Parenting Values, Attitudes, Behaviors, and Goals of African American Mothers from a Low-Income Population in Relation to Social and Societal Contexts

Abstract

There is broad consensus among family and child development researchers that variations in parenting styles and practices contribute to individual differences along a range of child outcomes. Although the literature implies a continuum of parenting styles, research on ethnic minority and low-income families has often implied that these groups are homogeneous with respect to parenting practices and has compared them to standard samples (usually ethnic majority and middle class). In rejecting these assumptions, we examined the diversity of parenting styles in a sample of a low-income, African American families served by Head Start. Analyses revealed a range of child-rearing beliefs yielding discrete patterns of parenting that were distinguished in terms of beliefs about desirable child attributes and community-level attributes, and were associated with children's social competence. Findings suggest that crude group comparisons are inadequate to describe or explain the effects of parenting values and parent-child interactions in low-income, minority ethnic status samples.

From Horizontal to Vertical Management Styles: A Qualitative Look at Head Start Staff Strategies for Addressing Behavior Problems

“…In contrast, center staff working within a Vertical management style tend to use more authoritarian strategies when they, for example, encourage children to comply with center rules. This result parallels that found in the parenting literature, which finds that specific child behavior management practices, such as limiting decision making power, have been observed among workingclass parents "whose jobs are highly routinized and closely supervised, stress values of conformity, such as obedience, cleanliness, and courtesy" (Abell, Clawson, & Washington, 1996, Kohn, 1977. Some researchers hypothesize that these more authoritarian practices, while contrary to those defined as most effective by some (Maccoby &Martin, 1983), seem to be appropriate for some families who are living under difficult circumstances, such as economic hardship (Abell, Clawson, &Washington, 1996).…”

An Emic, Mixed-Methods Approach to Defining and Measuring Positive Parenting Among Low-Income Black Families

“…On the other hand, a small number of parenting measures do exist that were developed for and validated specifically with low-income families (e.g., The Parenting Behavior Questionnaire (PBQ); Coolahan, McWayne, Fantuzzo, & Grim, 2002; Child Rearing Practices Report [Block, 1986]; as per Abell, Clawson, Washington, Bost, & Vaughn, 1996). However, four major issues limit their utility.…”

The Association Between Social Competence in Adolescents and Mothers’ Parenting Style: A Cross Sectional Study on Iranian Girls

“…They have also found that authoritative parenting helps adolescents to attain better social competence (Abell et al 1996;Querido et al 2002). However, some studies have indicated mixed findings in which Asian American parents tend to fall into both authoritarian and authoritative parenting categories, revealing that both parenting styles are associated with academic achievement, lower depressive symptoms, and lower externalizing behavior problems (Kim et al 2007;Xu et al 2005).…”