Ukrainian and American identities as predictors of marital and parenting attitudes within the acculturating Ukrainian-American community

ABSTRACT

The Ukrainian-American community represents a unique acculturating community with respect to sociohistorical context, as well as specific demographic and cultural characteristics. The Ukrainian immigrant experience reflects the identity formed in relation to its challenges faced during the twentieth century and its complex relationship with the former Soviet Union. The purpose of this study was to examine the process of acculturation within the Ukrainian community in the United States and to examine how acculturation processes are related to attitudes on childrearing and traditional family formation. The participants for this sample included 188 participants drawn from the Ukrainian diaspora in Central New York. Analyses demonstrated the unique influence of religious beliefs and the simultaneous unique influence of both American identity and Ukrainian identity on attitudes towards traditional marriage formation and parenting. American identity was associated with more liberal attitudes towards divorce while both Ukrainian and American identity were associated with childrearing beliefs. Higher Ukrainian identity predicted more traditional parenting beliefs, while higher American identity predicted more progressive (less traditional) parenting beliefs. These results describe the distinctive features of the Ukrainian-American community in the United States that contribute to attitudes regarding marital behaviour as well as parenting beliefs.

KEYWORDS:

• Ukrainian-American
• acculturation
• marriage
• divorce
• parenting

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Christina Bobesky http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5417-9830

Matthew Mulvaney http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0938-5133