Parents’ Marital and Psychological State
Marital Relationship
A construct measuring quality of the marital relationship was created from the mother’s interview and included the following variables: Mutual Enjoyment, Confiding, Arguments and the GRIMS total score. The adjusted correlations between each variable and the overall construct ranged from .53 to .77 and the α-coefficient for the construct was .32. The variables were entered into a MANOVA and Wilks’ λ was significant F(6, 170) = 2.44, p < .05, indicating an overall group difference (see Table 4). Subsequent one way ANOVAs showed a group difference for Confiding F(2, 81) = 5.03, p < .01. Games-Howell post-hoc tests revealed that British Pakistani mothers confided less in their partner when compared with non-immigrant White mothers (BP vs. NIW, p < .01). No differences were found between groups in level of Mutual Enjoyment, Number of Arguments or the GRIMS total score.
The variables measuring partner’s support were next examined. Using one way analysis of variance, no differences were found between groups for the Partner’s Help in Care or Load Taking as rated from the mother’s interview.
A Chi-square test was used to compare the nature of Marital Choice between the ethnic groups and revealed a significant difference in the relative proportion of arranged marriages and non-arranged marriages χ2 (2, N = 90) = 28.87, p < .001. Of the non-immigrant White mothers, 97% (n = 32) had a non-arranged marriage only one mother, (3%) described meeting their partner in an arranged manner. In contrast, 46% (n = 12) of the British Indian mothers described meeting their partner in a non-arranged way, while 53% (n = 14) had an arranged marriage. Among the British Pakistani mothers, 35.5% (n = 11) described having a non-arranged marriage while 64.5% (n = 20) had a more traditional arranged marriage (see Table 4).
120 Mothers’ Psychological State
The maternal psychological state construct was composed of scores on the Parental Distress, Parent-Child Dysfunctional Interaction and Difficult Child subscales of the Parenting Stress Index as well as total scores on the Trait Anxiety Inventory and Edinburgh Depression Scale. The adjusted correlations between the variable scores and the overall construct varied from .14 to .72 and the α-coefficient for the construct was .79. The variables were entered into a MANOVA and Wilks’ λ was significant F(10,158) = 1.99, p < .05, indicating an overall group difference (see Table 4). With one-way ANOVAs, a significant difference between groups was found for two of the PSI subscale scores, namely, Parent-Child Dysfunctional Interaction F(2,83) = 4.21, p <.05 and the Difficult Child subscale F(2,83) = 3.38, p < .05. Games-Howell post-hoc tests revealed that for Dysfunctional Interaction there was a significant group difference between the British Indian and the British Pakistani mothers (BI vs. BP, p < .05) with Indian mothers reporting lower levels of Dysfunctional Interaction. The group difference for the Difficult Child subscale indicated that British Indian mothers rated their child as being less difficult than both British Pakistani mothers (BI vs. BP, p < .05), and non-immigrant White mothers (BI vs. NIW, p < .05). No group differences were found for Parental Distress, the Trait Anxiety Inventory or the Edinburgh Depression Scale.
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Table 4: Means, SD, F and p values for comparisons of Marital Relationship and Maternal Psychological State between British Indian (BI), British Pakistani (BP) and non-immigrant White (NIW) families
British Indian British Pakistani Non-immigrant White Post-hoc tests
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
F p BI vs. NIW BP vs. NIW BI vs. BP Marital relationship 2.44 p < .05 Mutual Enjoyment 2.04 0.91 2.13 1.11 2.00 0.83 0.18 n.s. Confiding 1.63 0.93 2.27 1.29 1.43 1.63 4.75 p < .01 n.s. p < .01 n.s. Arguments 1.08 1.14 1.13 1.07 0.87 0.97 0.63 n.s. GRIMS 26.17 13.77 28.93 12.24 22.90 14.51 1.52 n.s. Mothers psychological state 1.99 p < .05 PSI: Parental Distress 23.29 6.93 25.40 7.16 23.28 6.13 0.69 n.s. PSI: Parent- Child Dysfunctional interaction 15.83 4.00 20.00 6.67 17.88 4.56 3.94 p < .05 n.s. n.s. p < .05 PSI: Difficult Child 20.21 5.23 25.03 8.94 24.00 6.16 3.26 p < .05 p< .05 n.s. p < .05 Trait Anxiety Inventory 36.13 9.42 37.70 7.98 37.22 9.31 0.22 n.s. Edinburgh Depression Scale 5.96 4.34 7.83 3.94 5.78 4.09 1.96 n.s. n % n % n % χ2 p Marital Choice p <.001 Arranged 14 53.8 20 64.5 1 3 28.87 Non-arranged 12 46.2 11 35.5 32 97
122 Parenting and Mother-Child Relationships
Warmth and Closeness
The maternal warmth/closeness variables were derived from the interviews with mothers (Expressed Warmth, Sensitive Responding, Mother-Child Interaction and Expressed Criticism). The adjusted correlations between each variable and the overall construct varied from .41 to .64 and the α-coefficient for the construct was .80. The variables were entered into a MANOVA and Wilks’ λ was not significant. (see Table 5).
