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Parent–Child Relationships Among African Immigrant Families in Canada

Salami, Bukola; Alaazi, Dominic A; Yohani, Sophie; Vallianatos, Helen; Okeke-Ihejirika, Philomina; et al.  Family Relations; Minneapolis Vol. 69, Iss. 4,  (Oct 2020): 743-755. DOI:10.1111/fare.12454 Publisher logo. Links to publisher website, opened in a new window. PDFDownload PDF CiteCite Email Print All Options

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Objective: To examine the factors that influence parent-child relationships in African immigrant families in Alberta, Canada. Background: African immigrants are increasingly migrating to high-income countries, including Canada, in search of a better life. These immigrants often face several challenges, including parenting their children in new sociocultural contexts. We present findings from a critical ethnographic study of parent-child relationships among African immigrants in Alberta, Canada. Method: Informed by transnational feminist theory, we conducted interviews with 14 African immigrant community leaders, 31 African immigrant parents, and 12 service providers and policymakers. Results: We found that conflicting cultural practices and value systems, shifting power relations, low socioeconomic status, and gender relations exert both beneficial and strenuous influences on parent-child relations. Conclusion: The determinants of parenting practices and parent-child relationships include the intersecting influences of gender, social class, culture, and changing power relations across transnational spaces. Implications: Our findings suggest several policy and practice implications. In particular, we suggest a need to attend to diverse determinants of child well-being, including income, gender relations, culturally sensitive service delivery, and changing power relations across transnational spaces.

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Key Words: African immigrants, Canada, children, parenting, parent-child relationships.

Objective: To examine the factors that influence parent-child relationships in African immigrant families in Alberta, Canada.

Background: African immigrants are increasingly migrating to high-income countries, including Canada, in search of a better life. These immigrants often face several challenges, including parenting their children in new sociocultural contexts. We present findings from a critical ethnographic study of parent-child relationships among African immigrants in Alberta, Canada.

Method: Informed by transnational feminist theory, we conducted interviews with 14 African immigrant community leaders, 31 African immigrant parents, and 12 service providers and policymakers.

Results: We found that conflicting cultural practices and value systems, shifting power relations, low socioeconomic status, and gender relations exert both beneficial and strenuous influences on parent-child relations.

Conclusion: The determinants of parenting practices and parent-child relationships include the intersecting influences of gender, social class, culture, and changing power relations across transnational spaces.

Implications: Our findings suggest several policy and practice implications. In particular, we suggest a need to attend to diverse determinants of child well-being, including income, gender relations, culturally sensitive service delivery, and changing power relations across transnational spaces.

The number of Africans migrating to Canada is increasing (Statistics Canada, 2017). Recent census data shows that Africa is the second-highest source region for immigrants to Canada, representing 13.4% of the 7.5 million foreign-born population in the country (Canadian Press, 2017). Yet importantly, African immigrants experience poorer mental health outcomes in Canada than other immigrant groups (Anderson, Cheng, Susser, McKenzie, & Kurdyak, 2015; Beiser, Goodwill, Albanese, McShane, & Nowakowski, 2014; Fenta, Hyman, & Noh, 2004; van der Ven, Bourque, Joober, Selten, & Malla, 2012). Several sources have also documented comparatively higher rates of school dropout, gun violence, drug trafficking, terrorist activities, and other criminal activities among African immigrant youths in Canada (Kon, Lou, MacDonald, Riak, & Smarsh, 2012; Maimann, 2014; Public Safety Canada, 2007; Wingrove & Mackrael, 2012).

Generally, African immigrants experience several challenges, including under- and unemployment, low socioeconomic status, and changing patterns of gender relations, which affect their integration into their new environment (Creese & Wiebe, 2012; Okeke-Ihejirika, Salami, & Ahmad, 2016). In a recent review, parenting and renegotiating parent-child relationships were found to be a major challenge for African immigrants in Western high-income countries (Salami, Hirani, Meherali, Amodu, & Chambers, 2017). However, the authors found only one study on tensions in parent-child relations among African immigrant families in Britain (J. Cook & Waite, 2016), and none in Canada, despite the surge in the African immigrant population in the country. To address this gap, we conducted a critical ethnographic study of African immigrant parenting practices in Alberta, Canada. More specifically, we explored parent-child relations among African immigrants in the province and sought to identify factors that influence these relationships. Our goal was to generate insights toward improving the health and social outcomes of African immigrant children in the province.

