parenting practices, child adjustment, and family diversity

14
Journal of Marriage and Family 64 (August 2002): 703–716 703 PAUL R. AMATO The Pennsylvania State University FRIEDA FOWLER* The University of Nebraska—Lincoln l Parenting Practices, Child Adjustment, and Family Diversity The authors used data from Waves 1 and 2 of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) to test the generality of the links between parenting practices and child outcomes for chil- dren in two age groups: 5–11 and 12–18. Par- ents’ reports of support, monitoring, and harsh punishment were associated in the expected di- rection with parents’ reports of children’s adjust- ment, school grades, and behavior problems in Wave 1 and with children’s reports of self-esteem, grades, and deviance in Wave 2. With a few ex- ceptions, parenting practices did not interact with parents’ race, ethnicity, family structure, educa- tion, income, or gender in predicting child out- comes. A core of common parenting practices ap- pears to be linked with positive outcomes for children across diverse family contexts. Support, monitoring, and discipline are central di- mensions of parental behavior that are linked with children’s adjustment, development, and well-be- ing. Parental support is reflected in behaviors such as helping with everyday problems, praising chil- dren’s accomplishments, and showing affection. Department of Sociology, The Pennsylvania State Univer- sity, University Park, PA 16802 ([email protected]). *Department of Sociology, University of Nebraska—Lin- coln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0324. Key Words: diversity, family structure, gender, parenting, race, social class. Monitoring involves supervising children’s activ- ities, keeping track of children’s school work and peer relationships, and requiring conformity to family and community norms. When children misbehave, some parents turn to coercive forms of discipline (such as spanking), whereas other parents rely on noncoercive methods (such as dis- cussing the consequences of misbehavior). A large body of research indicates that the optimal com- bination of parental behavior involves a high level of support, a high level of monitoring, and the avoidance of harsh punishment (Baumrind, 1968, 1978; Darling & Steinberg, 1993; Maccoby & Martin, 1983; Rollins & Thomas, 1979). A focus on family diversity shifts our attention to the fact that most studies in this literature have been based on samples of White, two-parent, mid- dle-class families. For this reason, it is not clear whether the dimensions of effective parenting identified in previous research are linked with pos- itive child outcomes among African Americans or Mexican Americans, single parents, parents with low levels of education, and poor parents. Fur- thermore, because most studies have focused on the parenting practices of mothers, it is not clear whether effective parenting takes the same form among fathers as it does among mothers. Similar- ly, few studies consider whether the same parent- ing practices are equally beneficial for sons and daughters. The purpose of our study is to deter- mine whether the dimensions of effective parent- ing identified in prior research apply mainly to

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Page 1: Parenting Practices, Child Adjustment, and Family Diversity

Journal of Marriage and Family 64 (August 2002): 703–716 703

PAUL R. AMATO The Pennsylvania State University

FRIEDA FOWLER* The University of Nebraska—Lincoln

l

Parenting Practices, Child Adjustment,

and Family Diversity

The authors used data from Waves 1 and 2 of theNational Survey of Families and Households(NSFH) to test the generality of the links betweenparenting practices and child outcomes for chil-dren in two age groups: 5–11 and 12–18. Par-ents’ reports of support, monitoring, and harshpunishment were associated in the expected di-rection with parents’ reports of children’s adjust-ment, school grades, and behavior problems inWave 1 and with children’s reports of self-esteem,grades, and deviance in Wave 2. With a few ex-ceptions, parenting practices did not interact withparents’ race, ethnicity, family structure, educa-tion, income, or gender in predicting child out-comes. A core of common parenting practices ap-pears to be linked with positive outcomes forchildren across diverse family contexts.

Support, monitoring, and discipline are central di-mensions of parental behavior that are linked withchildren’s adjustment, development, and well-be-ing. Parental support is reflected in behaviors suchas helping with everyday problems, praising chil-dren’s accomplishments, and showing affection.

Department of Sociology, The Pennsylvania State Univer-sity, University Park, PA 16802 ([email protected]).

*Department of Sociology, University of Nebraska—Lin-coln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0324.

Key Words: diversity, family structure, gender, parenting,race, social class.

Monitoring involves supervising children’s activ-ities, keeping track of children’s school work andpeer relationships, and requiring conformity tofamily and community norms. When childrenmisbehave, some parents turn to coercive formsof discipline (such as spanking), whereas otherparents rely on noncoercive methods (such as dis-cussing the consequences of misbehavior). A largebody of research indicates that the optimal com-bination of parental behavior involves a high levelof support, a high level of monitoring, and theavoidance of harsh punishment (Baumrind, 1968,1978; Darling & Steinberg, 1993; Maccoby &Martin, 1983; Rollins & Thomas, 1979).

A focus on family diversity shifts our attentionto the fact that most studies in this literature havebeen based on samples of White, two-parent, mid-dle-class families. For this reason, it is not clearwhether the dimensions of effective parentingidentified in previous research are linked with pos-itive child outcomes among African Americans orMexican Americans, single parents, parents withlow levels of education, and poor parents. Fur-thermore, because most studies have focused onthe parenting practices of mothers, it is not clearwhether effective parenting takes the same formamong fathers as it does among mothers. Similar-ly, few studies consider whether the same parent-ing practices are equally beneficial for sons anddaughters. The purpose of our study is to deter-mine whether the dimensions of effective parent-ing identified in prior research apply mainly to

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children in relatively advantaged families (that is,White, two-parent, middle-class families) orwhether these benefits extend to children in di-verse families as defined by race and ethnicity,family structure, and socioeconomic status. To ac-complish this goal, we rely on data from Waves1 and 2 of the National Survey of Families andHouseholds (NSFH).

