The influence of social stratification, context, and stress on child-rearing goals, beliefs, and behaviors.

The prevalence of parenting behaviors varies across social class, ethnicity, and family structure, but how parenting is shaped by these factors is not well understood. These differences may be volatile responses to stress experienced in disadvantaged social strata, or may result from basic differences in goals and beliefs. This study evaluated these competing theories of influence on parenting processes. Structural equation modeling was employed to predict parenting behavior from demographic context, neighborhood crime, maternal depression, and child-rearing goals and beliefs. Nested models were used to test direct and mediated influences. Interviews were conducted with 358 mothers, encompassing a broad range of socioeconomic status, single-parent (N = 112) and two-parent families (N = 246), and African-American (N = 88) and European-American (N = 270) families. Social class and ethnicity had broad influences on parenting processes. Influences on parenting behavior were almost completely mediated through goals and beliefs. Family structure, neighborhood, and depression had little impact on parenting. Little support was shown for a stress mediation model. These results affirm the fundamental influence of social stratification on socialization, a contrast with previous research emphasizing ethnic differences without considering social class. Child-rearing goals influenced parenting beliefs, but only indirectly influenced parenting behavior. Parenting beliefs were related to behavior, but did not necessarily influence closely relevant behavior (e.g., strict beliefs were not related to strict behavior, whereas inductive beliefs were). Results also revealed that beliefs were not correlated in the same way that behaviors were correlated (e.g., inductive and permissive beliefs were negatively correlated, but inductive and permissive behaviors were positively correlated). Very different conclusions might be reached regarding the influence of background and stress and the interrelationships of parenting factors if these parenting domains were investigated in isolation, underlining the importance of differentiating domains and using a comprehensive analytic approach. These findings emphasize the important mediating role of belief systems, and suggest that variations in parenting across social strata are best conceptualized as reflecting a coherent cultural systems. Rather than subsuming multiple domains of parenting under typologies, future research may need to examine separate influences of each domain.Ph.D.Developmental psychologyIndividual and family studiesPsychologySocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/129660/2/9542978.pd