Parent–Child Acculturation Discrepancy, Perceived Parental Knowledge, Peer Deviance, and Adolescent Delinquency in Chinese Immigrant Families

Parent–child acculturation discrepancy has been considered a risk factor for child maladjustment. The current study examined
parent–child acculturation discrepancy as an ongoing risk factor for delinquency, through the mediating pathway of parental
knowledge of the child’s daily experiences relating to contact with deviant peers. Participants were drawn from a longitudinal
project with 4 years between data collection waves: 201 Chinese immigrant families participated at Wave 1 (123 girls and 78
boys) and 183 families (110 girls and 73 boys) participated at Wave 2. Based on the absolute difference in acculturation levels
(tested separately for Chinese and American orientations) between adolescents and parents, one parent in each family was assigned
to the “more discrepant” group of parent–child dyads, and the other parent was assigned to the “less discrepant” group of
parent–child dyads. To explore possible within-family variations, the mediating pathways were tested separately among the
more and less discrepant groups. Structural equation modeling showed that the proposed mediating pathways were significant
only among the more discrepant parent–adolescent dyads in American orientation. Among these dyads, a high level of parent–child
acculturation discrepancy is related to adolescent perceptions of less parental knowledge, which is related to adolescents
having more contact with deviant peers, which in turn leads to more adolescent delinquency. This mediating pathway is significant
concurrently, within early and middle adolescence, and longitudinally, from early to middle adolescence. These findings illuminate
some of the dynamics in the more culturally discrepant parent–child dyad in a family and highlight the importance of examining
parent–child acculturation discrepancy within family systems.