PARENTING PRACTICES AND FAMILY DIVERSITY

Research consistently shows that parental support,monitoring, and (avoidance of) harsh punishmentare associated with positive outcomes among chil-dren, including higher school grades, fewer be-havior problems, less substance use, better mentalhealth, greater social competence, and more pos-itive self-concepts. Furthermore, these benefits ap-pear to extend to children of all ages, includingchildren in preschool (Crockenberg & Litman,1990), children in primary school (Jackson, Hen-riksen, & Foshee, 1998; Pratt, Green, MacVicar,& Bountrogianni, 1992), teenagers (Gunnoe,Hetherington, & Reiss, 1999; Jackson et al.,1998), and college-age offspring (Strage &Brandt, 1999). These studies have relied on twomeasurement strategies. Some studies have ex-amined associations between child outcomes andcontinuous measures of parental behavior, such assupport, involvement, warmth, approval, control,monitoring, and harsh punishment (e.g., Amato,1989; Gray & Steinberg, 1999; Kurdek & Fine,1994). Other studies have adopted a categoricalapproach, with the most common scheme involv-ing four parenting styles: authoritative, authoritar-ian, indulgent, and neglecting (e.g., Lamborn,Mounts, Steinberg, & Dornbusch, 1991; Radzisz-ewska, Richardson, Dent, & Flay, 1996). Regard-less of whether researchers have used a dimen-sional or a categorical strategy, however, theresults typically lead to similar conclusions. Thatis, children appear to do best when parents arewarm and supportive, spend generous amounts oftime with children, monitor children’s behavior,expect children to follow rules, encourage opencommunication, and react to misbehavior withdiscussion rather than harsh punishment.

This body of evidence does not imply a simpleunidirectional model in which parents’ behaviorcauses children’s behavior. Indeed, most familyscholars assume that children and parents influ-ence one another in a reciprocal fashion (e.g., Am-bert, 1992; Belsky, 1990; Maccoby, 2001). Forexample, aggressive behavior among children

may elicit harsh behavior from parents, and harshparenting, in turn, may provoke further misbehav-ior among children (Patterson, Bank, & Stool-miller, 1990). We assume that parenting practicesand positive (or negative) child behavior are bestviewed as two components of a dynamic system.The assumption of reciprocal influence, however,does not undermine the conclusion that a combi-nation of strong support, a high level of monitor-ing, and the avoidance of harsh punishment rep-resents an optimal form of parenting.

As noted earlier, most studies in this literaturehave relied on samples of White, two-parent, mid-dle-class families. This lack of attention to familydiversity may be a serious limitation. Accordingto Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological theory,family processes (such as parental behavior) andcontextual factors (such as parents’ social class orrace) often interact in affecting children’s devel-opment. Similarly, sociological perspectives sug-gest that optimal socialization practices depend ona family’s location within the social structure (e.g.,Kohn, 1977). More generally, attention to howparenting practices and child outcomes are linkedin different types of families is consistent with thecall for greater attention to diversity in family re-search (Demo, Allen, & Fine, 2000). How mightparenting practices interact with family context inshaping offspring outcomes? We consider two po-sitions. The first position assumes that optimalparenting practices vary across family contexts,whereas the second position assumes that optimalparenting practices apply to most children, irre-spective of family context.

Optimal Parenting Varies AcrossFamily Contexts

Some researchers have argued that disadvantagedchildren may benefit less from authoritative par-enting than from a more restrictive, tough style ofparenting. For example, Baldwin, Baldwin, andCole (1990) argued that poor parents living indangerous neighborhoods need to exercise a highlevel of control over their children—a level ofcontrol that parents living in affluent neighbor-hoods would find neither necessary nor desirable.Deater-Deckard and Dodge (1997) claimed that amoderate level of physical punishment is notproblematic for African American children be-cause this disciplinary style is normative in Blackcommunities. Steinberg, Dornbusch, and Brown(1992) claimed that factors in the social environ-ments of some minority children (such as peer

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705Parenting Practices

groups that devalue academic attainment) can at-tenuate the otherwise positive effects of authori-tative parenting on children’s school success. Lar-eau (1989) and McNeal (1999) argued thatbecause middle and upper-class parents possessmore cultural capital than working-class or poorparents, parental involvement is especially bene-ficial to children in middle- and upper-class fam-ilies, at least in terms of children’s educationalsuccess and occupational attainment.

Consistent with these views, some studies sug-gest that the consequences of different parentingstyles vary across family contexts. In one large-scale study, Dornbusch, Ritter, Leiderman, Rob-erts, and Fraleigh (1987) and Steinberg, Mounts,Lamborn, and Dornbusch (1991) found that au-thoritative parenting was positively associatedwith school grades among White and Latino ad-olescents but not among Asian or African Amer-ican adolescents. In another report from the samestudy, Lamborn et al. (1991) concluded that au-thoritative parenting was associated with fewersomatic complaints among adolescents but only iftheir parents had college degrees. With respect tofamily structure, Lamborn and colleagues reportedthat authoritative parenting was associated withless internal distress among adolescents with con-tinuously married parents but not among adoles-cents with single or remarried mothers. In a 1-yearfollow up, Steinberg, Lamborn, Dornbusch, andDarling (1992) found that the generally positiveeffects of parental involvement and encourage-ment did not apply to school performance amongAfrican Americans.

Other studies based on different data sets yieldcomparable results. McNeal (1999) reported thatparent-child discussions about school were posi-tively related to science achievement amongWhite and African American adolescents but notamong Latino or Asian adolescents. In addition,parental monitoring was related to less truancyand dropping out of school among most groupsbut not among Asian Americans. Similarly, Dea-ter-Deckard, Dodge, Bates, and Pettit (1996)found that physical discipline was correlated withexternalizing behavior among White primaryschool children but not among their Black coun-terparts. Baldwin et al. (1990) found that amongpoor minority students living in single-parent fam-ilies, restrictive and autocratic parenting was as-sociated with the highest level of school achieve-ment. Taken together, these studies suggest thatthe pattern of optimal parenting described earlier(high support, monitoring, and avoidance of harsh

punishment) is more applicable to White, middle-class children living with two parents than to chil-dren in other circumstances.

