中美家庭价值观差异论文 英文

Differences of Family Values Between China and America

中美家庭价值观差异

Abstract

This paper tries to make a comparison of different family values between China and US, which appeared in many fields, for instance, the American emphasis the individualism but Chinese focus on the collectivism, the relation-ship between family members and their attitudes to each other are also quite different,the life style influenced by family values are varied.Reasons for these differences are complex, including different customs, cultures and social backgrounds and so on.

摘要

这篇论文比较了中美家庭价值观在不同方面的差异，比如，美国人强调个人主义而中国人注重集体主义，不同的家庭关系与成员间的态度，和由于家庭价值观对生活方式的不同。产生差异的原因各不相同，包括不同的文化习俗，社会背景等等。

Key words:family values, life styles, cultures, differences.

关键词：家庭价值观，生活方式，文化，不同点。

Ⅰ.Introduction

Family is the most basic unit of all human society. It reflects the ethical values of a society, its cultural characteristics

and the unique features of a nation. People begin to learn anything about the world and their culture through the family they are brought up in. What you think, how you act, even your language, are all transmitted through the family from the wider cultural context.

Family values are the core in the research of cultural values, and it has a huge influence on people’s thoughts and behaviors. So if we want to get a glimpse of the cultures of two different countries, it is necessary to know their different family values. In this paper we will analyze family values from different aspects,including the decisive family values, the attitude to the family members and their relationships,and the influences of family values.

Ⅱ.The differences of family values.

A.The individualism VS. the collectivism

The American emphasize the personal independence,while Chinese emphasize on the whole family, not any individual member.Children in America have more freedom than that in China.Their parents rarely interfere with their private affairs, and usual ly try to enhance children’s all-around abilitieswhen they are young. They handle their own affairs themselves and try to get support from their colleagues or experts who work in

the relevant field, and their family members only give suggestions to them.The key point of its society is freedom.Obviously, we Chinese paymore attention to the interest of whole family than that of any individual’s. In China, children usually live with their parents even after they are grown-up,since Chinese people want a more united family and closer relationship between family members. The living style in China is different compared with that in America. Chinese people like to live with their parents and they think this kind of living style may help them have more opportunity to understand other family members. This kind of living style can narrow the gap between family members andwhen anybody faceswith a problem, the others can help him effectively and efficiently. The living style also reflects that Chinese people mainly emphasize the whole family but not the individuals, which is quite different from Americans.

B.The attitude to the family members and their

relationships in China and America.

Chinese people have a big family with variety of relatives, which may be easy to cause competition and suspicion. So in order to maintain order and family harmony, they particularly advocate showing respect to their seniority in the light of the