofturns both mothers and their children took, thenumber of subject–verb structures (SVSs) for bothmothers and children, and the kinds of topics aboutwhich mothers talked to their children (i.e., themesdiscussed later along with coding). We used thenumber of SVSs—a linguistic unit commonly usedto compare verbal communication between languages,in our case English and Chinese (Fivush, Brotman,Buckner, & Goodman, 2000)—and not number ofwords because SVSs account for the meaning unitsimilarly in both languages, but simple word countdoes not.

Except for themes, structural characteristics wereanalyzed with a culture by Gender 9 LearningType mixed design analysis of variance with learn-ing type as the repeated measure. Consequently,these analyses included data from the 88 (102)European American (44% boys) and the 97 (116)Taiwanese dyads (52% boys) that discussed both apositive and a negative learning incident (samemean ages as full sample).

Conversation Coding

Initial Coding

Observers identified and coded periods duringmother–child conversations that reflected a coherenttopic (Bakeman & Gottman, 1997), resulting in aseries of coded events (Bakeman & Quera, 2011) inwhich each event is identified with a speaker and acode. For example, a child’s recounting of a learn-ing activity in school might be one event and themother next talking about her child’s accomplish-ment would be a second event.

To proceed with coding, two coders from eachculture, unaware of our hypotheses, first read arandomly selected 20% of our conversations inde-pendently following conventional procedures forcontent analysis (Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, &O’Connor, 1987). Accordingly, they identified dis-tinct events (such that one was not exchangeablefor another, e.g., a creative idea for a history projectand fear of asking questions in class), generating alist of events (i.e., codes) by each coding team.About 80% of the codes from the two teams werehighly similar in meaning (e.g., both cultural


groups noted mother probing child’s thinking orchild practicing). Next, the two teams met to inte-grate their codes into a single list. The unsharedcodes (about 20%) were either integrated into thecommon codes or listed as additional codes,producing 30 codes initially.

The codes were then used for reliability codingand actual coding: For reliability coding, the sametwo coders from each culture followed a procedureused to code qualitative data (Shaver et al., 1987) tocode another randomly selected sample of 20% ofour data. Their task was to independently applythe codes accurately and reliably to the events intheir original sequences as the conversations tookplace. Cohen’s kappas were .83 for good and .91for poor learning for European American conversa-tions, and .85 for good and .94 for poor learning forTaiwanese conversations. With this number ofcodes (even if their probabilities are variable), kap-pas over .80 suggest observer accuracy of at least90% (and 95% if over .90; see Bakeman & Quera,2011). After reliability was achieved, the coderscoded the data for their own cultural group.

Lumping

For both conceptual and practical reasons, welumped the initial 30 codes into four superordinatethemes that applied to both mothers and children.Lumping necessarily transformed the conceptuallymore concrete initial codes into more abstract ones.The first theme—Mental Activity—refers to talk aboutlearning activities or mental functions such asreading, thinking, and intelligence. The secondtheme—Positive Affect—refers to possible topicsincluding happiness, pride, and interest. The thirdtheme—Learning Virtues—indexes possible topicssuch as practice, persistence, and concentration. The

fourth theme—Negative Affect—includes affect suchas frustration, sadness, and boredom (see Figure 1for examples of themes by culture). Raw data wereformatted according to Bakeman and Quera’s (2011)conventions, and their Generalized Sequential Que-rier program was used for initial data processing.

Log-Linear Analysis

Analyses were carried out on conversations fromthe 96 European American and 111 Taiwanese dyadsthat involved positive learning and from the 94 Euro-pean American and 102 Taiwanese dyads thatinvolved negative learning (43%, 50%, 44%, and 51%boys, respectively; same mean ages as full sample).

Pooling

For half of the conversations, at least 11 motherand 11 child events were coded, but for a quarterof them, 7 or fewer were coded. Because of theserelatively low numbers, we were not confident thatpercentages for the four themes of interest wouldbe sufficiently accurate if computed for individualdyads. Accordingly, for subsequent analyses, wepooled counts over dyads, but within groupsdefined by culture, gender, and learning type (goodvs. poor). Counts were organized in contingencytables, which were then analyzed with log-lineartechniques (Wickens, 1989) using the ILOG com-puter program (Bakeman & Robinson, 1994).