Optimal Parenting Does Not Vary AcrossFamily Contexts

An alternative position—and the most parsimo-nious one theoretically—is that a common core ofparental behaviors is associated with positive childoutcomes, irrespective of race, ethnicity, familystructure, or class. Consistent with this position,some studies uncover no evidence to suggest thatparenting practices and child outcomes are linkeddifferently across diverse types of families. Forexample, Rowe, Vazsonyi, and Flannery (1994)found that covariance matrices reflecting parent-ing practices and child outcomes were nearlyidentical across samples of Black, White, Hispan-ic, and Asian families. Pilgrim, Luo, Urberg, andFang (1999) reported that parents’ authoritativebehavior predicted low rates of drug use amongEuropean American, African American, and Chi-nese (Beijing) adolescents. Radziszewska, Rich-ardson, Dent, and Flay (1996) found that author-itative parenting was associated with fewerdepressive symptoms, less smoking, and higheracademic achievement among adolescents irre-spective of race or ethnicity. Bradley and Corwyn(2000) reported that parental responsiveness waspositively associated with self-esteem among Eu-ropean American as well as Chinese American ad-olescents. McLoyd and Smith (2002) found thatmothers’ use of spanking, especially in the contextof low emotional support, was associated withsimilar increases in behavior problems among Af-rican American, European American, and Hispan-ic children. Finally, Kim and Ge (2000), in a studyof parenting practices and children’s depressivesymptoms, found few differences between Chi-nese American and European American families.

In summary the evidence is mixed, with somestudies suggesting that optimal parenting practicesvary across different types of families, and otherstudies suggesting that the fundamental dimen-sions of effective parenting are applicable to fam-ilies across a wide range of social contexts. Thismixed set of findings illustrates the complexityand nuances of recent family research (Demo &Cox, 2000; McLoyd, Cauce, Takeuchi, & Wilson,2000.) Nevertheless, because the number of stud-ies that have explored parenting in diverse familycontexts is relatively small, many authors havecalled for additional work to resolve this issue

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706 Journal of Marriage and Family

(e.g., Darling & Steinberg, 1993; Deater-Deckardet al., 1996; Demo & Cox, 2000; Jackson et al.,1998; McNeal, 1999; Pilgrim et al., 1999).

THE PRESENT STUDY

Our goal was to determine whether the associa-tions between parenting practices and forms ofchild adjustment vary across a range of socialcontexts. This study advances previous researchin several ways. First, the majority of prior studieshave relied on samples drawn from a single lo-cation, such as a city or school. The study bySteinberg and his associates, perhaps the largestand best known in this genre, was based on ado-lescents from two states. In contrast, we used alarge nationally representative data set: the NSFH.The NSFH is well-suited to address issues of fam-ily diversity because it contains oversamples ofAfrican Americans, Latinos, and single parents.Second, the majority of studies in this literaturehave been cross-sectional and have relied on a sin-gle source for data (usually parents or children).In contrast, we employ two waves of data to seewhether parents’ reports of parenting practices atTime 1 predict children’s reports of adjustment atTime 2. The use of different sources of informa-tion for independent and dependent variablesavoids the problem of common-method variance,which typically leads researchers to overestimatethe strength of association between variables. Fi-nally, although most studies have focused on chil-dren in a single age group, the focal children inthe NSFH1 ranged in age from 5 to 18. Becauseof developmental differences between childrenwithin this wide age range, we conducted separateanalyses for children between the ages of 5 and11 and for children between the ages of 12 and18.

Our research involved four steps. First, we se-lected items from the NSFH1 parent interviewthat appeared to measure parental support, moni-toring, and harsh punishment, and we subjectedthese items to a confirmatory factor analysis. Sec-ond, we examined the associations between theseparenting practices and parents’ reports of threechild outcomes: adjustment, grades, and behaviorproblems. This step was necessary to determinewhether we could replicate the general pattern offindings from prior research with the measures de-rived from the NSFH. Third, to see if parentingdimensions were related to child outcomes simi-larly (or differently) across different types of fam-ilies, we examined interactions between parenting

practices and parents’ race and ethnicity, familystructure, education, poverty status, and gender. Inchoosing these variables, we were guided byDemo, Allen, and Fine’s (2000, p. 3) view that thebest way to characterize family diversity involvesthe three major dimensions of social stratification(race, socioeconomic status, and gender) plusfamily structure. For exploratory purposes, wealso included children’s gender. We accomplishedthis step by comparing structural equation modelsin which the paths between parenting practicesand measures of children’s adjustment were (a)allowed to vary across groups and (b) constrainedto be identical across groups. Finally, we turnedto the Wave 2 data and used parents’ reports ofparenting behavior at Time 1 (T1) to predict chil-dren‘s reports of outcomes (grades, self-esteem,and deviance) at Time 2 (T2). We also tested tosee whether parenting practices at T1 interactedwith dimensions of family diversity in predictingchildren’s adjustment at T2. Because children’sage, gender, and number of siblings could affectparents’ behavior as well as children’s adjustment,we controlled for these variables in all analyses.

METHOD

Sample

The first wave of the NSFH was conducted in1987–88 and involved a multistage probabilitysample of 13,017 adult respondents (Sweet, Bum-pass & Call, 1988). In the main interview, parentsof children aged 5 to 18 answered a series of ques-tions about a randomly-chosen focal child (N 53,808). Cases missing data on parenting or keydemographic characteristics were dropped fromthe analysis. This procedure resulted in the omis-sion of 408 cases (11%) and an effective sampleof 3,400 families.