LlTERATURE REVIEW

Across cultural groups, the quality of parent-child relationships has consequences for children's mental and physical health, as well as their social outcomes. For example, among children of immigrants, ineffective parenting practices have been associated with a higher risk of emotional problems and poor mental health status (Beiser et al., 2014; Beiser, Hou, Hyman, & Tousignant, 2002; Rousseau et al., 2009).

Income and poverty can have both direct and indirect effects on child health through the moderating influence of material deprivation, parental stress, and poor parent-child relations. Low income can affect children's access to adequate living environment, nutrition, and health care (Bradley & Corwyn, 2002), conditions that are necessary for their proper physical, social, and mental development. In a study investigating the role of material deprivation in children's self-reported health status, children from low-income households were found to be more likely to report poor health than those from wealthier homes (Torsheim et al., 2004). Income-related stressed and depressed parents are also more likely than others to abuse or neglect their children and have poor parent-child relations (Berger, Paxson, & Waldfogel, 2009).

(Un)intentional parental absenteeism has been identified as a major cause of child neglect. "Familial economic deprivation," parents' own childhood socialization, and the nature of mother-father relationships are common risk factors for child neglect and parental absenteeism (Guterman & Lee, 2005, p. 138). Regardless of reasons, the absence of a parent can have serious social consequences for children. A recent study involving 342 female undergraduate students found that girls from "father-absent homes" were more likely to report early consensual intercourse than those from "father-present homes" (Guardia, Nelson, & Lertora, 2014, p. 339). In another study, adolescents from one-parent households were found to exhibit higher tendencies for bulling behaviors in school than those from two-parent households (Flouri & Buchanan, 2003). These studies suggest that measures that support parental involvement and family cohesion can have beneficial social and behavioral outcomes for children.

African immigrant families face many of these challenges and more. They are known to experience poverty, material deprivation, and parental absenteeism. Not surprisingly, then, tensions in parent-child relations among African immigrant families contribute to negative social and health outcomes (Stevens, Vollebergh, Pels, & Grijnen, 2005; Uwakweh, Rotich, & Okpala, 2014). Cordial relationships, on the other hand, contribute to positive child outcomes. In a recent review, high-quality parent-child relations in African immigrant families were found to be a positive contributor to child health and social outcomes (Salami etal., 2017). In particular, parent-child relationships that engender sufficient support, good communication, and family cohesion are said to be a protective factor against psychological difficulties in refugee children in high-income countries (Fazel, Reed, Panter-Brick, & Stein, 2012). In a bid to achieve optimal child outcomes, African immigrants in destination countries also strive to integrate their cultural values into parenting practices, including placing high value on religious adherence and respect for older persons (Salami etal., 2017).

Parenting practices of African immigrants are highly gendered, with the sex of both the child and the parent being a key determinant of parenting practices (J. Cook & Waite, 2016; Phillips-Mundy, 2011). Although African parents often adapt their disciplinary practices to different societal norms following migration, they tend to retain some cultural practices, including the use of corporal discipline (e.g., spanking), that can trigger acrimonious parent-child relationships. In addition, tensions in parent-child relations in destination countries may arise as a result of changes in gender and parental roles (including parent-child role reversal), cultural conflicts in parenting, and public policies that are more empowering to children, including the availability of child welfare services to protect children's rights (J. Cook & Waite, 2016; Rasmussen, Akinsulure-Smith, Chu, & Keatley, 2012). Given these parenting challenges, many African immigrant parents cope by sending their children to live with extended family in their country of origin (Bledsoe & Sow, 2011).

Our data suggest a need to attend to diverse determinants of child well-being, including income status, gender relations, cultural sensitivity of service delivery, and changing power relations across transnational spaces. Conceptually, we need to clarify that the term African immigrants is used in the article broadly to refer to Africans who emigrated to Canada through various immigration pathways (refugee, economic class, family class, international student, etc.) and who have now transitioned to permanent residence or Canadian citizenship status.

