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.

对新父母的建议无处不在，尽管经常矛盾。约翰·西布鲁克（John Seabrook）在纽约客的一篇名为“与婴儿一起睡觉”的文章中讲述了他作为新父亲的困惑，阅读了有关如何让婴儿睡觉的矛盾建议，从阿琳·艾森伯格（Arlene Eisenberg）的建议中，让婴儿在婴儿床上哭泣的建议到威廉·西尔斯（Cribs）到威廉·西尔斯（William Sears）与婴儿的建议与婴儿分享一张床，或者sleep sleep。关于父母如何回应建议以及为什么他们选择某些护理做法而不是其他人，但至少在某些情况下，他们显然无视建议。例如，尽管NHS建议婴儿应至少六个月的母乳喂养，但2005年英国范围内的婴儿喂养调查的结果表明，只有25％的6个月大的孩子是母乳喂养的。我们建议父母在支持两个基本原则，结构和调整方面有所不同，并且他们对这些原则的支持会影响特定的护理实践，例如喂养和睡眠安排。爱丽丝·温斯坦利（Alice Winstanley）和梅里德斯·加蒂斯（Merideth Gattis）已制定了一项研究育儿原则和实践的措施，《婴儿护理问卷》（BCQ）。在此措施中，结构是指依赖例程和时间表，调整是指对婴儿提示的依赖。结构和调整通常是作为对立面的，如《卫报》的文章，称为“为什么对育儿制度没有更多研究？”奥利弗·詹姆斯（Oliver James）将遵循严格的例行程序（调度员）与婴儿为主导的父母（拥抱者）的父母进行了对比。然而，在英国的研究表明，尽管结构和调整较弱，但它们各自对育儿做出了明显的贡献。在Winstanley和Gattis的研究中，一些父母的结构很高，调整较低，而另一些父母的调整且结构很低，但重要的是，一些父母的结构和调整都很高，而其他父母的结构和调整都很低。当前提案的目的是根据BCQ在婴儿期对育儿原则和实践的跨文化有效衡量，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调整的支持。我们提出了三项研究，以开发和评估BCQ的可靠性和有效性。跨文化和国家收集证据将有助于我们对这两种育儿原则及其如何相互联系，以及它们与特定的照顾实践的关系。香港和英国之间的照料实践的相似性和差异表明，这将是一个特别有用的比较。特别是，香港和英国之间的母乳喂养率非常相似，但是睡眠安排却大不相同。了解原理和实践的差异很重要，因为Winstanley和Gattis（2011）的初步数据表明这两者是相关的。特别是，在对英国347个父母的研究中，他们发现较高的调整父母更有可能母乳喂养婴儿，而结构较高的父母更有可能让一个独自睡觉的婴儿。拟议的项目将使我们能够评估这种关系是否针对某些文化和/或社会经济条件，还是更一般。最终的措施将是解决广泛的理论和实际问题的宝贵工具，包括婴儿期间的育儿环境如何影响社会和认知能力发展，如何改变世界各地的社会经济和政治状况如何影响家庭，以及如何与早产的危险因素（例如早产）互动，与个人和文化因素相互作用，例如育儿原理和实践。