Themes

To determine whether mothers’ or children’s useof themes (mental activity, learning virtues, positiveaffect, and negative affect) varied by culture, learn-ing type, gender, or their interaction, we analyzed

Code European American mothers European American children Taiwanese mothers Taiwanese children

Mental Activity …the way you learn is that the work itself is never hard for you.

I finish with my work … really early, and I …did it correctly, so we asked for um…more challenging work….

Reading more fairytales will make you smarter.

…I designed an apple tree with many red apples on it….

Positive Affect And you had fun doing that project …, didn’t you?

Well, I like volcanoes and I think they’re cool….

You felt good, didn’t you with so many people applauding you?

I am very happy [to listen to my own piano song].

Learning Virtues …when you do make a silly mistake, accept that it’s your mistake, right?

Uh that I have to pay more attention to what you say.

Do you think that you need to practice [math] when you get home?

You told me to work harder, and I should.

Negative Affect Does it frustrate you when you have to try to….

Yeah, it gets boring doing it again and again.

Every time I ask you to write words, you get upset….

I hate my English class cause I am afraid of the teacher.

Figure 1. Examples of utterances coded Mental Activity, Positive Affect, Learning Virtues, and Negative Affect for mothers and for chil-dren (taken from different mothers and children).


eight 2 9 2 9 2 9 2 culture (C = European Americanor Taiwanese) by learning type (L = good or poor)by gender (G = male or female) by turn (T = turncoded for a particular theme or not) contingencytables, one for mother and child for each theme.The goal of log-linear analysis is to identify the sim-plest (most parsimonious) in a series of hierarchicalmodels that still provides an acceptable fit to thedata. Models consist of terms. Using bracket nota-tion and C, L, G (the independent variables [IVs]),and T (the outcome or dependent variable [DV]) torepresent our table dimensions, the [CT] term indi-cates a main effect for culture, the [CGT] termindicates that gender and culture interact, and[CLGT]—the saturated model that constrainsexpected frequencies to match the observed onesexactly and so fits the data perfectly—indicates athree-way interaction.

Terms included in the most parsimonious modelindicate which effects are significant, that is, foreach theme which percentages vary by culture,learning type, gender, or their interaction. In theResults section, we explicate significant effects,describing the indicated percentages and confirm-ing that they differ with an odds ratio (OR)—acommon and intuitive indicator of effect size(Cooper & Hedges, 1994). We identify the mostparsimonious model by its goodness of fit asgauged by G2 (likelihood-ratio chi-square; an alter-nate chi-square computation that, for technical rea-sons, is preferred in log-linear analysis; Bishop,Fienberg, & Holland, 1975). Large and significantG2s suggest an ill-fitting model; thus, small andnonsignificant G2s are sought. Given the numberof hierarchic series of models examined, here wedefined an ill-fitting model conservatively as onewith p < .01.

Sequences

To determine whether child-to-mother andmother-to-child sequences of themes varied by culture,learning type, gender, or their interaction, we againemployed log-linear analysis, analyzing thirty-two2 9 2 9 2 9 2 9 2 tables. The first three dimensionswere culture (C), learning type (L), and gender (G),as for themes. For the 16 child-to-mother tables, thelast two dimensions were child theme (K = child’sturn coded for a particular theme or not) and mothertheme (M = mother’s subsequent turn coded for aparticular theme or not); likewise for the 16 mother-to-child tables. Almost always, the [KM] or [MK]term—indicating an association between mother andchild themes—was required for a fitting model.

Here, KM (or MK) indicates the outcome (and C, L,G the IVs); thus, the [CKM] term indicates a maineffect for culture—meaning that the strength of asso-ciation for a particular sequence differs by culture.