The Child-Centredness variable was found to violate conditions of normality. Therefore the Kruskal-Wallis non parametric test was used to compare groups on this variable. As shown in Table 5, a significant difference in Child-Centredness was found between groups, H(2) = 6.30, p < .05.Mann–Whitney tests were then carried out. A Bonferonni correction was applied and thus a .02 level of significance was used. Once again, there was a significant difference between the non-immigrant White and British Pakistani group, with the British Pakistani group showing higher levels of Child-Centredness (U = 344, z = -2.51 p < .02) (See Table 5).
Control
The maternal control variables were derived from the interview with mothers (Maternal Control and Control of Bedtime). A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted for each of these variables65. No between group difference was found for Maternal Control or Control of Bedtime.
Supervision
Variables from the mother’s interview (Outside Boundaries and Chaperonage) formed the supervision construct. The between item correlation was .61 and the α-coefficient for the construct was .75. When these variables were entered into a MANOVA, Wilks’ λ was
65
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significant, F(4, 172) = 3.44, p < .01 indicating an overall group difference, as shown in Table 5. Univariate ANOVAs showed a group difference for both Outside Boundaries F(2,87) = 4.94, p < .01 and Chaperonage F(2,87) = 5.94, p < .01. Games-Howell post-hoc tests revealed that British Pakistani mothers showed tighter supervision rules with regards to their children playing outdoors compared with non-immigrant White mothers (BP vs. NIW, p < .01). There was also a significant group difference for Chaperonage, with British Pakistani mothers again reporting tighter rules in relation to their children playing with other children (either known or unknown) compared with non-immigrant White mothers (BP vs. NIW, p < .01).
Discipline
A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted for the discipline variables from the mother’s interview (Overt Discipline, Frequency of Battle and Level of Battle). The adjusted correlations between each variable and the overall construct varied from .27 to .36 and the α-coefficient for the construct was .58. Wilks’ λ was significant F(6, 170) = 2.17, p < .05 indicating an overall group difference (see Table 5). One-way ANOVAs showed a group difference for Overt Discipline F(2,87) = 6.07 p < .01. A Gabriel’s post-hoc test was conducted on this variable, and revealed that British Indian mothers showed higher levels of Overt Discipline when compared with non-immigrant White mothers (BI vs. NIW, p < .01). British Pakistani mothers also showed higher levels of Overt Discipline compared with non- immigrant White mothers (BP vs. NIW, p < .05). No difference was found in levels of Overt Discipline between Indian and Pakistani mothers. Moreover, no differences were found between groups for Frequency of Battle or Level of Battle.
A Chi-square test was used to compare Resolution between the ethnic groups. No difference in resolution following a battle was found.
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Table 5: Means, SD, F and p values for comparisons of Maternal Warmth, Child-Centredness, Maternal Supervision and Maternal Discipline between British Indian (BI), British Pakistani (BP) and non - immigrant White (NIW) families
British Indian British Pakistani Non-immigrant White
Post-hoc tests
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD F/H p BI
vs. NIW BP vs. NIW BI vs. BP Maternal Warmth/Closeness 1.44 n.s. Expressed Warmth 4.12 0.65 4.06 0.89 4.18 0.68 Sensitive Responding 2.50 0.65 2.32 0.75 2.88 0.78 Mother-child Interaction 3.15 0.61 2.94 0.68 3.21 0.55 Expressed Criticism 2.15 0.92 2.03 0.98 2.18 0.77 Child- Centredness 0.77 0.99 0.94 1.0 0.36 0.60 6.30 p<.05 ns p<.02 n.s. Maternal Supervision 3.44 p<.01 Outside boundaries 0.35 0.56 0.29 0.53 0.76 0.79 4.94 p<.01 n.s. p<.05 n.s. Chaperonage 2.12 0.52 1.94 0.68 2.48 0.71 5.94 p<.01 n.s. p <.01 n.s. Maternal Discipline 2.17 p <.05 Overt Discipline 1.81 0.80 1.68 0.79 1.15 0.76 6.07 p<.01 p<.01 p<.05 n.s. Frequency of Battle 1.62 0.64 1.61 0.72 1.52 0.67 0.22 n.s. Level of Battle 1.31 0.47 1.42 0.62 1.33 0.60 0.31 n.s.