Interviewers contacted respondents again in1992–94. In addition to parents, children betweenthe ages of 10 and 17 were interviewed in thatyear. After deleting cases that were missing dataon key variables (n 5 85), our analysis of Wave2 data was based on a total of 1,331 children (seeSweet and Bumpass, 1996, for details on Wave2). Because some families dropped out of theanalysis between waves (about 22%), we reliedon Heckman’s (1979) widely used method to as-sess the existence of attrition bias. We used aprobit analysis to predict whether the focal childprovided an interview in 1992–94, based on a va-riety of 1987–88 demographic characteristics. We

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TABLE 1. CONFIRMATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS BASED ON THREE LATENT VARIABLES REPRESENTING PARENTAL SUPPORT,MONITORING, AND USE OF HARSH PUNISHMENT

Item

Children age 5–11

Support MonitoringHarsh

Punishment

Children Age 12–18

Support MonitoringHarsh

Punishment

1. Spend time in leisure activities2. Work on projects or playing3. Have private talks4. Help with reading or homework5. How often praise child6. How often hug child

.56

.78

.70

.66

.45

.43

——————

——————

.62

.79

.67

.69

.44

.54

——————

——————

7. Child not allowed home alone8. Know child’s whereabouts9. Rules about amount of television

10. Rules about types of television pro-grams

11. How often slap or spank child12. How often yell at child

———

———

.30

.25

.47

.44——

———

—.40.97

———

———

.67

.36

.48

.54——

———

—.76.51

Note: Model x2 5 614.18; df 5 100; GFI 5 .95; CFI 5 .93; RMSEA 5 .04. N 5 1,693 children between the ages of5 and 11 and 1,707 children between the ages of 12 and 18. All paths between latent variables and observed indicators aresignificant at p , .001.

then used the resulting equation to calculate lamb-da, or the probability of not being interviewed, forall cases. Lambda was not associated significantlywith the independent (parenting) variables or thedependent (child outcome) variables and using itas a control variable did not result in substantivelyimportant changes in the conclusions. We foundlittle evidence, therefore, that attrition biased theresults of our longitudinal analyses.

Variables

Parenting practices. We used items from theWave 1 interviews that appeared to measure pa-rental support, monitoring, and harsh punishment.Six items served as indicators of support. The firstfour questions asked parents how often they spendtime with their child in leisure activities awayfrom home (picnics, movies, sports, etc.), at homeworking on a project or playing together, havingprivate talks, and helping with reading or home-work (1 5 never or rarely, 6 5 almost every day).The fifth and sixth questions asked parents howoften they praised or hugged their children (1 5never, 4 5 very often). Four items served as in-dicators of parental monitoring. First, parents re-ported on times when they allowed the child to beat home alone (before school, in the afternoon af-ter school, all day when there is no school, atnight, and overnight). Responses to this questionranged from 0 5 child allowed to be alone all ofthese times to 5 5 child not allowed to be aloneduring any of these times. The second item dealt

with how often children were expected to tell par-ents where they are when away from home (1 5hardly ever, 4 5 all the time). Finally, parentsreported on whether they restricted the amount oftelevision (1 5 yes, 0 5 no) or the types of tele-vision programs the child watches (1 5 yes, 0 5no). To measure harsh discipline, we askded par-ents how often they (a) yell at their children and(b) spank or slap their children (1 5 never, 4 5very often).

To determine the factorial validity of the 12parenting items, we conducted a confirmatory fac-tor analysis using Analysis of Moment Structures(AMOS; Arbuckle, 1997) software. Item loadingsappear in Table 1. The three latent variables ap-peared to represent parental support, monitoring,and harsh punishment, respectively. The fit of themodel was acceptable, as reflected in values of .97for the Goodness-of-Fit Index (GFI), .93 for theComparative Fit Index (CFI), and .039 for theRoot Mean Square Error of Approximation(RMSEA). Furthermore, the item loadings weregenerally similar for children between the ages of5 and 11 and for adolescents between the ages of12 and 18. The one exception involved the load-ings of the monitoring items, which were lowerfor younger children than for adolescents. Thisdifference may reflect the fact that parents report-ed greater variability in their monitoring of ado-lescents than of younger children.

Child outcomes. As part of the NSFH1 interview,parents rated the focal child on 10 items drawn

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708 Journal of Marriage and Family

TABLE 2. M AND SD FOR CHILD ADJUSTMENT VARIABLES, FAMILY DIVERSITY VARIABLES, AND CONTROL VARIABLES

Child Age 5–11

M SD

Child Age 12–18

M SD

Child well-beingAdjustment (87–88)Grades (87–88)Behavior problems (87–88)Self-esteem (92–94)

1.454.01.34

3.25

.27

.93

.69

.38

2.566.82.75

.291.661.15

Grades (92–94)Deviance (92–94)

Diversity variablesParent race–ethnicity

African American

5.98.66

.21

1.601.16

.19Mexican AmericanWhiteOther

Family structureMarried biological parents

.08

.65

.06

.59

.05

.72

.04

.56Single biological parentOther

Parent educationIncome (log base 10)Respondent is father

.28

.1312.994.46.34

2.78.44

.29

.1512.934.53.32

2.98.43

Control variablesChild is sonChild ageNumber of siblings

.497.831.21

1.971.04

.5215.14

.951.991.11

Note: Standard deviations are not included for dichotomous variables. All variables are measured in 1987–1988, exceptfor child self-esteem, grades, and deviance. For variables measured in 1987–1988, the sample size is 1,693 children betweenthe ages of 5 and 11 and 1,707 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18. For child self-esteem, grades, and deviance(measured in 1992–1994) the sample size is 1,331.

from a larger inventory of child behavior (Ach-enbach and Edelbrock, 1981). Sample items in-cluded ‘‘loses temper easily,’’ ‘‘bullies or is cruelor mean to others,’’ ‘‘does what you ask,’’ and‘‘gets along well with other kids.’’ Response op-tions were 1 5 not true, 2 5 sometimes true, and3 5 often true. Items were scored so that highscores indicated negative behavior, and the meanof the 10 items served as the measure of children’sadjustment (a 5 .68). Table 2 provides descriptivestatistics for this variable and for other variablesin the analysis.

