Parental Expectations and Adolescent Psychological Outcomes in Changing Family Contexts: A Review of International and Indian Evidence

Parental expectations represent an important psychosocial factor determining adolescents' cognitive developmentand behavioral patterns, as both academic pressures and processes of identity formation tend to intensify duringhigh school. During the last few decades, family structures have continued to change, marked by reduced familysize, single-child families, and a movement away from joint to nuclear family systems, which again adjusts thecontext within which parental expectations are conceptualized and perceived. The aim of this review is to synthesizeinternational and Indian empirical literature on the relationships among parental expectations, self-esteem, andadolescents' behavioral patterns, with particular emphasis on family composition and structure. The underlyingmethodology of this synthesis is that of a narrative review, which draws upon peer-reviewed studies indexed inmajor academic databases such as Scopus,