Terms included in the most parsimonious modelindicate which effects are significant, that is, whichsequences vary by culture, learning type, gender, ortheir interaction. In the Results section, we explicatesignificant effects with percentages and ORs. Forthemes it was sufficient to give 2% and 1 OR (e.g.,European American and Taiwanese percentages forturns coded mother mental activity and the ORcomparing them). For sequences, we give 4% and 2ORs. Each OR indicates the strength of a particulargiven–target sequential association for one of thetwo groups being compared (e.g., European Ameri-can vs. Taiwanese). Its associated percentages arethe percentage of turns coded for the target themeof (a) previous turns coded for the given theme and(b) previous turns not coded for the given theme.In sum, for themes, a significant main effect meansthat a theme percentage differed for the twogroups; for sequences, a significant main effectmeans that the strength of a particular target–givenassociation (as indexed by an OR) differed for thetwo groups being compared.

Results

Structural Characteristics

As described earlier, structural characteristics,except for themes, were analyzed with a culture bygender by learning type mixed design analysis ofvariance. Duration of conversations and number ofmother SVSs did not differ by culture. The numberof mother turns and of child turns were higher forTaiwanese than for European American dyads, andthe number of child SVSs was higher for EuropeanAmerican than for Taiwanese children, but neitherthe number of mother SVSs nor the conversation’sduration differed by culture (see Table 1). No othermain effects or interactions were significant, withone exception: The number of mother SVSs washigher when talking about poor learning eventsthan when talking about good learning events (80vs. 72 for good vs. poor learning conversations),F(1, 180) = 5.94, g2

p = .032, p = .016.As described earlier, use of particular themes

was analyzed with log-linear analyses. The mostparsimonious log-linear models indicated culturemain effects for all mother and child themes exceptchild negative affect, learning type main effects forall mother and child themes, and no main effects


for gender. Culture and learning type percentagesfor mother and child themes are shown in Figure 2,along with their ORs. With respect to culture, Euro-pean American mothers and children mentionedmental activity and positive affect more than Tai-wanese mothers and children, whereas Taiwanesemothers and children mentioned learning virtuesand negative affect more than European Americanmothers and children, although the child negativeaffect was only marginal (OR = 0.87, 95% CIs[0.75–1.01], p = .075). With respect to learning type,mothers and children, both European Americanand Taiwanese, mentioned mental activity andpositive affect more frequently when talking aboutgood learning events, whereas they mentionedlearning virtues and negative affect more whentalking about poor learning events (see Figure 2).

Culture main effects were qualified by interac-tions with learning type for both mother and childmental activity and positive affect, but these interac-tions did not change the nature of the main effects.Both mothers and children mentioned mental activ-ity and positive affect more when talking aboutgood learning events than when talking about poorlearning events, but the difference was more pro-nounced for Taiwanese than for European Ameri-cans. Specifically, good learning–poor learningpercentages for Taiwanese and European Americanswere, respectively, 46%–35% and 48%–46% formother mental activity, 39%–16% and 42%–26%for mother positive affect, 46%–36% and 48%–44%

for child mental activity, and 32%–16% and34%–23% for child positive affect.

Similarly, the learning type main effect was qual-ified by an interaction with gender for child posi-tive affect, but again the interaction did not changethe nature of the main effect. All children men-tioned positive affect more when talking about goodversus poor learning events, but the difference wasmore pronounced for males than for females. Specifi-cally, good learning–poor learning percentages were33%–16% for males and 33%–21% for females.

Discourse Sequences

As described earlier, the strength of association forparticular sequences was analyzed with log-linear

Table 1Means for Structural Characteristics of European American andTaiwanese Mother–Child Conversations About Learning

Variable

Culture

F ratio g2 pEuropeanAmerican Taiwanese

Duration (min) 4.4 (2.6) 4.6 (3.2) 0.12 .001 .73Number ofmother turns

24 (15) 34 (25) 9.72 .051 .002

Number ofchild turns

24 (15) 32 (25) 7.50 .040 .007

Mother #SVSs 73 (44) 78 (60) 0.43 .002 .51Child #SVSs 37 (28) 26 (26) 8.06 .043 .005

Note. Scores are means (N = 185) based on dyads who discussedboth good and poor learning (standard deviations in parenthe-ses). F ratios (df = 1,181), g2, and p values are for culture maineffects from a culture by gender by learning type mixed designanalysis of variance with learning type as the repeated measure.Except for one learning type main effect for mother #SVSs (seetext for details), no interactions or gender or learning type effectswere significant. SVS = subject–verb structures.