Parents also provided information on children’sschool success. For children age 5–11, parents rat-ed how well the child was doing in school (1 5near the bottom, 5 5 one of the best students).For children age 12–18, parents reported on typ-ical school grades (1 5 mostly F’s, 9 5 mostlyA’s). Finally, parents indicated whether the focalchild had ever experienced one of the followingbehavior problems: repeated a grade, met with ateacher or principal because of behavior problemsat school, was suspended or expelled from school,ran away from home, was in trouble with the po-lice, saw a doctor for an emotional or behavioral

problem, and was especially difficult to raise. Thesum of the number of problems reported by par-ents served as the measure of behavior problems.

To assess outcomes from the child’s perspec-tive, we relied on Wave 2 interviews with focalchildren. The child’s self-esteem was based onfour items, such as ‘‘I am a person of worth,’’ and‘‘I am satisfied with myself.’’ Response optionsranged from 1 5 strongly disagree to 4 5 strong-ly agree, and the mean response across the fouritems served as the measure of self-esteem (a 5.65). Children also reported on their schoolgrades, with responses ranging from 1 5 mostlyF’s to 9 5 mostly A’s. Although it is probablethat some children misrepresent their grades,Dornbusch et al. (1987) found a correlation of .76between high-school students’ self-reportedgrades and official grade point averages. Finally,children reported on five deviant activities: beingtruant from school, having sexual intercourse,smoking cigarettes in the last month, drinking al-cohol during the last month, and using marijuana.The five items correlated positively, indicatingthat children who had engaged in one activitywere more likely to have engaged in the other

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709Parenting Practices

FIGURE 1. MODEL RELATING PARENTAL SUPPORT, MONITORING, AND HARSH PUNISHMENT TO CHILDREN’S WELL-BEING

activities. The sum of the activities (which couldrange from 0 to 5) served as the measure of de-viance. (Because the distributions for parent-re-ported behavior problems and child-reported de-viance were positively skewed, we replicated allanalyses with log transformations to normalize thedistributions and the results were identical to thosereported later.)

Family diversity variables. Data on parents’ raceand ethnicity, family structure, education, income,and gender were obtained from the Wave 1 inter-view with parents. Race was coded into four cat-egories representing Whites (n 5 2,329), Blacks(n 5 680), Mexican Americans (n 5 221), andother (n 5 170). We decided not to combine Mex-ican Americans (the largest Latino group) withother Latinos, such as Cubans and Puerto Ricans,because of cultural differences between thesegroups. Family structure was coded into three cat-egories: households in which the child lived withtwo married, biological (or adoptive) parents (n 51,996); households in which the child lived witha single parent (n 5 969); and other family struc-tures, such as stepfamilies and unmarried cohab-iting couples with children (n 5 435). Althoughthe single-parent category excluded single parentscohabiting with a partner, it included a variety ofother family forms, such as single-mother house-holds, single-father households, children livingwith one never-married parent, children livingwith a divorced parent, children living with a wid-owed parent, and multigenerational households.

The average parent had about 13 years of educa-tion. Sixty percent of parents had levels of edu-cation corresponding to a high-school diploma orless (n 5 2,056) and the remaining 40% had someeducation beyond high school (n 5 1,344). Theaverage household income was about $30,000 peryear in 1987–88. Twenty-three percent of respon-dents had household incomes below 150% of thepoverty line (n 5 774), and the other 77 percentof respondents had household incomes above thisthreshold (n 5 2,626). About one third of respon-dents were fathers (n 5 1,122) and the rest weremothers (n 5 2,278).

Control variables. Because they could be associ-ated with parents’ behavior as well as children’sbehavior, we controlled for the focal child’s gen-der (1 5 son, 0 5 daughter), the focal child’s age,and the number of siblings living in the house-hold. The typical household had about one childin addition to the focal child, and the gender ofthe focal child was almost evenly split betweenboys and girls.

RESULTS

Parenting Practices and Parents’ Reports ofChild Well-Being in Wave 1

We relied on AMOS software with maximumlikelihood estimation for all analyses (Arbuckle,1997). Figure 1 shows the analytic model for theanalyses based on data from Wave 1. The three

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710 Journal of Marriage and Family

TABLE 3. ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN LATENT PARENTING VARIABLES AND CHILD ADJUSTMENT RATINGS FOR CHILDREN

BETWEEN THE AGES OF 5 AND 11 AND FOR ADOLESCENTS BETWEEN THE AGES OF 12 AND 18(STANDARDIZED COEFFICIENTS)

Independent Variables

Children 5–11

Adjustment GradesBehaviorProblems

Adolescents 12–18

Adjustment GradesBehaviorProblems

Parenting dimensionsSupportMonitoringHarsh punishment

2.13***2.01

.39***

.12***2.032.13***

.022.05

.20***

2.28***2.05

.37***

.18***2.012.28***

2.14***2.01

.22***SonChild ageSiblingsR2

2.012.14***2.02

.18***

2.15***2.10**2.02

.07***

.13***

.18***2.07*

.10***

.00

.022.04

.16***

2.18***2.11*

.06*

.12***

.18***

.042.11**

.09***

Note: x2 5 1,277.42; df 5 206, GFI 5 .96; CFI 5 .91; RMSEA 5 .04. N 5 1,693 children between the ages of 5 and11 and 1,707 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18.

*p , .05. **p , .01. ***p , .001.

parenting variables (support, monitoring, andharsh punishment) appear on the left side of thefigure as circles (latent variables), and the controlvariables (grouped together) appear in the lowerleft side of the figure. The three child outcomes(adjustment, grades, and behavior problems) ap-pear on the right side of the figure in rectangles(observed variables). Paths between the parentingvariables (along with the control variables) andthe three child variables from 1987–88 were es-timated simultaneously. The e terms in the figurerepresent the errors (or residuals) for each of thethree child measures. The model also incorporatedcorrelations between the three child outcomes, asrepresented by curved arrows between the errorterms, as well as correlations between the latentvariables and the control variables.