Theoretical Framework

We used a transnational feminist theoretical perspective with a critical ethnographic methodology. Transnationalism holds that immigrant life experiences are not contained within one geographic space; rather, emphasis is placed on the strong linkages immigrants maintain with their homelands, as well as how those linkages interact with present experiences (Horevitz, 2009; Rosemberg, Boutain, & Mohammed, 2016). The influences of temporal and spatial boundaries on social relations are also a key aspect of transnationalism. Transnational feminism centralizes gender in understanding experiences that are embedded in diverse locales but shaped by particular boundaries and spaces, while also recognizing that gender is just one aspect of identity; gendered social locations are also shaped by social class, age, and racial and ethnic identity (Pessar & Mahler, 2003). Within the context of migration, the intersection of these components affects who can migrate and where to migrate, as well as postmigration experiences, including parenting practices. Thus, a transnational feminist theoretical perspective was useful for this study in light of ties between African immigrants in Canada and their home countries that often result in "hyphenated" identities (Mensah & William, 2014).

Methods

Our data collection process involved the use of a critical ethnographic methodology, which has an explicit emancipatory agenda, combining both the taken-for-granted aspects of culture in conventional ethnography and tenants of a critical social paradigm, including transnational feminism (K. E. Cook, 2005; Thomas, 1993). This methodological approach articulates the often-unheard plight of vulnerable populations for recognition, support, and empowerment in ways that confront such vexed issues as racism, sexism, classism, and other prejudices inherent in the ruling structure of society. Accordingly, our research questions invited participants to articulate the structural factors affecting their family relations in a manner that traditional ethnography would not have done. This included questions that invited research participants to go beyond simple description of the state of parent-child relations to why and how these relationships have come to be what they are. To capture the taken-for-granted conceptions about the world, critical ethnographers rely on multiple data sources.

Participants

Consistent with a research protocol approved by the University of Alberta Research Ethics Board, we used a combination of criterion and snowball sampling procedures to recruit study participants until data saturation was achieved. Specifically, our data were collected via interviews with 14 African community leaders, 12 service providers and policymakers who worked locally with African immigrants, and 31 African immigrant parents of minor children between the ages 0 and 17 years.

We contacted leaders of African community organizations found in newspaper advertisements, as well as those already known to the researchers. Of the 43 community leaders with whom contact was attempted, 11 male and 3 female leaders agreed to be interviewed for the study. They had emigrated from Nigeria (n = 4), Kenya (n = 3), Eritrea (n = 2), Cameroon (n = 2), Ghana (n = 1), Uganda (n = 1), and Sierra Leone (n = 1).

We had prior knowledge of service providers and policymakers engaged with the African immigrant community because the investigators (excepting one) are African immigrants who were engaged in many community causes. We contacted 17 service providers and policymakers to request their participation. This, resulted in interviews with two policymakers, three health service providers, and seven immigrant settlement workers.

Inclusion criteria for parents required that they were born in Africa and had a child under 18 years of age living with them in Alberta. In line with Ogilvie, Burgess-Pinto, and Caufield's (2008) suggestion for participant recruitment from immigrant populations, we recruited African immigrant parents from an African grocery store (n = 8); a social service provider (n = 8); two community liaisons (n = 7); a community leader (n = 4); an immigrant service provider (n = 2); and the network of the first author (n = 2), who is an African immigrant and a community leader. In total, 25 female and 6 male African immigrant parents participated in the interviews; their countries of origin included Somalia (n = 11), Nigeria (n = 4), Ghana (n = 4), Ivory Coast (n = 3), Sudan (n = 2), Cameroon (n = 2), Ethiopia (n = 2), Sierra Leone (n = 1), Zimbabwe (n = 1), and Senegal (n = 1). Most of the parents (n = 26) fell within the age range of 31 to 50 years, and their length of stay in Canada ranged from 2 to 26 years (M = 13.5, SD = 8.0) at the time of the interviews. The families had an average of two children 18 years of age or younger (33 males and 30 females), the majority (82.5%) of whom were born in Canada and were between 6 weeks and 18 years of age (M = 8.6, SD = 5.2). Complete details of parents' demographic characteristics are provided in Table 1.

Interview Procedures

Upon completing the informed consent process, one-on-one interviews were conducted by the first or second author at a time and location chosen by the participants. The audio-recorded interviews were aided by a semistructured interview guide and lasted between 45 minutes and 2.5 hours. The community leaders and service providers served as key informants by providing additional insights on the nature and quality of parent-child relations. African immigrant parents responded to interview questions about their relationship with their children at various developmental stages. They also responded to written items designed to capture their own and their children's demographic characteristics, such as age, gender, and countries of origin. At the end of each interview, participants received a $20 gift card as a token of appreciation for their time. In addition, our deep immersion in the African immigrant community allowed for collection of additional ethnographic data, which we recorded as reflexive field notes.

