The aim of this study was twofold: to analyze the differences in perceived parenting practices between Dutch mainstreamers and Dutch-Moroccan immigrant adolescents in the Netherlands, and to explore the influence of perceived parenting on life satisfaction and the mediating effect of attachment in a model tested across the two ethnic groups. Data were collected among 89 Moroccan-Dutch adolescents and 178 Dutch secondary school students. Moroccan-Dutch adolescents reported higher levels of life satisfaction.
When controlling for age and parental education, Dutch mainstreamers reported significantly higher scores on permissive parenting than Moroccan-Dutch, but no differences were observed in authoritarian and authoritative parenting between the groups. A partially mediated model using the three parenting styles as predictors of life satisfaction was tested across native Dutch and Moroccan-Dutch immigrants, where the path from permissive parenting to life satisfaction was direct for the Dutch mainstreamers, but only mediated by attachment for the Moroccan-Dutch immigrants. In conclusion, a similar model of parenting practices and parental attachment to explain life satisfaction holds across the two ethnic groups, yet the strength of the relationships differs.