Table 3 shows the standardized coefficients forchildren in both age groups. Column 1 revealsthat, among children between the ages of 5 and11, child adjustment was negatively associatedwith support and positively associated with harshpunishment. Similarly, Column 2 shows that chil-dren’s school performance was positively associ-ated with support and negatively associated withharsh punishment. Finally, Column 3 reveals thatchildren’s behavior problems were positively as-sociated with harsh punishment. Overall, these re-sults are consistent with prior literature in showingthat children appeared to be doing best when theirparents were supportive and avoided harsh pun-ishment. Contrary to prior studies, however, wefound no evidence that parental monitoring wasrelated to children’s functioning.

The results in Table 3 were similar for childrenbetween the ages of 12 and 18. Parental support

was negatively associated with adjustment, posi-tively associated with grades, and negatively as-sociated with behavior problems. Parents’ use ofharsh punishment was positively associated withadjustment, negatively associated with grades, andpositively associated with behavior problems.Once again, parental monitoring was not relatedto any child measure.

The results presented thus far indicate that theparenting scales based on NSFH items (with theexception of monitoring) were linked with childoutcomes in ways consistent with prior research.Our next step was to see if the associations be-tween dimensions of parenting and children’swell-being varied with parents’ race and ethnicity,family structure, education, poverty status, andgender. We used multigroup models for this pur-pose. To illustrate the procedure, consider parents’race. We split the sample into Black parents andWhite parents and estimated all nine parameterslinking parenting (support, control, and harsh pun-ishment) and child well-being (adjustment, grades,and behavior problems) simultaneously for bothgroups. In one model, we allowed these nine pa-rameters to differ for Blacks and Whites. In a sec-ond model, we constrained these nine parametersto be identical for Blacks and Whites. We thencompared the chi-square values of the two mod-els. If the difference in chi-square values were sig-nificant, then we would conclude that the uncon-strained model fits the data significantly betterthan the constrained model. (As a rule, a con-strained model fits the data less well than an un-constrained model.) This result would indicatethat the overall pattern of associations betweenparenting practices and children’s well-being dif-

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TABLE 4. DIFFERENCE IN CHI-SQUARE VALUES BETWEEN MODELS IN WHICH PATHS BETWEEN PARENTING PRACTICES

AND CHILD ADJUSTMENT VARIABLES ARE FREE TO VARY ACROSS GROUPS (UNCONSTRAINED) AND

CONSTRAINED TO BE EQUAL ACROSS GROUPS

Comparison Groups

Parents’ Reportsof Children in

1987–1988

Parents’ Reportsof Adolescentsin 1987–1988

Children’sSelf-Reports

in 1992–1994

Blacks vs. WhitesMexicans vs. WhitesOne- vs. two-parentLow vs. high educationPoor vs. nonpoorFathers vs. mothersSons vs. daughters

1.4410.2811.0613.3711.1824.15**6.52

15.4816.0221.48*4.93

14.277.32

70.64***

1.9216.4816.6611.399.778.467.69

Note: N 5 1,693 children in 1987–1988; 1,707 adolescents in 1987–1988; and 1,331 children in 1992–1994. For thesignificance of the difference in chi-square values, df 5 9.

*p , .05. **p , .01. ***p # .005.

fers for Blacks and Whites. If the difference in x2

values were not significant, however, then wewould conclude that the constrained model fits thedata about as well as the unconstrained model.This result would suggest that the overall patternof associations between parenting practices andchildren’s well-being does not differ betweenBlacks and Whites. This procedure is conceptuallyequivalent to an omnibus test for interactions be-tween parenting practices and race (or any otherdiversity variable) in analysis of variance or re-gression analysis (Arbuckle, 1997). (Note that inall of these analyses, we constrained the paths be-tween the latent parenting variables and the ob-served indicators of these variables to be thesame, so that the same latent variable was beingtested across groups.)

Table 4 summarizes the results of these mul-tigroup analyses by showing the differences in x2

values between the unconstrained models and theconstrained models. We tested these x2 statisticsfor significance with degrees of freedom equal tonine, which reflects the number of parametersconstrained to be equal. When Black parents withyoung children and White parents with youngchildren were compared (Row 1), the differencein x2 values between the unconstrained model andthe constrained model was 1.44 (Column 1),which was not significant. A comparable resultwas obtained for adolescents (Column 2). WhenMexican American parents and White parentswere compared (Row 2), the difference in x2 val-ues was not significant for young children (Col-umn 1) or adolescents (Column 2). These resultsprovide no support for the notion that the associ-ation between parenting practices and children’sfunctioning varies with race or ethnicity.

With respect to family structure, the x2 statisticindicated a significant overall difference betweensingle-parent families with adolescent childrenand two-parent families with adolescent children.To determine the specific parameters that differedbetween the two groups, we examined additionalmultigroup models in which each of the nine pa-rameters was allowed to vary or was constrainedto be equal. These analyses revealed two signifi-cant differences in parameters (both p , .05).Among single parents, parental monitoring waspositively associated with grades (b 5 .14, p ,.10) and negatively associated with behavior prob-lems (b 5 2.14, p , .10). Among married par-ents, in contrast, the coefficients for parental mon-itoring were low and nonsignificant. Thesedifference may reflect the fact that although alladolescents benefit from monitoring, consistentmonitoring tends to be difficult for single mothersto provide on their own.

With respect to education, the sample was splitinto parents with a high-school degree or less ver-sus parents with at least some college. No signif-icant interactions involving education were appar-ent. With respect to income, the sample was splitinto low-income parents (those with household in-comes at 150% of the poverty line or less) andhigh-income parents (those with household in-comes greater than 150% of the poverty line). Nosignificant interactions involving income were ap-parent. Taken together, these results suggest thatthe basic pattern of relations between parentingpractices and children’s adjustment did not varywith socioeconomic status.

