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Parental Sensitivity and Attachment in Ethnic Minority Families

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Abstract

Attachment is considered a universal human need and, although relevant studies are scarce, it appears that the main tenets of attachment theory (i.e., children becoming attached to one or more particular caregivers, the normativity of secure attachment patterns, and the positive effects of parental sensitivity) are also applicable to non-Western cultural groups, including ethnic minorities. Parental sensitivity and secure attachment appear to occur at a lower rate in ethnic minority than in ethnic majority families, but such differences can generally be ascribed to group differences in socioeconomic status and related social challenges. Attachment-based intervention efforts specifically aimed at enhancing parenting practices among ethnic minorities exist, but there is a scarcity of studies testing their effectiveness. It is also important to pay more attention to the ethnicity of coders in the mostly observational methods of attachment research, as there is evidence that coder ethnicity may influence scoring. Finally, the field would greatly benefit from a more theoretical and more overarching approach to how attachment-related family functioning might vary depending on migration background (e.g., refugee, labor migration, postcolonial migration), and the extent to which they are linguistically, culturally, and religiously (dis)similar to the ethnic majority.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Clinical Child and Adolescent Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Maike Malda

  2. Centre for Child and Family Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Judi Mesman

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  1. Maike Malda
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  2. Judi Mesman
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Correspondence to Maike Malda .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA

    Natasha J. Cabrera

  2. Fakultät für Psychologie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    Birgit Leyendecker

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Malda, M., Mesman, J. (2017). Parental Sensitivity and Attachment in Ethnic Minority Families. In: Cabrera, N., Leyendecker, B. (eds) Handbook on Positive Development of Minority Children and Youth. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43645-6_5

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