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Comparing Sibling Ties in Inter-ethnic and Intra-ethnic Families in Germany

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Making Multicultural Families in Europe

Part of the book series: Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life ((PSFL))

Abstract

This chapter examines the cultural factors that influence the quality of sibling relationships in multi-cultural and mono-cultural families in Germany. We focus on the cultural context in general by considering societal values, like individualism and collectivism, and focus more specifically on family values relating to parenting methods and parental roles. Little is known about sibling relationships in multi-cultural families. Drawing on a theoretical approach regarding the variations in family dynamics in different sociocultural contexts, we expect that—in contrast to mono-cultural families—in multi-cultural families, distinct norms and values and parenting methods affect the family, and consequently affect sibling relationships. To test our hypotheses, we use data taken from Wave 5 of the Panel Analysis of Intimate Relationships and Family Dynamics (2012/2013).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The argument is based on the country clusters defined in the GLOBE Study (House et al. 2004) according to the level of cultural similarity among societies. Collectivist societies are countries that score high on cultural dimension Collectivism II (In-Group) which refers to the degree to which individuals in the respective society express pride, loyalty and cohesiveness in their organizations or families.

  2. 2.

    According to the scores of the cultural clusters in the In-Group Collectivism dimension, Italy (as part of the ‘Latin Europe’ cluster) is positioned in the middle (mid-score cluster), meaning that its mean score is not significantly different from the rest (Javidan et al. 2006: 71). For this reason, we assigned Italian-origin respondents to the collectivist cultural cluster in order to maintain the dichotomy of the dimension.

  3. 3.

    http://www.pairfam.de/en/

  4. 4.

    All data modifications done in the course of data merging, cleaning and coding as well as the analyses are documented in SPSS syntax files, which are freely accessible for comprehension and/or replication at the data repository datorium, www.datorium.gesis.org (Kampmann 2017).

  5. 5.

    Contact correlates strongly with both warmth and conflict (Stocker et al. 1997; Lee et al. 1990). Since there are no theoretical implications for the direction of the causality, we prefer to include contact frequency between siblings in the regression model as explanandum rather than explanans.

  6. 6.

    The countries of birth of parents and stepparents, respectively, are used as a reference for coding the cultural background of an anchor. The migration status of parents was not considered. To check for the influence of the host culture on the value orientations of the next generation, we ran a correlation analysis on individualistic/collectivistic backgrounds and family values.

  7. 7.

    Generated individualistic and collectivistic culture variables are based on the Society Cluster Samples in the GLOBE study (House et al. 2004), to which parents’ countries of birth were assigned.

  8. 8.

    The correlation analysis was facilitated by an SPSS analysis procedure for complex/clustered samples (http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21481014).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Leibniz Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories, Bamberg, Germany

    Ebru Balaban

  2. GESIS—Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Cologne, Germany

    Dafina Kurti & Jara Kampmann

Authors
  1. Ebru Balaban
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  2. Dafina Kurti
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  3. Jara Kampmann
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education Cultural Heritage and Tourism, University of Macerata, Macerata, Italy

    Isabella Crespi

  2. The Catholic University Centre for Family Studies and Research, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Stefania Giada Meda

  3. Centre interdisciplinaire de Recherche sur les Familles et les Sexualités, Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Laura Merla

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Balaban, E., Kurti, D., Kampmann, J. (2018). Comparing Sibling Ties in Inter-ethnic and Intra-ethnic Families in Germany. In: Crespi, I., Giada Meda, S., Merla, L. (eds) Making Multicultural Families in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59755-3_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59755-3_5

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-59754-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-59755-3

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