“Measuring Shame in an Ethnic Context.”

Source: (1995) British Journal of Criminology 35(2):248-262.

This study attempts to operationalize John Braithwaite’s (1989) theory of reintegrative shaming and to measure how it is used by parents of different ethnic groups in response to their delinquent children. Data were obtained from interviews with 50 African-American and 50 Asian-American parents in Los Angeles County whose children had been placed “home on probation. The 2 ethnic groups differed significantly in verbal shaming but not in non-verbal, physical or communitarian shaming. However, when marital status was controlled, ethnicity appeared to have no effect on shaming: married parents were significantly more inclined to shame their delinquent children than were single parents, regardless of ethnicity. New Asian immigrant parents were more likely to use shaming than others.