© 2008 The International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development

Parenting cognitions include the goals, expectations and beliefs that parents hold regarding childrearing and the parenting role. These cognitions are believed to underlie the ways in which parents interact with their children and structure their environ-ments (Goodnow, 1988, 2002; Sigel & McGillicuddy-DeLisi, 2002). For example, mothers who strongly value conformity in children are observed to be more restrictive, less warm and less likely to ask children questions compared with mothers who highly value self-direction in children (Iverson & Segal, 1992; Luster, Rhoades, & Haas, 1989). In addition, parenting cognitions may have direct effects on children’s development. For example, childrearing goals are communicated to children through day-to-day interactions and routines by influencing the people children are exposed to, the activities children participate in and the unwritten rules that shape or constrain their participation (Gallimore, Weisner, Kaufman, & Bern-heimer, 1989; Harkness & Super, 1995). The current study examined the parenting cognitions of immigrant parents. Parenting cognitions may be especially salient for immigrant parents, because the experience of cultural change brings underlying ideas about parenting to the fore (Harkness & Super, 1995). In addition, compared with non-immigrant parents, immigrant parents may experience greater diversity in the factors that influence their parenting cognitions as they balance their existing ideas about childrea-ring with the new parenting ideas that are introduced follow-ing immigration. Sources of variation in parenting cognitions Parents ’ ideas about how to raise children are derived from a variety of sources. Past research has found that parenting goals, expectations and beliefs vary based on the sociodemographic characteristics of parents and children (Goodnow, 1988). For example, parenting cognitions are related to parents’ educational background, age and experience with children (Chen & Luster, 2002; Spade, 1991), as well as the character-istics of individual children, such as age, gender and tempera