Family Structure and Socialization Patterns in Taiwan

A social structural analysis is applied to examine the effects of threegeneration family living on child socialization. The most relevant, and generalizable, feature of life in a three-generation family is conceptualized as the mother's subordination to her mother-in-law. Data from an interview study of Taiwanese mothers support the idea that persons who work under the direction of someone else will value behavioral conformity in their children and use disciplinary techniques which rely on external control rather than on appeals to the children's feelings.