Figure 2. Percentages of mother and child turns coded for eachtheme, separately for culture (top) and learning type (bottom).Odds ratios follow each theme: They are > 1 when the EuropeanAmerican (or good learning) percentage is higher, and < 1 whenlower than the Taiwanese (or poor learning) percentage. None oftheir 95% confidence intervals include 1, except for the culturechild negative affect comparison, as expected given the log-linearanalysis. Sums for mother and child theme percentages are > 100because turns were sometimes assigned more than one theme.


analyses. The most parsimonious log-linear modelsindicated eight culture main effects, five learningtype main effects, and three gender main effects. NoCulture 9 Learning Type, only one Culture 9 Gen-der, and no Learning Type 9 Gender interactionswere significant.

Culture Main Effects

Sequences whose strength of association differedby culture are listed in Table 2. Five of the eightcultural differences involved child-to-mothersequences; for all five, the European American ORswere more extreme (i.e., more distant from one,toward infinity or zero), indicating that the given–target association was stronger for EuropeanAmerican than Taiwanese dyads. The other threeinvolved mother-to-child sequences; for all three,the Taiwanese ORs were more extreme.

Child to Mother

First, European American mothers matched theirchildren’s mental activity themes more than Tai-wanese mothers (71% vs. 60%). Second, when chil-dren’s themes were not learning virtues, EuropeanAmerican mothers responded with learning virtuesthemes less than Taiwanese mothers (12% vs. 22%).Third, European American mothers matched theirchildren’s negative affect themes more thanTaiwanese mothers (44% vs. 35%). Fourth, whenthe previous theme was not learning virtues, Euro-pean American mothers were more likely torespond with mental activity themes (52% vs. 46%).

Finally, European American mothers were lesslikely to respond with negative affect themes totheir children’s previous mental activity themes (6%vs. 9%).

Mother to Child

First, Taiwanese children matched their mothers’mental activity themes more, but the culture maineffect was qualified with a Gender 9 Culture inter-action. Taiwanese girls matched their mothers’mental activity themes more than European Ameri-can girls (87% vs. 80%), but when mother’s themeswere not mental activity, Taiwanese girls respondedwith mental activity themes less than EuropeanAmerican girls (9% vs. 16%). In contrast, EuropeanAmerican and Taiwanese boys matched andresponded with mental activity themes to nonmen-tal activity themes about the same (85% and 87%and 10% and 10%, respectively; not in Table 2).

Second, Taiwanese children were somewhat morelikely to match their mother’s learning virtuesthemes than European American children (74% vs.72%) and somewhat less likely to respond with learn-ing virtues themes when their mother’s themes werenot learning virtues (3% vs. 4%). The higher Taiwan-ese OR (100.4 vs. 59.6) reflects the greater Taiwanesedifference, but due to the small number of nonmatch-ing sequences, both ORs are unusually big, and sowe should give little weight to this difference.

Third, Taiwanese children matched their mother’spositive affect more than European American chil-dren (73% vs. 66%), but when mother’s themes werenot positive affect, Taiwanese children responded

Table 2Descriptive Statistics for Selected Sequences: Culture Differences

Sequence Given Target Δ

European American Taiwanese

% (T|G) % (T|~G) OR % (T|G) % (T|~G) OR

Child to mother Mental activity Mental activity + 71 26 7.03 60 27 3.99Learning virtues Learning virtues � 61 12 11.4 59 22 5.11Negative affect Negative affect + 44 7 11.0 35 9 5.34Learning virtues Mental activity � 23 52 0.27 25 46 0.39Mental activity Negative affect + 6 16 0.30 9 16 0.56

Mother to child Mental activity Mental activitya ~ 80 16 20.6 87 9 68.5Learning virtues Learning virtues � 72 4 59.6 74 3 100.4Positive affect Positive affect + 66 10 17.7 73 6 44.1

