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Title: Differential Parenting, Differential Pathways: Understanding the Mediators and Effects of Ethnic Variations in Parenting
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Richman, Scott Bradley
Differential Parenting, Differential Pathways: Understanding the Mediators and Effects of Ethnic Variations in Parenting
Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Human Development and Social Policy, Northwestern University, August 2012
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT)
Keyword(s): Child Self-Administered Supplement (CSAS); Educational Attainment; Family Decision-making/Conflict; Family Income; Mothers, Behavior; Neighborhood Effects; Parental Influences; Parents, Single; Poverty; Racial Differences; Socioeconomic Status (SES)

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This dissertation explores the social and cultural mediators of parenting differences between European Americans and African Americans and the processes through which parenting is related to adolescent academic achievement. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), the first study examines the interactive effect of neighborhood quality and family socioeconomic status in mediating ethnic differences in parenting behaviors. These social factors account for some of the variation in parenting behaviors between higher SES European American and African American families, but ethnic differences in these behaviors remain.

In the second study using data from the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study (MADICS), results show that initial ethnic differences in parental control and their trajectories over time are accounted for by variations in neighbor problems and their subsequent effect on parents' prevention-focus. Although levels of prevention-focus are related to parents' neighborhood context, African Americans are significantly more concerned with preventing negative outcomes for their adolescents than European American parents.

The third study assesses how parents' socialization goals mediate ethnic difference in parental control, independent of socioeconomic factors. Parents' filial-cultural piety and success goals completely mediate ethnic differences in parental strictness but not the amount of autonomy they grant their adolescents. The final study tests a psycho-social conceptual model of how parenting behaviors influence adolescents' school performance and if these processes differ by a function of ethnicity. The results show that a warm and stimulating home environment is related to mastery goal orientations and study habits that foster higher academic achievement, whereas adolescents who perceive greater restrictiveness and demandingness have performance goals and study habits related to worse school performance. The se patterns are consistent for European American and African American adolescents. Overall, these studies find that cultural factors, more so than social factors, explain variations in parenting behaviors, which have important implications for youth outcomes.

Bibliography Citation
Richman, Scott Bradley. Differential Parenting, Differential Pathways: Understanding the Mediators and Effects of Ethnic Variations in Parenting. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Human Development and Social Policy, Northwestern University, August 2012.