Take part in a research project

Parent involvement, father-adolescent relationships, and adjustment of adolescents in Indian immigrant families in New Zealand

Immigrant parents hold certain beliefs about what makes a good child and a successful adult that are influenced by their native culture of their homeland. Parents often bring these cognitions with them when they migrate. These parenting cognitions may not fit with the host country’s cognitions about parenting, therefore immigrant parents may experience cognitive dissonance as they try to adapt to the new culture. They may also try to retain significant parenting cognitions and behaviours from their own native culture.

1) The first part of this study will comprise questionnaires for Indian immigrant parents living in New Zealand. These questionnaires will examine parental involvement, parenting beliefs, and the level of acculturation of parents.

2) The second part of this study will comprise interviews and questionnaires, and will be conducted at two time points. At the first time point, parents will be invited to complete questionnaires on their relationship with their adolescent. These questionnaires will be administered again nine months later.

Adolescents will be invited to complete questionnaires on parent-adolescent relationship and their adjustment (self-esteem, anxiety, and academic engagement). These questionnaires will also be administered again nine months later. Furthermore, parents will be invited to participate in an interview to gain further information about their involvement with their adolescent, influences on parental involvement, parent-adolescent relationship, and the influence of grandparents on parental involvement.

If you are interested in participating or if you would like to find out more, please contact Ripi Kaur on 09 623 8899 ext. 83042, or ripi.kaur@auckland.ac.nz.​

Parenting programme preferences and effectiveness of Group Triple P with Chinese immigrant parents of primary school-aged children

Chinese are New Zealand’s largest immigrant group. When moving to a new and culturally unfamiliar country, Chinese immigrant parents may face parenting challenges such as lack of family support to childcare, parent-child conflict on coercive parenting strategies and home-school communication difficulties. The Parenting Research Group at the University of Auckland investigates the effectiveness of the Triple P Parenting Program for Chinese immigrant parents. We are looking for parents of a child between 5-9 years who want to enhance their child’s development and have some concerns about their child’s behaviour. Triple P is based on 30 years of international research and has been shown to be effective with many different families.

Parents will attend five 2-hour group sessions and three 20-minute telephone consultations.

The programme will be facilitated by a trained Triple P practitioner.
The programme is completely free of charge and includes helpful materials for you to keep.

If you are interested in participating in the parenting programme, or would like further information, please contact Yun Wei on 022 038 5687 or 09 623 8899 ext.83042 or ywei034@aucklanduni.ac.nz. There will be a short phone interview to check eligibility for the study.