Note. Listed are given–target sequences that differed by culture per log-linear analysis. % (T|G) is the percentage of turns coded for thegiven theme that were followed by a turn coded for the target theme. % (T|~G) is the percentage of turns that were not coded for thegiven theme that were followed by a turn coded for the target theme. A plus sign in the Δ column indicates that the % (T|G) EuropeanAmerican–Taiwanese difference was greater than the % (T|~G) European American–Taiwanese difference, a minus sign the opposite,and ~ about the same. OR = odds ratio.aFor girls only; the Culture 9 Gender interaction was significant and only the girls differed by culture.


with positive affect themes somewhat less thanEuropean American children (6% vs. 10%).

Learning Type Main Effects

Sequences whose strength of association dif-fered by learning type are listed in Table 3. Twoof the five learning type differences involvedchild-to-mother and three involved mother-to-childsequences; the good learning ORs were moreextreme for both child-to-mother and the first twomother-to-child sequences, indicating that thegiven–target association was stronger for goodthan poor learning. These differences transcendedculture (i.e., no Culture 9 Learning Type interac-tions were significant).

First, mothers in the poor learning conditionmatched their children’s negative affect themesmore than mothers in the good learning condition(40% vs. 34%), but when children’s themes werenot negative affect, mothers in the poor learningcondition responded with negative affect themesmuch more than mothers in the good learningcondition (13% vs. 4%). The same pattern applied

to mothers responding with negative affect themesto children’s mental activity themes, again muchmore so in the poor learning than in the goodlearning condition.

Second, children in the poor learning conditionwere less likely to respond with mental activitythemes when their mothers’ previous theme wasnot positive affect (45% vs. 66%), and less likely torespond with positive affect themes when theirmothers’ previous theme was not mental activity(26% vs. 53%).

Third, compared to children in the good learningcondition, children in the poor learning conditionresponded with negative affect themes more oftenwhen mothers’ themes were learning virtues (10%vs. 5%), and they responded with negative affectthemes even more often when mothers’ themeswere not learning virtues (25% vs. 8%).

Gender Main Effects

Sequences whose strength of association differedby gender are listed in Table 4. For all three genderdifferences, the boys ORs were more extreme,

Table 4Descriptive Statistics for Selected Sequences: Gender Differences


Boys Girls

% (T|G) % (T|~G) OR % (T|G) % (T|~G) OR

Child to mother Learning virtues Learning virtues + 64 18 8.33 56 18 5.68Positive affect Learning virtues + 17 31 0.44 23 28 0.78

Mother to child Learning virtues Learning virtues + 76 2 128.1 71 4 56.5

Note. Listed are given–target sequences that differed by gender per log-linear analysis. % (T|G) is the percentage of turns coded for thegiven theme that were followed by a turn coded for the target theme. % (T|~G) is the percentage of turns that were not coded for thegiven theme that were followed by a turn coded for the target theme. The plus signs in the Δ column indicate that the % (T|G) Euro-pean American–Taiwanese difference was greater than the % (T|~G) European American–Taiwanese difference. OR = odds ratio.

Table 3Descriptive Statistics for Selected Sequences: Learning Type Differences


Good learning Poor learning

% (T|G) % (T|~G) OR % (T|G) % (T|~G) OR

Child to mother Negative affect Negative affect � 34 4 12.1 40 13 4.35Mental activity Negative affect � 3 9 0.31 14 22 0.57

Mother to child Positive affect Mental activity � 18 66 0.11 18 45 0.26Mental activity Positive affect � 10 53 0.10 8 26 0.27Learning virtues Negative affect � 5 8 0.58 10 25 0.32

Note. Listed are given–target sequences that differed by learning type per log-linear analysis. % (T|G) is the percentage of turns codedfor the given theme that were followed by a turn coded for the target theme. % (T|~G) is the percentage of turns that were not codedfor the given theme that were followed by a turn coded for the target theme. The minus signs in the Δ column indicate that the %(T|G) European American–Taiwanese difference was less than the % (T|~G) European American–Taiwanese difference. OR = odds ratio.


indicating that the given–target association wasstronger for boys than girls. Mothers matched theirboys’ learning virtues themes more than girls’ (64%vs. 56%). Similarly, boys matched their mothers’learning virtues themes more than girls (76% vs.71%). Finally, girls more than boys responded withlearning virtues themes to their mothers’ positiveaffect themes (23% vs. 17%).

