Parental socialization of siblinghood in two cultures: A study of Japanese and Canadian families with young children

This study is an investigation of how Japanese and Euro-Canadian parents socialize their young children to be siblings. It is an exploration of parents' personal philosophies, beliefs, goals, and values as related to siblinghood. Semi-structured interviews were conducted based on five areas of siblinghood socialization (i.e. nurturance, conflict, equality, reciprocity, responsibility) found in the literature on sibling socialization in developmental psychology, sociology, and cultural anthropology. A total of 40 Japanese and 38 Euro-Canadian mothers and fathers who had at least two children between the ages of 3 and 10 participated in the study. The parents were interviewed concerning the immediate circumstances, relationship-based contexts, and future expectations that motivated them to socialize their children to be siblings for each of the domains. An interpretive approach was adopted for analysis in order to understand "the intentional worlds" of these parents (Shweder, 1990). Emic perspectives of parents were constructed on the basis of participant's own language. The study indicated that both Japanese and Euro-Canadian parents communicated important values about sibling relationships and taught necessary skills that will help children build supportive and long-lasting connections with each other. Cultural distinctiveness was found in the manner of socialization. Japanese parents believed in the vulnerability in all human beings which justified the socialization of interdependence through promoting physical and psychological oneness ("issho") among the children and family members. Euro-Canadian parents socialized psychological closeness but indicated concerns over promoting physical closeness for safety reasons ("home"). While Japanese parents encouraged their children to tone down their claims ("yuzuru") and self-inhibit one's desires ("gaman"), Euro-Canadian parents taught children the skills to communicate clearly and resolve their own problems by making reasonable decisions ("dealing with problems "). Japanese parents preferred to disclose their own vulnerabilities to solicit cooperation from the children and to engender the oneness among family members while Euro-Canadian parents indicated strong intentions to act as authority figure that guide children by good examples. The findings were discussed in light of the different socio-cultural, historical, and religious backgrounds that each group of parents are situated.