What do grandmothers think about self-esteem? American and Taiwanese folk theories revisited

Abstract

The study investigates European American and Taiwanese grandmothers ’ folk theories of childrearing and self-esteem, building on an earlier comparison of mothers from the same families. Adopting methods that privilege local meanings, we bring grand-mothers ’ voices into the conversation about childrearing, thereby contributing to a deeper understanding of intergenerational nuances in folk theories. In each cultural case, 16 grandmothers of 3-year-olds participated in in-depth interviews that were customized according to local communicative norms. Although self-esteem emerged as a central organizing concept in the folk theories of European American mothers, grandmothers spoke in two voices, either echoing their daughters or invoking a counter-discourse of wariness towards self-esteem. By contrast, Taiwanese mothers and grandmothers resembled one another—but differed from their American counter-parts—in treating self-esteem as peripheral in childrearing. Results contribute to the growing consensus that self-esteem is a culture-specific childrearing goal and suggest that the European American tendency to valorize self-esteem varies by generation