125 Generational Parenting
The variable relating to generational parenting (Generational Parenting) was derived from the mother’s interview and was entered into a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). A significant group difference was found for Generational Parenting F(2,82) = 3.99, p < .05 (see Table 6). Gabriel’s post-hoc tests showed that British Indian mothers were more likely to parent differently from their parents when compared with non-immigrant White mothers (BI vs. NIW, p < .05).
Table 6: Means, SD, F and p values for comparisons of Generational Parenting between British Indian (BI), British Pakistani (BP) and non-immigrant White (NIW) families
British Indian British Pakistani
Non-immigrant White
Post-hoc tests
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD F p BI
vs. NIW BP vs. NIW BI vs. BP Generational Parenting 2.56 0.82 2.42 0.64 2.03 0.77 3.99 p <.05 p <.05 n.s. n.s.
126 Mother-Child Observational Assessment
Mutuality
The Mutuality variables derived from the Parent-Child Interaction System (PARCHISY) ratings were: Mother’s Responsiveness to Child, Child’s Responsiveness to Mother, Dyadic Reciprocity and Dyadic Cooperation. The four items showed medium to strong inter-item correlations ranging from .30 to .69 and the α-coefficient for the construct was .77. The variables were entered into a MANOVA and Wilks’ λ was not significant (see Table 7).
Table 7: Means, SD, F and p values for comparisons of Mutuality between British Indian (BI), British Pakistani (BP) and non-immigrant White (NIW) families
British Indian British Pakistani Non-immigrant White
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD F p
Mutuality 1.87 n.s. Mother’s Responsiveness 5.48 1.16 5.16 1.18 5.43 1.19 Child’s Responsiveness 4.88 1.30 4.60 1.29 4.97 1.50 Dyadic Reciprocity 2.56 1.04 2.24 0.72 2.57 1.01 Dyadic Cooperation 1.64 0.64 1.68 0.75 2.37 1.25
127 Child Adjustment
The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) comprises a Total Difficulties score and the following subscale scores: Emotional Symptoms, Conduct Problems, Hyperactivity, Peer Problems and Prosocial Behaviour. A univariate ANOVA was conducted for the Total Difficulties score. As shown in Table 8, no difference was found between groups for Total Difficulties. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was then conducted for the SDQ subscale scores. The adjusted correlations between each subscale and the overall construct varied from -.05 to .47 and the α-coefficient for the construct was .33. Wilks’ λ was not significant (see Table 8). The analyses of the SDQ data indicate that overall the children in the different family types were well adjusted lying within the normal range and similar to the UK population for 5-7 year old children (Green, et al., 2000)66.
Table 8: Means, SD, F and p values for comparisons of SDQ Scores between British Indian (BI), British Pakistani (BP) and non-immigrant White (NIW) families
66
Recent studies (Goodman et al., 2008) have shown no difference between Pakistani and White children for overall mental health. Indian children were shown to have overall better mental health than White children.
British Indian British Pakistani Non- immigrant White
Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD F p
SDQ :Total Difficulties Score 7.65 3.95 8.93 4.41 6.59 3.55 2.68 n.s. Child Adjustment 1.05 n.s. SDQ: Emotional Problems 1.22 1.41 1.87 1.78 1.53 1.30 SDQ: Conduct Problems 1.22 1.13 1.47 1.28 1.13 1.13 SDQ: Hyperactivity 3.74 2.38 3.77 2.11 2.81 1.17 SDQ: Peer Problems 1.48 1.24 1.67 1.16 1.13 1.29 SDQ: Prosocial Behaviour 8.78 1.17 8.40 1.50 8.56 1.48
128 Child School Adjustment
The variables relating to child school adjustment were derived from the mother’s interview (Settled, Separation Pattern and Recontact Behaviour). Chi-square tests found no difference between groups for any of the child school adjustment variables.