With respect to parents’ gender, a significantoverall difference emerged among parents withyoung children. Additional multigroup analyses

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revealed that the association between harsh pun-ishment and children’s behavior problems wasstronger among mothers (b 5 .23, p , .01) thanamong fathers (b 5 .02, ns). Finally, with respectto children’s gender, a significant overall differ-ence emerged for young children. Additional mul-tigroup analyses revealed that the association be-tween harsh punishment and behavior problemswas stronger among sons (b 5 .49, p , .001) thanamong daughters (b 5 .28, p , .001). No othergender differences emerged from the analysis.

In general, the results in Table 4 (Columns 1and 2) provide relatively little support for the ex-istence of group differences in the associations be-tween parenting practices and children’s adjust-ment. Of the 14 comparisons, only 3 weresignificant. Two of these differences involved gen-der and these differences did not suggest a con-sistent pattern.

Parenting Practices and Adolescents’Self-Reports of Adjustment in Wave 2

The next stage of our analysis turned to adoles-cents’ self-reports of adjustment in 1992–1994. Ingeneral, the associations between parents’ reportsof support, monitoring, and harsh punishment in1987–1988 and adolescents’ self-reports of out-comes in 1992–1994 were comparable to thoseshown Table 3. Parental support predicted chil-dren’s self-esteem (b 5 .06, p , .10) and grades(b 5 .07, p , .05). Parental monitoring predictedlower levels of children’s deviance (b 5 2.17, p, .01). And parents’ use of harsh punishment pre-dicted lower self-esteem (b 5 2.05, p , .10) andgrades (b 5 2.08, p , .05). These coefficientswere weaker than those reported in Table 3, pre-sumably for two reasons: (a) different sources ofdata were used for independent (parenting) vari-ables and dependent (child adjustment) variables,and hence, common method variance could notinflate the associations, and (b) children’s behav-ior at T2 was measured 5 years after parents’ be-havior at T1. In a supplementary analysis, we add-ed parents’ ratings of children’s well-being at T1

as additional predictors in the model but respon-dents’ ratings of their parenting behavior contin-ued to have significant associations with children’swell-being at T2 comparable to those just noted.Overall, these associations—although modest—are consistent with the general model of parentingpractices described earlier.

The third column of Table 4 shows the resultsof analyses based on multigroup models for the

1992–1994 data. In no comparison were modelswith constrained parameters significantly differentfrom models with unconstrained parameters.These results provide no evidence that the longi-tudinal associations between parenting practicesand children’s outcomes depended on parents’race, family structure, education, income, or gen-der.

Supplementary Analysis

One might argue that more is meant by social con-text than simply being Black rather than White, orbeing a married parent rather than a single parent.Defining an ecological niche in these broadstrokes almost certainly underestimates the degreeof variability within general social categories.Consequently, it may be necessary to consider theintersection of multiple dimensions of diversity(gender, race, family structure, and class) to delin-eate families that occupy distinctly different po-sitions in the social structure. A difficulty of thisapproach, of course, is that as the number of di-mensions used to specify groups increases, thenumber of cases in one’s sample decreases cor-respondingly.

Nevertheless, in an attempt to capture the no-tion of context more accurately, we constructedtwo specific groups from the 1987–1988 data fora more rigorous comparison: White married moth-ers and Black single mothers. The sample sizesfor the two groups were 509 and 145, respective-ly, among young children, and 517 and 150, re-spectively, among adolescents. Although we didnot rely on income to form these groups, the meanincome in the former group was about $37,000compared with about $9,000 in the latter group.In spite of the obvious differences between thesetwo groups, a multigroup analysis (not shown) re-vealed no significant difference in the overall pat-tern of associations between parenting variablesand child outcomes among young children (x2 dif-ference 5 9.2, df 5 9, ns) or adolescents (x2 dif-ference 5 15.48, df 5 9, ns). These results indi-cate that even within these two ostensiblydifferent groups, the general pattern of linkagesbetween parenting practices and child outcomeswas comparable.

DISCUSSION

The goal of this study was to see if the associa-tions between parenting practices and aspects ofchild functioning vary across basic dimensions of

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family diversity. We considered two perspectives.The first states that the widely accepted model ofeffective parenting (high support, high monitor-ing, and avoidance of harsh punishment) is appli-cable in some, but not in all, family contexts. Astronger form of this first perspective holds thatthe model of effective parenting identified in priorresearch is relevant mainly to advantaged children(that is, to White, middle-class children livingwith both biological parents). The second per-spective, in contrast, holds that the benefits of ef-fective parenting are shared widely by children,irrespective of family context.

We began by constructing measures of threedimensions of parenting based on parents’ an-swers to questions on the NSFH1 interview. Con-sistent with expectations, these items formed threefactors that appeared to correspond to parentalsupport, monitoring, and harsh punishment. Alsoconsistent with prior research, scores on thesescales (with the exception of monitoring) were as-sociated in the expected direction with parents’reports of children’s adjustment, school grades,and behavior problems. We also examined asso-ciations between parents’ reports of parental be-havior in 1987–1988 and children’s reports of out-comes in 1992–1994 using the NSFH2. Becausecommon method variance could not inflate thesecorrelations, this set of analyses provided a morestringent test of the hypothesis that parenting prac-tices are linked with child outcomes. Although thelatter analysis yielded associations that were mod-est in magnitude, the general pattern of results wasconsistent with the parenting literature: Childrenwere doing best when parents exhibited a highlevel of support, monitored their children’s behav-ior, and avoided harsh punishment.

Although the analysis restricted to the 1987–88 data did not reveal evidence that parental mon-itoring was related to children’s adjustment (Table3), parental monitoring emerged as a significantlongitudinal predictor of children’s deviance in1992–1994. That is, when parents engaged in highlevels of monitoring when children were betweenthe ages of 5 and 11, children reported less de-viance (being truant from school, having sexualintercourse, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol,and using marijuana) approximately 5 years later.These results suggest that early parental monitor-ing may help children to refrain from troublingand potentially dangerous behaviors during theiradolescent years, perhaps because firm parentalcontrol facilitates the internalization of parentalvalues and the capacity to engage in self-control.

