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.

给新父母的建议无处不在，尽管经常是矛盾的。在《纽约客》一篇名为《与婴儿同眠》的文章中，约翰·西布鲁克讲述了他初为人父时的困惑，他读到了关于如何让婴儿入睡的矛盾建议，从阿琳·艾森伯格（Arlene Eisenberg）的建议让婴儿在婴儿床里哭泣，到威廉·西尔斯（William Sears）的建议与婴儿同睡一张床，或者一起睡。关于父母对建议的反应，以及为什么他们选择某些照顾方式而不是其他方式，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年全英国婴儿喂养调查的结果表明，只有25%的6个月大的婴儿是母乳喂养的，尽管NHS建议婴儿至少应该母乳喂养6个月。我们认为父母对两个基本原则（结构和调谐）的支持不同，他们对这些原则的支持会影响具体的照料实践，如喂养和睡眠安排。Alice Winstanley和Merideth Gattis开发了一种研究育儿原则和实践的方法——婴儿护理问卷（BCQ）。在这个标准中，结构指的是对常规和时间表的依赖，而协调指的是对婴儿暗示的依赖。结构和协调通常是对立的，正如《卫报》一篇题为“为什么没有更多关于育儿制度的研究？”的文章中，奥利弗·詹姆斯（Oliver James）将遵循严格常规（时间表）的父母与由婴儿主导（拥抱）的父母进行了对比。然而，英国的研究表明，尽管结构和协调之间的关系很弱，但它们对养育子女都有不同的贡献。在Winstanley和Gattis的研究中，有的父母是结构高、调谐低，有的父母是调谐高、结构低，但重要的是，有的父母是结构和调谐都高，有的父母是结构和调谐都低。当前提案的目的是开发和评估基于BCQ的跨文化有效的育儿原则和做法，并使用该措施来评估英国，香港和中国大陆的父母对结构和协调的支持。我们提出了三个研究来开发和评估BCQ的信度和效度。收集跨文化和国家的证据将帮助我们更准确地理解这两种育儿原则，以及它们之间的相互关系，以及它们与具体护理实践的关系。香港和英国在护理方面的相同点和不同点表明，这将是一个特别有益的比较。特别是，香港和英国的母乳喂养率非常相似，但睡眠安排却大不相同。理解原则和实践的变化是很重要的，因为Winstanley和Gattis（2011）的初步数据表明这两者是相关的。特别是，在一项对英国347对父母的研究中，他们发现协调性高的父母更有可能母乳喂养他们的婴儿，而协调性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。由此产生的措施将成为解决广泛的理论和实践问题的宝贵工具，包括婴儿时期的养育环境如何影响社会和认知发展，世界各地不断变化的社会经济和政治条件如何影响家庭，以及围绕出生的风险因素（如早产）如何与个人和文化因素（如养育原则和做法）相互作用。