The purpose of this paper is to examine cross-cultural differences between the United States and Turkey by coding multiple dimensions, such as parental intrusiveness, child persistence, and various others. The main research questions of this paper were as follows: (1) How does parental intrusiveness vary by country? (2) How does child persistence vary by country? and (3) Are parental intrusiveness and child persistence correlated, and if so, what is the direction of the correlation? The hypotheses were that (1) Turkish parents would score higher on parental intrusiveness, (2) American children would show higher levels of persistence, and (3) Parental intrusiveness and child persistence are correlated, with higher levels of parental intrusiveness resulting in lower levels of child persistence. While all of the hypotheses were supported with statistically significant results, it was found that in the U.S., higher parental intrusiveness does result in lower levels of child persistence, but in Turkey, parental intrusiveness was not a predictor of child persistence. The findings are therefore able to support cross-cultural differences in the correlation between parental intrusiveness and child persistence.

The goal of this paper is to examine the relevance of ethnic identity in young Latinos and Whites in the Phoenix area. Based on interviews with 30 Latino and White young adults, I explore how “Zoomers” and millennials think about their ethnicity. I found that Whites’ ethnic identity tends to be symbolic or meaningless as they attribute less importance to ethnic identity because it has low personal significance and is inconsequential in their daily lives. Latinos, with their stronger connection to the ethnic core, tend to describe their ethnicity as consequential due to their experiences of discrimination that make their ethnic identity less optional. This research has implications for those looking to better understand how different groups think about their ethnicity.