Discussion

We sought to study how European American andTaiwanese mothers socialize their children in devel-oping their learning beliefs. By recording mother–child conversations about learning experiences inthe past, we were able to capture in real time howmother–child talks about learning beliefs unfolded.This process revealed at least four large and com-mon themes of learning beliefs that both culturalgroups actively discussed. In line with our predic-tions, we found both similar patterns and culturaldifferences. Regarding commonalities, first, thefindings about the similar duration of conversationsand amount of mother talk suggest that two cul-tures’ mothers socialize their children similarly insome basic ways. Moreover, of the four learning-related themes that were coded, mental activitywas the most frequently mentioned and negativeaffect the least frequently mentioned by bothgroups’ mothers and children. Given the relevanceto children’s early schooling in both cultures, mater-nal focus on the mental activities, positive affect,and learning virtues is sensible.

Beyond these general common patterns, therewere other important commonalities. For example,the differences found in learning type applied to bothcultural groups (and both boys and girls). Overall,more mental activity and positive affect were dis-cussed for good learning, but more learning virtuesand negative affect for poor learning. These findingscohere with previous research, suggesting that chil-dren’s good learning is reason for parents to engagethem in savoring their successful learning activitiesand process (Doan & Wang, 2010). However, forpoor learning, parents may feel a need to guide theirchildren to help them improve their learning (Hunt-singer et al., 1997). In such instructional effort, par-ents may reflect the negative feelings they haveregarding their children’s poor learning. In their dis-cussions of such events, we indeed found that moth-ers responded with more negative affect, particularlywhen their children themselves talked about nega-tive affect and mental activities.

Interestingly, children’s responses in the twolearning types were quite different from those oftheir mothers. First, their cross-response with posi-tive affect and mental activity to their mothers’same themes did not differ between good or poorlearning. But they responded to these themes inpoor learning much less than in good learningwhen their mothers did not discuss these twothemes. These findings suggest that children inearly schooling tend to follow parental discussionof mental activity and positive affect more closelyregardless of the learning type. But when parentsdo not focus on these themes in poor learning, chil-dren tend to move away from maternal talk. Again,these findings may indicate children’s greater recep-tivity to maternal guidance regarding mental activi-ties and positive affect. Finally, children tended toexpress more negative affect in poor than goodlearning regardless of whether their mothers dis-cussed learning virtues.

There were important cultural variations. First,regarding structural characteristics, both Taiwanesemothers and children had more turns than theirEuropean American counterparts. However, Euro-pean American children talked more. It is impor-tant to clarify that higher numbers of turns do notnecessarily mean greater amount of exchange perturn. Frequently, the turns, particularly Taiwanesechildren’s turns, were short such as affirming andagreeing with “yes,” nodding, or shaking head.Because the total duration of the talk did not differbetween the two groups, higher numbers ofTaiwanese turns likely indicate less talk per turn.We indeed found that Taiwanese children talkedless. This finding is consistent with extant compara-tive research showing that East Asian children ver-balize less when parents communicate with them.The cultural emphasis is on listening well ratherthan equal verbal exchange (Huntsinger et al., 2000;Miller et al., 2012). Still, less verbalization does notmean that the children were not attentive partnersin the communication.

Consistent with our hypotheses, European Amer-ican mothers and children mentioned mental activi-ties and positive affect more, whereas Taiwanesemothers and children mentioned learning virtuesand negative affect more (although the effect forchild negative affect was marginal). Furthermore,the findings of discourse sequences generally sup-ported our predictions. Specifically, EuropeanAmerican mothers matched their children’s mentalactivity more than Taiwanese mothers. Andalthough both groups of mothers matched theirchildren’s virtue themes similarly, when Taiwanese


children did not mention learning virtues, theirmothers brought up learning virtue almost twice asoften as European American mothers. Similarly,when European American children did not mentionlearning virtues, their mothers brought up mentalactivity more than Taiwanese mothers. Finally,Taiwanese mothers were somewhat more likely tofollow their children’s mental activity with negativeaffect than European American mothers. Takentogether, European American mothers tended torespond with mental activity more, whereasTaiwanese mothers with learning virtues and nega-tive affect more.