Analytic Procedures

All interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed inductively, with data collection and analysis occurring iteratively. The data were analyzed with the aid of NVivo 11, qualitative data management software. Our analytic procedures were guided by Braun and Clarke's (2006) thematic analysis approach. First, we familiarized ourselves with the data by reading the transcripts multiple times. Second, we inductively developed preliminary codes, with which we sorted the data into categories. The coding categories were then expanded, condensed, and refined in Step 3, after which themes were named. The final step of the analysis included writing a report that identified important ideas, points of connections, and contradictions based on the emergent themes from the data. The use of a transnational feminist theoretical framework enabled us to consider the influence of transnational experiences on relationships and the intersecting influence of gender, race, class, and nationality on parent-child relations.

We followed Thomas' (1993) suggestions for ensuring rigor in critical ethnographic studies, which includes exercising reflexivity and keeping field notes, maintaining prolonged engagement with participants, triangulating data sources, and member checking. In our use of member checking, we provided the preliminary results of our analysis to participants for verification-a practice that also meets transnational feminist imperatives to ensure that marginalized voices are heard. Along similar lines, the research team exercised reflexivity by keeping reflexive memos throughout data collection to record our emerging awareness in the field, which we discussed in reflective team meetings. For example, all except one member of the research team are African immigrants, and we were cognizant of the potential influence of our identity on the data collection process. Specifically, we reflected on how our social locations influenced the data collection process. We also acknowledged the influence of our class and educational status, as all investigators held graduate degrees, which was not the case for the majority of our participants. Finally, the study was also guided by an advisory committee of African immigrant parents, community leaders, and service providers, who met frequently to reflect and debrief about emerging findings and to propose directions for future work.

Results

Our thematic analysis using a transnational feminist theoretical lens resulted in the identification of four broad themes that reflect the nature and quality of parent-child relations among African immigrants in Alberta, Canada. These include conflicting cultures and value systems; shifting power relations; low socioeconomic status and parental absenteeism; and gender, age, and family relations. These themes demonstrate the extent to which the intersecting influence of culture, gender, and class affect parent-child relations among African immigrants in the resettlement context. We summarize these themes as follows.

Conflicting Cultures and Value Systems

Born mostly in Canada and socialized differently from their parents, African immigrant children reportedly held Western rather African values and belief systems, of which parents disapproved. Consequently, they exhibited attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs that were radically different from the belief systems and cultural expectations of parents, most of whom remained rooted in their African traditions. The differences in worldviews between children and parents were said to widen with age as children gain greater independence and spend more time socializing outside the home. As such, our participants faulted peers and the school system for the Eurocentric socialization of African immigrant children and the widening cultural distance between them and their parents. These differences were reported to be the primary cause of tension and poor parent-child relations in African immigrant families in the province.

Several of our participants (23 parents and 13 community leaders) expressed despair witnessing their children adopt behaviors that they considered inappropriate and non-African. Ideas about and expression of autonomy appeared to be the most challenging areas of difference underlying many of the cultural tensions experienced in African immigrant families. In particular, 16 parents identified disrespect for elders, disobedience of parental authority, religious indifference, and school absenteeism as the major sources of disagreement with their children. Conversely, children, as reported by community leaders, tended to frame parental disapproval of their lifestyle preferences as suppression of their rights and freedoms. A female parent from the Somali community noted how the notion of parental authority inherent in African parenting cultures conflicts with Western norms about child freedoms:

The kids are already Canadian; they know the culture. They know like any other Canadian students. And the parents, they have this back-home mentality whereby, "Okay, I'm the authority." And also there's this kind of cultural clash between the parents and the children, so there's misunderstanding. (Parent 028)

For parents who remain rooted in their African parenting traditions, the tendency for adolescent children to resist parental control is culturally alien and a travesty of their right to discipline their children in a manner consistent with African values and cultural expectations.

