No abstract

Bronfenbrenner's process-person-context-time model is used to examine theories that explain the adverse effects of economic deprivation on children's socioemotional development. In his model, each of five structures of the ecological environment-microsystems, mesosystems, exosystems, macrosystems, and chronosystems-is subsumed within the next higher level. Theories of the effects of poverty on proximal processes in the microsystem of the family have the most research support, but processes in other microsystems such as the peer group and school and in other levels of the ecological environment may also explain the relation between economic deprivation and children's socioemotional functioning. Social work practice and policy implications are drawn from the analysis.

No abstract

No abstract

Data from a national sample of 878 4-9-year-old children in single-mother families were used to test a structural model of the effect of poverty on children's socioemotional problems. Results show that the effect of poverty is mediated by maternal depression and mothers' use of physical punishment. Maternal depression influence children's socioemotional problems directly, as well as indirectly through physical punishment.