However, one sequence did not support ourhypothesis: European American mothers’ greatertendency to match their children’s negative affect.This tendency may reflect greater maternal concernwith their children’s negative feelings, perhaps indi-cating the maternal desire for their children to feelmore positively. Due to a different cultural norm,Taiwanese mothers may not have the same concernand therefore they are less likely to acknowledgechildren’s negative feelings. Further research mayclarify this difference in maternal response.

A second finding also countering our predictionwas that Taiwanese children matched theirmothers’ positive affect more than their EuropeanAmerican peers. This Taiwanese tendency mayreflect a greater “sensitivity to emotional positivity”in their children. Because the cultural norm down-plays the positive affect (Ng et al., 2007), Taiwanesechildren may become more attuned to emotionalpositivity when their mothers mention it, thus fol-lowing up on this maternal theme to a greaterextent. Again future research may clarify thisaffective response in maternal socialization.

Few gender differences were found. Supportingprevious research, gender of the child emerged asan inconsistent factor in maternal socialization forlearning beliefs. This pattern likely reflects the factthat early elementary school children are still learn-ing basic academic skills. Boys and girls may showless clear-cut learning attitudes and behaviors asmay be the case in later schooling. Parental sociali-zation for children’s learning beliefs may be tunedto this developmental state.

To illustrate both commonalities and cultural dif-ferences, we present in Figure 3 two excerpts, oneby a European American mother and another by aTaiwanese mother, both with their 7-year-old sons,Tim and Ren, respectively. In the European Ameri-can conversation, Tim’s mother brought up a nega-tive incident where Tim made many math errors.Tim acknowledged his negative feeling (a clumsy

day). The mother then elaborated on the process ofdiscovering Tim’s problems with math because hehad “a tough time explaining” to her (mentalfocus). Subsequently, she figured out what Tim didwrong and made sure that he understood it (mentalfocus). Once she found the “cause” of Tim’s diffi-culties, Tim’s problem was solved, which made himhappy (focus on positive affect) and motivatedto do a lot of math problems and do them well(mental and virtue focus).

In the Taiwanese example, Ren’s teacher praisedhim for behaving well. However, his motherappeared not satisfied. Neither did she focus onRen’s intelligence or mental processes (although Rendid mention answering his teacher’s questions, amental activity). Instead, she urged Ren to workharder toward further self-improvement, earning hispledge to concentrate in class. Although this conver-sation was about good learning, the mother probedher son’s inadequacies, steering him toward furtherself-improvement. Apparently, Ren also knew theselearning virtues and cooperated with his mother.

Despite some common themes, the noted culturaldifferences reflect the two respective learning cul-tural models. In line with their mind-oriented model,European American mothers emphasized the mindand associated functions such as thinking, figuringthings out, creative solutions to problems, in addi-tion to general learning activities inside and outsideschool. Mothers tended to steer their talk to positiveaffects, asking questions about how a rewardingactivity, a good attitude, behavior, or learning out-come made the child feel. This tendency of EuropeanAmerican maternal socialization effort has also beenfound by other researchers (Doan & Wang, 2010;Miller et al., 2012). When children expressed nega-tive feelings such as frustration, embarrassment,mothers guided them into mental processes andactivities that might turn children’s negative affectsinto positive ones. European American children gen-erally cooperated well with their mothers. Despitetheir quibbles with their mothers on poor learning,they aligned with their mothers in the end.

