Iraqi, Syrian, and Palestinian Refugee Adolescents’ Beliefs About Parental Authority Legitimacy and Its Correlates Judith G. Smetana University of Rochester Ikhlas Ahmad University of Jordan Laura Wray-Lake University of Rochester This study examined intra- and interindividual variations in parental legitimacy beliefs in a sample of 883 Arab refugee adolescents (M age = 15.01 years, SD = 1.60), 277 Iraqis, 275 Syrians, and 331 Palestinians in Amman, Jordan. Confirmatory factor analyses showed distinct latent factors for moral–conventional, pruden- tial, and personal legitimacy items. Older adolescents rated legitimacy lower for personal issues, but higher for prudential issues. Beliefs were associated with socioeconomic status (fathers’ education, family size), par- ticularly for personal issues, but were more pervasively associated with displacement-related experiences. Greater war trauma was associated with less prudential legitimacy for all youth and more authority legiti- macy over moral–conventional issues for Syrian youth. Greater hopefulness was associated with more author- ity legitimacy over all but personal issues. Developmental scientists now agree that children and adolescents are active agents in their socializa- tion and that they evaluate and then act on their beliefs and expectations (Grusec & Davidov, 2010; Kuczynski, Parkin, & Pitman, 2015). Although ado- lescents draw boundaries and reject parental control over some issues, they believe that parents have the legitimate authority—and indeed, that parents are obligated—to make rules about many areas of youth’s lives (Kakihara & Tilton-Weaver, 2009; Smetana, 2000; Smetana & Asquith, 1994). Impor- tantly, these beliefs are associated with behavioral indicators of socialization, including compliance to parental rules (Darling, Cumsille, & Martinez, 2007; Keijsers & Laird, 2014; Kuhn & Laird, 2011), and more broadly, with morality, identity, and auton- omy development. Although similar age trends and domain speci- ficity in legitimacy beliefs have been found in dif- ferent cultures, individual differences and contextual influences also have been observed (re- viewed in Smetana, 2011). The effects of cultural values, economic hardship, neighborhood condi- tions, and war exposure are complexly intertwined when considering authority beliefs among refugee youth. Large numbers of youth in the Middle East have been displaced due to political and ethnic vio- lence (Barber, 1999, 2014; Dubow, Huesmann, & Boxer, 2009), yet little research has examined these beliefs in such samples and their associations with contextual factors. Parenting has been found to both mediate and moderate the effects of displacement and war-related trauma on Middle Eastern refugee youth’s adjustment (Punam€ aki, Quota, & El Sarraj, 1997). Thus, studying youth’s interpretations of and beliefs about parenting could contribute to an understanding of both cross-cultural similarities and variations in parenting beliefs, as well as the factors that contribute to refugee youth’s healthy social development. The present study addressed these issues by examining parental authority beliefs We are grateful to the University of Jordan for its financial support of this project and to its President, Professor Dr. Ekhleif Tarawneh, for his assistance in obtaining cooperation from the participating schools. We thank the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in Jordan and Chief of the Field Education program, Dr. Jihad Hamdan, and the principals and teachers at all of the participating schools. We also thank Farah Fayez, Yaser Nubani, and Sarah Alzyoud for their assis- tance with translation. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Judith Smetana, CSP, Meliora Hall, RC 270266, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627. Electronic mail may be sent to smetana@psych.rochester.edu. © 2015 The Authors Child Development © 2015 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved. 0009-3920/2015/8606-0024 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12457 Child Development, November/December 2015, Volume 86, Number 6, Pages 2017–2033