After School Activity
A Chi-square test showed no significant difference between groups in After School Class Attendance. However, Chi-square tests67
Multiple response analysis was used to measure the Type of After School Activity children attended. This statistical procedure was used as some mothers answered affirmatively to more than one type of activity. Therefore the numbers do not always add up to 100%. Table 9 shows the number of children in each group taking part in a range of activities. In the British Pakistani group, of those who took part in after school activities, the majority (58.1%; n = 18) attended religious classes. In contrast, only 12.1% (n = 4) of non-immigrant White children and 7.7% (n = 2) of British Indian children attended religious classes. Participation in sports classes also differed between groups. This was lowest for the British Pakistani children (25.8%; n = 8), higher among non-immigrant White children (45.5%; n = 15) and highest among British Indian children (61.5%; n = 16).
identified a significant difference in the Number of Times a Week children attended classes χ2
(6, N = 90) = 16.49, p < .01 and in the total Number of Hours a Week children attended classes, χ2(8, N = 90) = 29.78, p < .001 (see Table 9). When looking at the proportion of children attending classes five or more times a week, 25.8 % (n = 8) of British Pakistani children and 23.1% (n = 6) of British Indian children compared with only 3.0% (n = 1) of non-immigrant White children attended classes five or more times a week, indicating that Pakistani and Indian children were more likely to attend after school classes on a daily basis. A difference was found for the total Number of Hours a Week of after school activities attended by children. British Pakistani children (51.6%; n = 16) were more likely to attend after school activities for more than 4 hours per week compared with British Indian children (26.9%; n = 7) and non-immigrant White children (12.1%; n = 4). The findings indicate that British Pakistani children were more likely to partake in after school activities for a longer duration over the course of a week.
67
The categories indicating Number of Times a Week and Number of Hours a Week were not collapsed, despite there being low responses by mothers in some categories. The reason for this was to highlight the range of after school patterns of children reported by mothers from each family type.
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Mother-Child Play
Mothers were asked about the Time Spent Playing with their child during the week (ranging from 1-3 hours to more than 8 hours), and the Type of Play that they engaged in. These included: Playing with Toys, Games, Reading, Drawing/Crafts, Rough and Tumble, Domestic Play, Creative Play and Religious Play. A Chi-square test showed that, there was no difference between groups in Time Spent Playing. In addition, there were no significant differences in type of mother-child play apart from religious play χ2(2, N = 90) = 14.00, p < .001. Religious Play occurred most in the British Pakistani group with 90.1% (n = 28) of British Pakistani mothers engaging in Religious Play with their child compared with 53.8% (n = 14) of British Indian mothers and 48.5% (n = 17) of non-immigrant White mothers (see Table 9). It was interesting to note that Reading was the most popular type of mother- child play between groups and all mothers (n = 90) read with their child.
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Table 9: Chi-square values for comparisons of Children’s After School Activity, Mother-Child Religious Play and
Multiple response values for comparisons of Type of After School Activity between British Indian, British Pakistani and non-immigrant White families
British Indian British Pakistani Non-immigrant White
χ2
p
n % n % n %
Number of Times a Week
None 4 15.4 11 35.5 4 12.1 16.49 p < .01
One to two 10 38.5 8 25.8 20 60.6
Three to four 6 23.1 4 12.9 8 24.2
More than five 6 23.1 8 25.8 1 3.0
Number of Hours a Week None 4 15.4 11 35.5 4 12.1 29.78 p < .001 0.5-1.5 5 19.2 1 3.2 14 42.4 2-3.5 10 38.5 3 9.7 11 33.3 4-5.5 4 15.4 10 32.2 2 6.1 >5.5 3 11.5 6 19.4 2 6.1
Type of After School Activity
None 4 15.4 11 35.5 4 12.1
Religious Classes 2 7.7 18 58.1 4 12.1
Language Classes 6 23.1 2 6.5 0 0
Dance Classes 7 26.9 0 0 6 18.2
Homework Clubs 1 3.8 0 0 0 0
Tuition (extra learning) 3 11.5 2 6.5 0 0
Music Lessons 5 19.2 0 0 4 12.1 Art Classes 2 7.7 0 0 1 3 Sports 16 61.5 8 25.8 15 45.5 Religious Play Yes 14 53.8 28 90.3 16 48.5 14.00 p < .001 No 12 46.2 3 9.7 17 51.5
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