We also encountered narratives vilifying culturally imposed hierarchical relationships for their role in exacerbating family tensions in the community. Although hierarchies were reported to have some significance in traditional African families, including ensuring effectiveness of child disciplinary measures, they were seen also as creating social distance and poor relationships between parents and their Westernizing children, whose socialization tended to lead them to expect a degree of social equality and participation within the family structure. Children's opposition to hierarchies, which typically places the father at the apex of the family structure, was reported as another cause of poor parent-child relations in the African immigrant community. While children may undermine hierarchies and patriarchal relationships and assert their right to participate in decision-making affecting their lives, some parents tended to perceive resistance against parental authority as Western cultural expressions that have no place in the African family. In response to a question about parent-child relationships, a community leader lamented:

Unfortunately, that is one aspect [of parenting] that [African men are] not good at. I try to bridge the gap as best as I can in my own case, but because of this kind of attitude that we have, that the father is the head ... that is the kind of chauvinism that eats deep into our understanding [of roles] and [African fathers therefore] tend to stay away from our kids. (Community leader 008)

Although the primary reason for hierarchy in the African immigrant family is to ensure effective child discipline, this cultural practice is fast becoming ineffective in the Canadian context. Some of our participants expressed concerns about the impact of the social distance associated with hierarchically structured families. Community leaders particularly lamented how lack of emotional attachment to parents, along with poverty and material deprivation, has increased the susceptibility of African immigrant children to problem behaviors, including gang and drugs involvement.

Shifting Power Relations

In families with African-born children, the migration transition process may result in a power shift from parents to children in a manner that negatively affects family cohesion. For instance, parents who were not proficient in English tended to rely on their language-proficient children for translation when accessing critical services and resources. This dependence was perceived as tilting the basis of power and control in favour of children in a manner that caused some children to disregard or challenge the authority of their parents. These emerging power dynamics also were reported as creating disharmony in families that migrated with a known hierarchy in which power rested with the parents. A female service provider from one of the immigrant service agencies explained how the redistribution of power following immigration can produce "power struggle" between parents and children:

A couple of months later in Canada, the ones who are speaking English are the children, and they are the ones who are able to communicate, and they're able to translate for their parents and stuff like that. That becomes a little bit of a game of power, so, "I am the one who is doing this for you. I am the one who can actually do the interpretation, and you need me." (Service provider 008)

Power struggle between African immigrant parents and children, according to participants, has been emboldened by Canadian child protection regulations that limit parents' ability to assert parental authority using corporal discipline. Participants further revealed that the struggle for and loss of power to children have served to frustrate parents. Parent-child relations were further jeopardized in families where children disengaged from their less educated and less language-competent parents and looked elsewhere for relationships they considered more socially and intellectually stimulating. We found this type of strenuous parent-child relations to be more rampant among refugee families and families from non-English-speaking backgrounds. A female service provider from the Somali community stated:

The only thing that you have with you is your faith and your culture. These children speak English more than you. You're trying to read a book with them, and they will correct your accent. They will say, "That's not how you say [that], Mom." So, there is not much that you can teach from this society. (Service provider 007)

A male parent from South Sudan corroborated this experience: "Here, even your own child, if you say, 'Hey, this is not right'... they're thinking that they know more better than you" (Parent 10).

Even more frustrating to parents in this shifting power dynamic was their apparent lack of freedom to physically discipline children and assert parental authority. The parents and community leaders we interviewed believed that Canada's child protection regulations are too restrictive and far more empowering to children than they are to parents.

Low Socioeconomic Status and Parental Absenteeism

The development of supportive parent-child relationships depends largely on the availability of parents to support the social and emotional needs of their children. However, low-income African immigrant parents have had to prioritize earning money over the social and emotional needs of their children; many of these parents, we noted, had to juggle multiple low-wage part-time jobs to financially support their families. As a result, low-income parents were more likely than other parents in our sample to report tenuous relationships with their adolescent children, a problem they attributed to working long hours away from their families. Corroborating the revelations of parents, a male community leader explained:

The majority [of parents] seems to be working in the service industry,... which are minimum-wage [jobs]. So people are spending more and more hours outside of the house [in paid employment] rather than spending time as a family together. (Community leader 003)

As a female parent from the Ghanaian community also noted, "We all chase for Mother Dollar; our lifestyle is just work, work, and we don't even care [about the children]. We babysit our kids with TV and gadgets" (Parent 15). Community leaders (n = 6) attributed the concentration of African immigrants in low-income segments of the Canadian job market to multiple structural factors, including employers' reluctance to accept non-Canadian educational and professional credentials, immigrants' lack of adequate language skills, and a racialized job market that discriminates against African immigrants and Blacks in general.