Having shown that the three parenting vari-ables performed in ways congruent with prior re-search, our next goal was to examine interactionsbetween the parenting dimensions and parents’race, ethnicity, family structure, socioeconomicstatus (education and income), and gender. Per-haps the most interesting finding to emerge fromthis analysis was a trend for parental monitoringto be related to positive adolescent functioningmore strongly among single parents than marriedparents. The importance of monitoring among sin-gle parents presumably reflects the fact that onlyone parent, rather than two, is available in thehousehold. Hence, single parents may need to beespecially vigilant to protect their children fromengaging in deviant behavior.

Overall, however, our analysis revealed littleevidence that the associations between parentingpractices and child outcomes differed acrossgroups. Moreover, we found little evidence ofcontextual effects even when groups as differentas (a) White, married, non-poor mothers and (b)Black, single, poor mothers were compared. Ourdata, therefore, provide the strongest support forthe second perspective described earlier, that is,that the dimensions of effective parenting can begeneralized across a range of social contexts. Thisconclusion does not mean that optimal parentalbehavior is identical for every child. It is likely,for example, that parents living in dangerousneighborhoods need to exercise more caution withtheir children than do parents living in safe neigh-borhoods. Also, it seems plausible that well-edu-cated parents have to expend less effort to facili-tate their children’s academic success than dopoorly educated parents. Nevertheless, our anal-ysis provides little support for the notion that amodel of effective parenting based on support,monitoring, and the avoidance of harsh punish-ment is appropriate only for White, married par-ents in middle-class households. The search forgroup differences in the effects of parenting (orany other family process) may require studies thattarget more narrowly defined groups occupyingmore specialized niches in the social order thanwe were able to accomplish in the project de-scribed in this article.

We believe that this conclusion is generallyconsistent with prior literature taken as a whole.Although some previous studies (contrary to thepresent study) report variations in the links be-tween parenting practices and child outcomes,these variations appear only for some groups,some parenting practices, and some outcomes,

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with relatively little consistency across or evenwithin studies. For example, Deater-Deckard et al.(1996) found a significant positive association be-tween parents’ use of harsh punishment and chil-dren’s externalizing behavior for European Amer-ican children but not for African Americanchildren, at least when children’s behavior was re-ported by teachers or peers. But the associationwas significant and positive for European Amer-ican and African American children when chil-dren’s behavior was reported by mothers. Fur-thermore, a racial difference was apparent whenthe investigators focused on parents’ use of mod-erately harsh discipline but not when the investi-gators focused on parents’ use of abusive disci-pline, which was linked to elevated levels ofexternalizing behavior in both groups of children(Deater-Deckard & Dodge 1997). Similarly, Stein-berg et al. (1991) found that authoritative parent-ing was positively associated with school gradesamong White and Latino adolescents, but notamong Asians or African Americans. Other anal-yses based on their data, however, revealed thatthe links between parenting practices and chil-dren’s externalizing and internalizing behavior didnot vary with racial, social class, or family struc-ture (Steinberg, Lamborn, Darling, Mounts, &Dornbusch, 1994). Support for the hypothesis ofcontextual effects requires the demonstration ofconsistent, replicable trends across groups. Al-though a meta-analysis of this literature may clar-ify the current state of knowledge, available evi-dence suggests relatively few consistent,replicable contextual effects. In the absence ofstrong evidence otherwise, researchers should ac-cept the most parsimonious model consistent withthe data.

The study reported in this article was not with-out limitations. First, the NSFH interview was notdesigned to measure parenting in its full complex-ity. For this reason, we were forced to rely on aless-than-ideal pool of items to construct our mea-sures. Although a confirmatory factor analysis in-dicated that the NSFH items clustered into com-ponents that were consistent with prior literature,measurement would have been stronger with amore comprehensive battery of items. For theyounger children in our study, the item loadingsfor monitoring were modest, which may accountfor the small number of significant findings forthis factor. Furthermore, we were forced to omitsome dimensions of parenting from consideration,such as induction (providing explanations to chil-dren), support for autonomy, and democratic con-

trol (Barber, Olson, & Shagle, 1994; Furstenberg,Cook, Eccles, Edler, & Sameroff, 1999; Gray &Steinberg, 1999). Dimensions of parenting un-measured in the present study may yield strongerevidence of contextual effects than we were ableto uncover.

Our study also was limited with respect to therange of families that could be incorporated intothe design. Even with a large sample, the numberof Mexican Americans was relatively low, result-ing in a decline in statistical power to detect groupdifferences. Moreover, there were not enough cas-es of Cuban Americans, Puerto Ricans, or AsianAmerican families for analysis. Group differencesmight have emerged if a larger range of racial andethnic groups had been available. In addition,some of our categories, such as single-parent fam-ily, were defined broadly, and the consequencesof some parental behaviors might vary with fac-tors such as the presence of extended kin in thehousehold.

In summary, our results suggest that a core ofparental practices benefits (or harms) childrenacross a variety of contexts. The importance ofspecific parenting behaviors for child developmentdoes not appear to depend on whether parents arepoorly educated or well-educated, Black or White,married or single, mothers or fathers. When par-ents spend time with children, help with home-work, talk about problems, provide encourage-ment, and show affection, children do well. Whenparents provide a high level of monitoring andexpect their children to follow family rules, ado-lescents engage in less deviant behavior. Finally,when parents rely on hitting and yelling as fre-quent methods of responding to children’s mis-behavior, children’s well-being declines. AsDemo, Allen, and Fine (2000, p. 2) pointed out,family research tends to emphasize differences inthe experiences of various groups, but studyingfamily diversity also requires that we attend to thecommonalities shared by all types of families. Theextent to which a common core of optimal par-enting practices appears across diverse social andcultural settings can be determined through addi-tional studies that explore large, national data sets,as well as studies that focus specifically on fam-ilies occupying particular ecological niches in thesocial structure.

NOTE

We thank Nan Crouter and David Johnson for helpfuladvice on an earlier draft of this article.

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