Cultural Differences In Social Work Research

Often times when families immigrate to new countries they encounter some negative changes in their family dynamics. Whether they chose to move away or were forced to move for some negative reason, there is a high possibility that that will lose not only their social networks, but their cultural identities as well (Renzaho, McCabe, & Sainsbury, 2011). Many refugee parents with teenage children find increasing difficulties when their children are able to assimilate at a much faster pace to the new culture then they are. They begin to experience a power shift as the children become more quickly accustomed and the parents struggle to preserve their own cultural values within their children (Renzaho et al., 2011). The parents feel as though they need to rely on their child to get by due to their encounters with discrimination and devaluation. Language barriers, gender roles, and cultural differences in raising children can greatly impact the parent-child relationship when forced to move (Deng & Marlowe, 2013). For this study,

New cultural environments reflecting new and inconsistent values and practices from their traditional ways in their country of origin will result in different acculturation rates in parents compared to children (Renazaho & Vignjevic, 2011). Due to the lack of cultural competence parents can also run into issues within the system. If it is customary to hit their children when they have done something wrong, they may not understand that that is unacceptable in the United States. If someone were to witness this event they may report it and child protective services could get involved. Many refugee families come into contact with child protection systems before they have the chance to learn new parenting styles (Lewig, Arney, & Salveron,