A key concern of community leaders and service providers, however, was that parental absenteeism has not necessarily translated into income security and material satisfaction for children of African immigrants. In fact, several of our informants pointed out that despite sustained parental absenteeism for work-related reasons, the prevalence of poverty and material deprivation among African immigrant families is still the highest in the province. In addition to earning meagre income from doing menial, low-wage jobs, this income is also often shared with extended family in Africa as part of a culturally sanctioned obligation to provide financial assistance to all family members. One of our service providers explained how his need to simultaneously support both immediate and extended family affected the financial and material circumstances of his family:

I have four sisters. Each of them have five children. None of those four sisters finished high school. The husbands they married, none of them finished high school. So they're in a circle of poverty that's just circulating around them. And in Liberia, the education system is a mess. After 15 years of civil war, there's nothing. So I have to now sponsor my nieces and nephews into school; took them from Liberia and brought them to Ghana. Then I got to feed my own family. (Service provider 001)

The emphasis on work and on financial and material obligation to extended family in home country affects parent-child relations in African immigrant families in at least two major ways. First, it contributes to a cycle of parental absenteeism that renders children emotionally unfilled. Second, the distribution of limited resources among family members across transnational lines contributes to children's experience of poverty and material deprivation, which can be a harbinger for family disputes and disintegration. In this regard, socioeconomic challenges have both direct and indirect impact on parent-child relations in African immigrant families.

Gender, Age, and Family Relations

Parent-child relations among African immigrant families also have culturally situated gender and age dimensions. Our examination of the influence of gender and age on parent-child relations showed that relationships between mothers and young children (infants and preteens) were quite intimate, but as children grew older, these relationships tended to be less intimate, and in some instances acrimonious, requiring more paternal involvement in mentorship, discipline, and decision-making. Some parents (n = 8) were clear in their narratives about the changes that occur in parent-child relations across different developmental stages. A mother summed up these milestones as follows: "When they're young, they depend on you; you have to take [them] wherever they go. When they grow up, they have so many plans" (Parent 004).

A settlement service provider added that it is in adolescence when most parent-child relations become strained, at which point children would begin to resist parental authority and demand more freedom from parents. "The relationship between the parents and kids who are 15 years old and above is not good. That is because... they get engaged with the wrong crowd," said one service provider (006).

The weakening of the parent-child bond also coincides with a shift in emphasis from children's functional needs to an emphasis on supporting their transition to adulthood, a developmental stage described by several African immigrant parents to be particularly challenging in the Canadian context. Although most African immigrant parents expected their relationship with their children to change with age, the degree of independence sought by children was often sudden and overwhelming to parents. A male community leader revealed how children in his community sought independence prematurely, to the chagrin of parents:

As soon as they are 16-there is a young girl who says, "I can't wait until I'm 16." I say, "Why?" "Because I want to get my own place." It is ridiculous. A 16-year-old girl who wants her own place? And I say, "I've got to talk to your mom." (Community leader 007)

To many African immigrant parents, their children's eagerness to embrace personal autonomy remained a Western normative value they struggled to accept. The degree of independence afforded children through legal recognition of age of majority invoked for many parents a sense of loss and cultural annihilation. This recognition of rights to personal liberties contravened parents' expectations that the developmental progression of their children toward independence would be defined not by biological age but by such attributes as educational achievement, socioeconomic standing, and marital status. Community leaders linked African immigrant youth's apparent preference for premature independence to negative social and health consequences, including economic hardships, isolation, depression, and problem behaviors. A community leader passionately explained his perception of and cultural position on children's premature independence:

The tendency of a kid becoming wayward, becoming depressed, isolated, becoming hardened in their heart in Africa is low. Because you already grew with your parents. You sleep with them. You breathe into each other. You grow up with your other siblings. All of you blend together. You love each other. You eat from the same pot. (Community leader 008)

Parent-child relationships in African immigrant families have gendered dimensions. According to some community leaders and parents, African immigrant children are typically socialized to perceive fathers as tough enforcers of discipline and mothers as the proverbial buffer zone, with whom refuge can be sought. For this reason, the parent-child bond was reported to be more intimate with mothers than with fathers at every stage of a child's development. Parents expected this blend of compassion and toughness to expose children to a variety of experiences that would prepare them for their transition to adulthood. A community leader explained the gendered nature of parenting in African immigrant families:

The heart of discipline is [on] the father's side ... [Children's] relationship with the mother is stronger when they are young, and after a while, you know, when they need more discipline or when they become resistant to a woman's love ... then the father interferes there. (Community leader 001).