Likewise, Taiwanese mothers’ socializationreflected the Confucian learning model that empha-sizes personal virtues in learning as noted previ-ously. It is parents’ charge to guide their children onthis learning path (Li, 2012). Accordingly, Taiwanesemothers probed more learning virtues that includediligence, seriousness, perseverance, concentration,and humility. Moreover, Taiwanese mothers werealso more willing to address children’s inadequaciesand related negative feelings, a consequence of lackof learning virtues (Li, 2012).


There are limitations in this study. First, we onlyaudio recorded the dyadic talks, making us unable tocapture affect in facial expressions and gestures.Videotaping dyads could address this limitation(Huntsinger & Jose, 2009; Ng et al., 2007). Further-more, father–child interactions as well as thoseinvolving larger family units are also likely to yieldimportant socialization information. Another limita-tion is that we examined only two turn sequencesbetween the dyads, which did not capture the fulllength of the mother–child conversations. Furtherstudy may need to include more turns. Moreover,our data amount permitted only four sets of themes.

We initially generated 30 codes, which certainlycontained finer conceptual distinctions. When col-lapsed into four sets, the finer conceptual distinctionswere necessarily moved to more abstract conceptuallevels. Future research could collect a greater amountof data to track further differentiations of parentalsocialization across cultures. We also note thatdespite the efficacy of sequential analysis, much con-textual detail was not considered. As illustrated inthe examples, there is much to be gained by lookingat the specific communication process. Discourseanalysis in conjunction with sequential analysis mayhelp address this limitation. Finally, we studied only

European American turns

M: …. I wanted to talk to you about … that �me when you had that one math paper that “Oh my goodness!” like mostly everything was wrong and you never bring home papers like that. Remember that one?

C: Mm-hmm.

M: And it has …

C: I just had a clumsy day.

M: You had a clumsy day. You sure did, but there was, when we finally figured out what it was that you were doing wrong, you were pre�y happy about it …. And you were very happy to know the right way to do it, and then you were very happy to prac�ce it. Right?

C: ….

M: … cause at first remember I looked at it and I couldn’t figure out why you were coming out with the answer … and you were having a tough �me explaining it to me. Right? Yea, and once we figured it out you were pre�y happy that I figured it out. And then … I gave you a whole big paper with lots and lots of problems on it just so you could prac�ce, and so I could make sure you really understood it. And you did the whole thing lickety split; you got everything right, and you did it with a smile on your face … you were very happy about it. Why do you think that was?

C: I don’t know, because I was frustrated, and then you sat down and went over it with me, and I figured it out right with no distrac�on, and then I got it right.

M: So it made you feel good to do well?

C: Uh-huh.

M: And it’s OK to get some wrong some�mes, right? Cause …

C: And I, I never got that again, didn’t I? ...

Taiwanese turns

M: ... Oh, why does your teacher think that you behave well? …

C: It’s that I concentrate well in class.

M: Is your good concentra�on the concentra�on to talk to your peer at the next desk?

C: I listen to teachers.

M: Oh, is it so only for Mr. Chang’s class or is it for all classes?

C: Almost all classes like that.

M: Oh, why do you want to be serious in class?

C: Oh, yes.

M: You could sleep while a�ending classes, why do you want to be serious in class?

C: … if I can’t answer the teacher’s ques�ons, misbehaving li�le friends [common term used to refer to young schoolchildren] will lose points ….

M: Uh-ah! So you want to behave well because you want to get an … honor award. Is that so?

C: Yes.

M: Or is it also that you yourself want to behave be�er?

C: Yes, I also want to behave be�er myself.

M: Oh, why do you want to behave be�er yourself?

C: Because my tests are pre�y bad.

M: Okay, hmm, your tests are pre�y bad?

C: Yeah. ...

Figure 3. Examples of mother–child conversations about learning. M = mother and C = child. All names are pseudonyms.


maternal talk with children. Future research needs toattend to how such talk may affect children’s inter-nalization of learning beliefs, how they actuallylearn, and how they achieve.

Despite the above limitations, this study providescompelling evidence of commonalities and culturaldifferences in parental socialization processes in thedevelopment of children’s learning beliefs. Under-standing this important process across cultures caninform families, schools, and communities in theireffort to help children in this development.

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How European American and Taiwanese Mothers Talk to Their Children About Learning