Culture has been found to play a role in how family members function and construct their family experience (McGoldrick & Giordano, 1996). Unfortunately, research has been rather slow to recognize the need for culturally diverse samples that provide a more inclusive picture of families (Socha, Sanchez-Hucles, Bromley, & Kelly, 1995). Bearing this in mind, this study used in-depth interviews and taped interactions of African American and European American mothers and their adolescent daughters to better understand how ethnicity differentiates communicative strategies used to manage the relational dialectic of connection and autonomy. Daughter participants ranged in age from 13 to 17 years; the mothers from 34 to 48 years. Participants came from middle class families, all of which had a father-figure. As the primary researcher is European American, an African American research assistant served as part of the research team. Interviews were inductively analyzed to (a) identify strategies used to manage connection and autonomy, and (b) determine if these strategies were differentiated by ethnicity. Although African American and European American mother-daughter dyads used many of the same strategies, differences were noted in the degree or intensity with which these strategies were employed. Data suggested that African American mother-daughter dyads favored a greater degree of closeness whereas European American mother-daughter dyads favored a greater degree of autonomy. Implications of these findings for future inquiry are reported.
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