The socialization of children in later developmental stages was gendered also in a manner that compartmentalized parent-child relationships within the home. For instance, adolescent female children were said to receive most of their mentorship from their mothers-and by so doing developed mother-daughter relationships that were reportedly more intimate than father-daughter relationships. A similar mentorship relationship, although not equally intimate, was also reported between fathers and adolescent male children. A mother reflected on how parenting roles and intimacy played out in her family:

[My husband] was involved in everything, almost. But he was way [more] involved with the boys. ... So he would take them to whatever sports, and he was way involved with them. I was involved in female things. (Parent 001)

To summarize, the narratives of our participants demonstrate that parent-child relationships in African immigrant families in Alberta are both cordial and challenging, the peculiarities of which tended to be influenced by culture, socioeconomic status, gender, age, and changing power relations.

Discussion and Implications

Our findings reveal several influences on parent-child relationships in African immigrant families, including conflicting cultures and value systems, shifting power relations, low socioeconomic status, and culturally driven gender and age considerations. We suggest that the nature and quality of parent-child relationships among African immigrants in Alberta are affected by systemic and individual-level factors that are embedded within the intersecting influences of culture, gender, and social class. Although these complex influences represent an enormous challenge for African immigrant parents, they also present an opportunity to reexamine parenting practices in light of the sociocultural contexts in which they live.

The life trajectories of African immigrants cannot be analyzed without reference to the transnational forces that are shaping their immigration and resettlement experiences. For instance, African immigrants tend to maintain transnational ties with their home countries by sending remittances, participating in cultural activities, and engaging with ethnic communities (Owusu, 2003). Premigration relationships between African immigrant parents and children constitute an influence on parent-child relations in destination countries, although changes are also evident following migration. Several authors have already noted the role of patriarchy and changing gender and power relations in the lives of immigrants in destination countries (Akinsulure-Smith, Chu, Keatley, & Rasmuseen, 2013; Okeke-Ihejirika et al., 20l6). In addition to these observations, we found the determinants of parent-child relations in the African immigrant community to include differences in child discipline and child welfare policies between destination and home countries, parents' deficient language skills, and marked disharmony between parents and children in cultural orientation and value systems, as well as parental absenteeism due to low socioeconomic status and need to juggle multiple low-wage, part-time jobs away from the emotional needs of children. Thoughtfully attending to these factors in policy and service provision may therefore help enhance the quality of parent-child relations among African immigrant families.

Along with premigration experiences, changing gender roles in destination countries have been reported to contribute to shifts in relationships within the home (Akinsulure-Smith etal., 2013; Okeke-Ihejirika etal., 2016). Our findings suggest the presence of gender dynamics in parent-child relations that change across the developmental stages. African immigrants often reconfigure gender roles in their new sociocultural context, although J. Cook and Waite (2016) have noted that this reconfiguration process can prove more challenging to father-child relationships than to those between mothers and children. As our data suggest, this difficulty may be partly due to changes in the role and position of fathers, from being patriarchal heads of households premigration to being ordinary mature male figures whose decisions and preferences can be contested and even undermined by their own families in the Canadian cultural context. Also of concern is the level of intimacy fathers have with their offspring in the early years of development, how this intimacy is influenced by gender, and how it changes over time. Notably, social and cultural contexts play an important role in when and how a practice becomes problematic. For example, in countries of origin, African children tend to have many extended family members who live nearby and serve as adult caregivers (Renzaho, Green, Mellor, & Swinburn, 2011). Lack of intimacy or close social relations with a father is thus compensated through these cultural systems of care. However, without extended family in the Canadian context, African parents must parent differently to meet the socioemotional needs of their children. We advocate for policy and services that consider these factors and the changing power relations across gender lines. More specifically, interventions should focus on engaging fathers in parenting at all stages of children's development, including the early years of life. Our findings also point to the need for further research that could more clearly explain the role of gender in parent-child relationships among African immigrant families. This focus is especially important in light of findings that point to increased challenges in parenting boys versus girls in some African immigrant communities (Degni, Pontinen, & Molsa, 2006).

