Bilateral (Hong Kong): Cultural and Individual Influences on Parenting During Infancy

双边（香港）：文化和个人对婴儿期养育的影响

• 批准号: ES/J021113/1
• 负责人: Merideth Gattis
• 金额: $ 10.26万
• 依托单位: CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2012 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FJ021113%2F1
• 关键词: Bilateral; Hong; Kong; Cultural; Individual

Advice for new parents is ubiquitous, though frequently contradictory. In a New Yorker article called "Sleeping with the Baby," John Seabrook told of his bewilderment as a new father, reading contradictory advice on how to get his infant to sleep, from Arlene Eisenberg's advice to leave infants crying in their cribs to William Sears' advice to share a bed with the baby, or co-sleep. Little is known about how parents respond to advice and why they choose certain caregiving practices over others, but at least in some cases, they are clearly disregarding advice. The results of the UK-wide Infant Feeding Survey in 2005, for instance, indicated that only 25% of 6-month-olds are breastfed, despite NHS recommendations that infants should be breastfed for at least six months. We propose that parents differ in their support of two basic principles, structure and attunement, and that their support of these principles influences specific caregiving practices such as feeding and sleeping arrangements. Alice Winstanley and Merideth Gattis have developed a measure to study parenting principles and practices, the Baby Care Questionnaire (BCQ). In this measure, structure refers to reliance on routines and schedules, and attunement refers to reliance on the infant's cues. Structure and attunement are often presented as opposites, as in a Guardian article called "Why isn't there more research into parenting regimes?" in which Oliver James contrasted parents who follow strict routines (schedulers) with parents who are infant-led (huggers). Research in the UK indicates, however, that although structure and attunement are weakly related, they each make a distinct contribution to parenting. In studies by Winstanley and Gattis, some parents were high in structure and low in attunement, while others were high in attunement and low in structure, but importantly, some parents were high in both structure and attunement, and other parents were low in both structure and attunement. The aim of the current proposal is to develop and evaluate a cross-culturally valid measure of parenting principles and practices during infancy based on the BCQ, and to use that measure to assess parental support of structure and attunement in the UK, Hong Kong, and Mainland China. We propose three studies to develop and evaluate the reliability and validity of the BCQ. Gathering evidence across cultures and nations will help us build a more accurate understanding of these two parenting principles and how they relate to each other, as well as how they relate to specific caregiving practices. Similarities and differences in caregiving practices between Hong Kong and the UK suggest that this will be an especially informative comparison. In particular, breastfeeding rates are very similar between Hong Kong and the UK, but sleeping arrangements are very different. Understanding variation in principles as well as practices is important because preliminary data from Winstanley and Gattis (2011) indicates the two are related. In particular, in a study of 347 parents in the UK, they found that parents who were high in attunement were more likely to breastfeed their infants, and parents who were high in structure were more likely to have infants who slept alone. The proposed project will allow us to evaluate whether such relationships are specific to certain cultures and/or socioeconomic conditions, or are more general. The resulting measure will be a valuable tool for addressing a wide range of theoretical and practical questions, including how parenting environments during infancy influence social and cognitive development, how changing socioeconomic and political conditions around the world are influencing families, and how risk factors surrounding birth, such as preterm birth, interact with individual and cultural factors, such as parenting principles and practices.

给初为人父母者的建议无处不在，尽管常常相互矛盾。在《纽约客》的一篇名为《和婴儿一起睡觉》的文章中，约翰·西布鲁克讲述了他作为一个新父亲的困惑，阅读关于如何让婴儿睡觉的相互矛盾的建议，从阿琳·艾森伯格的建议，让婴儿在婴儿床里哭泣，到威廉·西尔斯的建议，与婴儿分享一张床，或者一起睡觉。关于父母如何回应建议以及为什么他们选择某些替代做法而不是其他做法，我们知之甚少，但至少在某些情况下，他们显然无视建议。例如，2005年英国全国婴儿喂养调查的结果表明，尽管NHS建议婴儿至少应母乳喂养6个月，但只有25%的6个月大的婴儿接受母乳喂养。我们建议，父母在他们的两个基本原则，结构和调谐的支持不同，他们对这些原则的支持影响具体的喂养和睡眠安排的做法。Alice Winstanley和Merideth Gattis开发了一种研究育儿原则和实践的方法，即婴儿护理问卷（BCQ）。在这个测量中，结构指的是对常规和时间表的依赖，而协调指的是对婴儿线索的依赖。结构和协调经常被认为是对立的，正如《卫报》一篇名为《为什么没有更多关于育儿制度的研究？其中奥利弗詹姆斯对比了严格遵循常规的父母（拥抱者）和婴儿主导的父母（拥抱者）。然而，英国的研究表明，尽管结构和协调关系很弱，但它们各自对养育子女做出了独特的贡献。在Winstanley和Gattis的研究中，一些父母在结构上高而在协调上低，而另一些父母在协调上高而在结构上低，但重要的是，一些父母在结构和协调上都很高，而另一些父母在结构和协调上都很低。目前的建议的目的是开发和评估跨文化有效的措施的父母的原则和做法在婴儿期的基础上BCQ，并使用该措施来评估父母的支持结构和协调在英国，香港和中国大陆。我们提出了三项研究来开发和评估BCQ的信度和效度。收集跨文化和国家的证据将有助于我们更准确地理解这两个育儿原则，以及它们如何相互关联，以及它们如何与特定的育儿实践相关联。香港与英国在签证制度方面的异同，显示这是一项特别有用的比较。特别是，香港和英国的母乳喂养率非常相似，但睡眠安排却非常不同。理解原则和实践中的差异很重要，因为Winstanley和Gattis（2011）的初步数据表明两者是相关的。特别是，在一项针对英国347名父母的研究中，他们发现，协调度高的父母更有可能母乳喂养婴儿，而结构高的父母更有可能让婴儿独自睡觉。拟议的项目将使我们能够评估这种关系是特定于某些文化和/或社会经济条件，还是更普遍。由此产生的措施将是一个有价值的工具，解决广泛的理论和实践问题，包括如何在婴儿期养育环境影响社会和认知发展，如何改变世界各地的社会经济和政治条件正在影响家庭，以及如何风险因素出生，如早产，与个人和文化因素，如养育原则和做法相互作用。