Review of research literature on parenting styles and childrearing practices among Poles. Historical and contemporary perspectives

This report summarizes the findings of a literature review of existing research on issues pertaining to parenting styles and child rearing practices among Polish migrant families living abroad in different immigration contexts and under changing socio-economic conditions in Poland. The review was conducted in the scope of the international research project entitled ‘Socio-cultural and Psychological Predictors of Work-Life Balance and Gender Equality - Cross-Cultural Comparison of Polish and Norwegian Families’ (October 2013 to April 2017). The project, known under its short name PAR Migration Navigator, is jointly run by the University of Gdansk (Project Promoter), the Institute of Psychology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IP PAN), the International Research Institute of Stavanger (IRIS), the University of Stavanger (UiS) and the Centre for Intercultural Communication (SIK) in Norway. The topic of parenting styles and childrearing practices among Polish migrant families in Europe has received relatively little attention in the research on families and parenting among immigrants. Polish migrant families throughout Western Europe, we argue, may in fact be regarded as culturally ‘more similar’ to host country’s native population. Nevertheless, with about 2 million Polish citizens residing in other EU/EEA countries, most of whom have migrated and settled there only after 2004, the issue of parenting and acculturation among Polish migrant families deserves to be studied in more details