Practices related to child discipline are relevant also to African immigrant parenting across transnational spaces. African immigrant parents struggle with unfamiliar value systems and the lack of collectivist child monitoring networks in destination countries, which they perceive to be a threat to optimal child development (Rasmussen etal., 2012). Our data suggest an attempt to compensate for these perceived deficiencies through corporal disciplinary practices, presumably to ensure that children conform to African value systems and identity. There is thus a need for widespread education about legally appropriate means of child discipline. Policies, institutional practices, and culturally-sensitive training for service providers that recognize and build on the functions of hierarchies and value systems will address power struggles and improve parent-child relations and child well-being in African immigrant families. Passed down by generations, these values can enhance the resiliency of African immigrant youth, improve their social and educational outcomes, and serve as important protective factors against adversity (Wong & Yohani, 2016). Moreover, African immigrant children and youth, especially second-generation youth, struggle with pressure to conform to the African identity imposed on them by their parents and the identity of the host society (Clark, 2008). Although identity formation is a normal developmental challenge and transition for all youth (Kiang & Fuligni, 2010), African immigrant youth have to contend with the process of forming a bicultural identity, which can pose unique challenges to parent-child relationships as children struggle with meeting both Canadian and African cultural expectations. Building the capacity of African immigrant families to respond to the bicultural identity development of African immigrant children and youth may therefore be a fruitful intervention.

African immigrants experience deskilling and downward occupational mobility upon arrival in destination countries, including Canada (Okeke-Ihejirika etal., 2016; Creese & Wiebe, 2012). Labor market segmentation and discrimination experienced by African immigrants influence their socioeconomic integration (Fokkema & de Haas, 2015). Our findings go beyond this idea to implicate low-income status in both material and social deprivation for African immigrant children. In some Canadian cities, African immigrants experience the poorest socioeconomic outcomes among all ethnic groups (Edmonton Social Planning Council, 2015). Consequently, African immigrant children and youth often experience poor mental and social outcomes (Anderson etal., 2015; Fenta et al., 2004), including high school dropout rates and involvement in gun violence (Kon et al., 2012; Maimann, 2014; Wingrove & Mackrael, 2012). Thus, attending to the role of income and class status as a vital social determinant of health through programs and services focused on economic integration, including language and credential assessment programs, may help to improve the health and social outcomes of African immigrant children and youth in Canada.

Strengths and Limitations

Our study has several strengths, including our use of a transnational feminist theoretical framework, data source triangulation, and member checking. We were able to achieve data saturation with a purposive sample of 57 participants, and we exercised reflexivity throughout the data collection process. Insights from our advisory committee throughout the data collection process further strengthened our findings. In addition, we found a high degree of consistency in the narratives of parents, community leaders, and service providers/policymakers. A possible explanation for this consistency is that most community leaders and service providers (all except three) were themselves immigrants and as such may have had parenting experiences that were similar to those of African immigrant parents. However, we did not collect data on the demographic characteristics of these informants. Another explanation may be that the frequency of contact with parents allowed community leaders and service providers to gain in-depth understanding of parent-child relations in African immigrant families.

These strengths notwithstanding, our study encountered limitations. A major shortcoming of our study was the inclusion of a broad array of African immigrants, as opposed to a focus on a specific African country or ethnic group. However, a sampling heterogeneity of this nature can also be a strength because it can draw on multiple perspectives and experiences to shed light on a social phenomenon. Another limitation of our study was our lack of sample stratification, which limited our ability to explain how key nuances, such as parents' social capital, employment status, and level of acculturation, influenced parent-child relations. Future studies could further shed light on differences across and within various groups of African immigrants in the province.

Conclusion

In summary, we explored in this study how cultural values, gender, and socioeconomic status intersect to influence parent-child relations in African immigrant families in Alberta, as well as how these factors change across transnational spaces. Our findings point to the need for interventions focused on strengthening parent-child relations in this population. Potential strategies for such interventions include addressing income as a determinant of parent-child relations and of children's health, attending to the role of gender, supporting a greater role for fathers throughout all developmental stages (including early childhood), and equipping African immigrants with skills for disciplining their children within the limits of Canadian child protective regulations, all of which have been shown to have achieved remarkable success in improving child health in other disadvantaged populations. Implementing culturally appropriate policies and service delivery that attend to changing power relations across transnational spaces will likely also improve the well-being of this growing but challenged segment of the Canadian population.

Author Note

Mr. Ayalew was affiliated with the Africa Centre at the time this work was conducted and is currently a member of the African community of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.

References

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