When and how do parent-child acculturation gaps matter? A systematic review and recommendations for research and practice
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Parents and youth often adjust to new cultures at differing rates, resulting in parent-child acculturation gaps. The acculturation-gap distress hypothesis theorizes that these differences may negatively impact the child, parent, and family; however, findings remain inconsistent. In this systematic review, we provide an up-to-date synthesis of existing research on the parent-child acculturation gap among immigrant families and whether and when children's social and psychological outcomes, parenting, and family functioning are impacted. Further, we build upon the differential nuances of the culture of the gap—receiving or heritage—that relate to these outcomes. A systematic search in five databases for relevant studies up to January 2025 resulted in a total of 98 included records. Contrary to the acculturation gap-distress hypothesis, more than half of the included studies indicated no association between the receiving and heritage culture parent-child gap and child, parenting, or family outcomes. We discuss notable exceptions to this pattern, indicating when and how family and child outcomes may be implicated. We conclude with clinical and research recommendations to guide future approaches for understanding the relevance of parent-child acculturation gaps for family and child outcomes. • Parent-child acculturation gaps are inconsistently linked to child/family outcomes. • 65.5 % of reviewed studies reported no significant link between gaps and outcomes. • Culture of gap (whether receiving/heritage) may matter little for family dynamics. • Methodological advances and diversity in samples is needed in this field. • Practitioners may first target family functioning before family acculturation gaps.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.074 | 0.222 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.015 | 0.011 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.011 | 0.012 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.007 | 0.011 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.008 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".