A COMPARISON OF VIETNAMESE-AUSTRALIAN AND ANGLO-AUSTRALIAN MOTHERs' BELIEFS ABOUT INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT*

Vietnamese- and Anglo-Australian mothers' beliefs about intelligence and its development were obtained through a structured interview. Twenty-five working-class Vietnamese, 32 working-class and 39 upper-middle-class Anglo mothers of five-year-old children were asked about the heritability and stability of intelligence, its importance in different life domains and the roles of parents and teachers in developing intelligence. Developmental timetables for the acquisition of certain intellectual abilities were also elicited. Culture emerged as a significant influence on mothers' beliefs considerably more than did social class or sex of their child. Vietnamese mothers perceived intelligence as more important than did Anglo mothers, had a more narrowly focused view of education and intellectual development, and expected later acquisition of intellectual abilities. These differences are consistent with traditional Vietnamese values.     

Discrimination of spatially confusable letters by young children

A study of the ability of young children to discriminate spatially confusable letters using four different methods of discrimination (matching, copying, naming, and writing to dictation) was carried out. The subjects were 31 English children whose ages ranged from 5 years 6 months to 6 years 10 months. The test material consisted of 10 spatially confusable letters, i.e., letters whose differential features depend upon their spatial orientation: p, q, d, b, u, and n, and to a lesser extent h and y and w and m. The results show that the accuracy of discrimination of spatially confusable letters is dependent upon the method of assessment employed. The highest accuracy is achieved when the method requires copying confusable letters from a given sample, followed by the method that requires matching a given letter with other possible alternatives. Naming the confusable letters and writing them in response to dictation are the most difficult tasks to perform. The results also indicate that there is a significant correlation between individual performances in the matching, naming, and writing to dictation tests; but in the copying task individual performances varied independently of the performances in the other tests. Some theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.     

ETHNICITY AND ETHNIC IDENTITY: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GREEK-, ITALIAN-, AND ANGLO-AUSTRALIAN ADOLESCENTS

The present study explores the nature of ethnic identity in a sample of Greek-, Italian-, and Anglo-Australian adolescents. A questionnaire designed to elicit dimensions of ethnic identity was administered to 622 subjects in Years 9 and 11 of high school. For a sub-sample of adolescents, an interview probed for perceived similarities and differences between ethnic groups. The multidimensional nature of ethnic identity was evident from both measures. Similar dimensions emerged for the two ethnic minority groups but perceptions of ethnicity differed. For Greek-Australians, associated with recognition of their cultural separateness was a positive sense of valuing their ethnic origins. For Italian-Australians, cultural separateness was associated with a positive attitude to assimilation.     

family responsibilities discrimination: what employment counselors need to know

Family responsibilities discrimination—bias against workers based on their responsibilities to care for family members—is rapidly becoming a 21st‐century workplace concern. Employers who harass, pass over for promotion, or terminate workers because such workers care for children, spouses, elderly parents, or family members with disabilities have been sued with more frequency and have been incurring increasing litigation costs. Recently, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission took an important step toward ending this discrimination by issuing enforcement guidance that addresses family responsibilities discrimination and caregivers' rights and responsibilities. This article addresses the guidance and its importance for employment counselors.     

Vietnamese Adolescents in Australia: Relationships between Perceptions of Self and Parental Values,Intergenerational Conflict,and Gender Dissatisfaction

The present study examined traditional family and independence values among young Vietnamese respondents (N = 204), their perceptions of parents' values, and the impact of differential parent-adolescent acculturation on intergenerational conflict and gender satisfaction. The study confirmed that adolescents perceived that they had less traditional values than their parents. Traditional family values diminished with time spent in Australia while the value accorded to independence increased. This pattern was stronger for girls than for boys. Girls valued Vietnamese traditions less than did their male peers, regarded their parents as being less accepting of independence, and were more dissatisfied with their gender role than boys. For girls but not for boys, discrepancy between adolescent and parental values was associated with more conflict and greater gender dissatisfaction. This study suggests that girls have more difficulty than boys in dealing simultaneously with the expectations of two cultures.     

A six-month follow-up of adolescents' sexual risk-taking,HIV/AIDS knowledge,and attitudes to condoms

A follow-up study was conducted to investigate change in sexual behaviour, knowledge about HIV/AIDS transmission, and attitudes to condoms over a 6-month period in a sample of late-adolescent students. The study also obtained subjective reports of HIV/AIDS-relevant change. Overall there was a decrease in sexual risk-taking behaviour with casual partners but no change occurred in sexual behaviour with regular partners, knowledge about HIV/AIDS, attitude towards condoms, or intention to use a condom on next sexual encounter. Examination of individual data revealed that, for some adolescents where behavioural change had occurred, this was in the direction of less safe sex. There were few self-reports of change in sexual behaviour, intention to take precautions against HIV/AIDS, or concern about HIV/AIDS over the preceding 6 months. Subjective reports of behaviour change did not correspond with reports of actual behaviour. Low rates of behaviour change are attributed to the failure of adolescents to personalize the threat of AIDS and to their trust in the safety of sex with a regular partner as well as to the lack of relevance of HIV/AIDS education campaigns to this group.     

Age Expectations of Behavioural Autonomy in Hong Kong,Australian and American Youth: The Influence of Family Variables and Adolescents' Values

Tenth and 11th grade students from Hong Kong (N = 141), Australia (N = 155), and the United States (N = 155) completed questionnaires about the age at which they expected to achieve behavioural autonomy and about their family environments and values. In general, Hong Kong youth had later expectations for autonomy; described their families as less accepting-engaged and less structured; placed less value on individualism, outward success, and individual competence, and more value on tradition, prosocial, and well socialised outcomes. However, in all three cultures, age expectations for behavioural autonomy showed similar patterns of association with family environments and values as revealed by parallelism of regression planes. Expectations for later autonomy were associated with perceptions of parental monitoring, a demanding family environment, low levels of autocratic parenting, and with youths' de-emphasis of individualism, individual competence and outward success. In regression analyses the family environment and values scores reduced by 62% the influence attributed to culture.