Parenting systems with 3-month-old infants: Behaviors and beliefs of Italian mothers and immigrant mothers from West Africa

Background and Aims. Literature has documented that caregivers from different sociocultural environments show specific parenting styles, functional to the development of skills appreciated in the context (Kağitçibaşi, 2007; LeVine et al., 1994; Liu et al., 2005). Studies based on the component model of parenting (Keller, 2007) have identified two alternative styles in autochthonous contexts (Keller et al., 2009): the proximal style (body contact and body stimulation), adaptive in traditional rural societies with socialization goals of relatedness, and the distal style (face-to-face contact and object stimulation), adaptive in western middle-class families with socialization goals of autonomy. However, little is known about parenting systems in settings of immigration. The present study aims to compare Italian mothers and West African Immigrant mothers in relation to: (1) behaviors during spontaneous interaction with 3-month-old infants; (2) socializations goals; (3) possible significant associations between mothers’ behaviors and socialization goals. Method. Twenty mothers (age M = 33.2) from North-Eastern Italy and 20 Immigrant mothers (age M = 28.8) from Anglophone West Africa were videotaped during 10 min of spontaneous interaction with their 3-month-old infants at home. Mother’s behaviors were coded in micro-categories included in 6 macro-categories: Primary Care, Body Contact, Body Stimulation, Face-to-Face Contact, Object Stimulation, Narrative Envelope. Questionnaires regarding sociodemographic information, socialization goals (Kärtner, Keller & Chaudhary, 2010), and acculturation process (Kosic, 2002) were administrated to the mothers. Results. Group comparisons revealed: (1) Significantly longer durations (p values < .01) of Body Contact and Body Stimulation by Immigrant mothers, and more Object Stimulation and Face-to-Face Contact by Italian mothers. Within the Immigrant group, mothers with higher formal education spent significantly more time than mothers with lower education in Face-to-Face Contact. Moreover, years of formal education were negatively correlated with Rhythmic Vocalizing, years in Italy negatively correlated with Rhythmic Vestibular Stimulation, and orientation to the native culture negatively associated with Facial Mirroring. (2) Significantly higher scores of Relatedness goals by Immigrant mothers, and higher scores of Autonomy by Italian mothers. (3) Significant associations between goals of Relatedness and behaviors of Body Contact and Body Stimulation, and goals of Autonomy and behaviors of Object Stimulation and Face-to-Face Contact. Discussion. These results support the hypotheses that: (a) maternal distal vs. proximal behaviors are coherent with maternal socialization goals; (b) parenting systems are differentiated by the native sociocultural context. Nevertheless, results suggest that the cultural affiliation interacts with the mothers’ education and acculturation process to determine the parenting style