parenting, race, and socioeconomic status: links to school...

ARYN M. DOTTERER Purdue University

IHEOMA U. IRUKA AND ELIZABETH PUNGELLO The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill*

Parenting, Race, and Socioeconomic Status: Links

to School Readiness

This study examined the link between socio-economic status (SES) and school readiness,testing whether parenting (maternal sensitivityand negative behavior/intrusiveness) and finan-cial stress mediated this association and if racemoderated these paths. Participants included164 mother-child dyads from African Americanand European American families. Findings sup-ported moderated mediation hypotheses: mater-nal sensitivity mediated the link between SES andschool readiness for European Americans only;maternal negative/intrusive behaviors mediatedthe link between SES and school readiness forboth European Americans and African Amer-icans. These results indicate that the meaningand effects of parenting behaviors can vary byracial groups, and findings obtained for Euro-pean American families cannot be assumed toapply to ethnic minority families as well. Amongthe implications of these findings is that pro-grams aimed at increasing school readiness andclosing the achievement gap need to be mindfulof the cultural context in which children areraised.

Human Development and Family Studies, 1200 W. StateSt., Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2055([email protected]).

*Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, TheUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill,NC 27599.

Key Words: parenting, race, school readiness, socioeco-nomic status.

The achievement gap continues to be a nationalconcern, as low-income and ethnic minoritychildren perform at levels below those ofchildren from higher income families andEuropean American children. The economicimpact of the achievement gap is tremendous; theMcKinsey & Company (2009) report notes thatthe persistence of these achievement gaps wouldbe the economic equivalent of a permanentnational recession. Federal funding of earlyeducation programs designed to enhance schoolreadiness among at-risk children (due to race andincome) is one way social policies are workingto combat the achievement gap (e.g., HeadStart). Consideration of the home environment,however, children’s first learning context, iscritical when exploring strategies to address theachievement gap, especially in light of researchshowing that these gaps are evident prior towhen children begin formal schooling (Lee &Burkham, 2002). A recent report released byChild Trends (Halle et al., 2009) documentsincome, racial, and ethnic gaps as early as 9 and24 months in the Early Childhood LongitudinalStudy-Birth Cohort, a nationally representativesample of children. Yet, processes explainingthe origins of these gaps remain unclear. Thus,research is needed that explores the processesthrough which income and race are linked tochildren’s school readiness.

There is no one agreed upon definition ofschool readiness, as researchers have definedschool readiness in many ways, including chil-dren’s cognitive skills, socioemotional skills,and attentional skills (Duncan et al., 2007).

Family Relations 61 (October 2012): 657 – 670 657DOI:10.1111/j.1741-3729.2012.00716.x

658 Family Relations

In the present study, the focus is on chil-dren’s cognitive skills, specifically pre-academicknowledge in children 36 months of age, theage at which many children begin to attendpreschool and early learning programs such asHead Start. Guided by the ecological model(Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1983) the currentstudy posited that socioeconomic status andfinancial stress are distal factors that will be indi-rectly associated with children’s pre-academicknowledge through their association with theproximal variables of parenting behaviors. Fur-ther, some researchers suggest that the meaningof certain aspects of parenting may vary by eth-nicity (Garcia Coll, 1990). Therefore, the presentstudy investigated whether race moderated thelinks between socioeconomic status, parenting,and pre-academic knowledge. That is, are thepaths linking socioeconomic status (SES), par-enting, and pre-academic knowledge similar ordifferent between African American and Euro-pean American families?

Socioeconomic Status and School Readiness

Researchers investigating school readiness haveoften considered the role of SES. Although thereis no one agreed upon definition of SES, scholarshave conceptualized SES as income, education,occupation, welfare recipient, or some combina-tion of these factors. Some researchers prefer touse education because it tends to be more stable(Tamis-LeMonda, Briggs, McClowry, & Snow,2009), especially compared to income, whichmay fluctuate over time (Dearing, McCartney, &Taylor, 2001). Although education and incomeare strongly related, SES measures that combinetwo or more indicators accounted for the great-est amount of variance in children’s achievement(White, 1982).

Numerous research studies have found thatchildren from low-SES households have lowerschool readiness and academic competencecompared to their higher SES peers (Zill,Collins, West, & Hausken, 1995). Analysesof the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) by West,Denton, and Germino-Hausken (2000) indicatedthat children from low-SES homes had a lowerperformance on cognitive and language assess-ments at kindergarten entry compared to childrenfrom higher income homes. Specifically, chil-dren with more highly educated mothers hadhigher average reading proficiency and print

familiarity than children from less educatedhomes. The pattern was similar for childrenwho were in households that did not receivewelfare services compared to children who werein households that did. Similarly, an exami-nation of younger children (i.e., 24 months)in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort found that infants and toddlersfrom low-income households scored lower oncognitive assessments compared to infants andtoddlers from higher income households (Halleet al., 2009).

Parenting and School Readiness

A large body of research documents the stronglink between SES and children’s outcomes; assuch, researchers have turned to determiningthe mechanisms that account for the asso-ciations between SES and children’s schoolreadiness. Parenting has been identified as apotential mediator, explaining the link betweenSES and children’s cognitive and achieve-ment outcomes (Davis-Kean, 2005; Lugo-Gil& Tamis-LeMonda, 2008). Parents with higherSES may have financial resources that allowthem to provide stimulating and enriching envi-ronments for their children. Parental educationmay also affect how parents interact with theirchildren. Parental educational attainment is asso-ciated with sensitive parenting in early child-hood (Tamis-LeMonda, Shannon, Cabrera, &Lamb, 2004).

Studies have suggested that differences inparenting between socioeconomic groups are,in part, responsible for the disparities in chil-dren’s development (Brooks-Gunn & Markman,2005; Lugo-Gil & Tamis-LeMonda, 2008).For example, Hart and Risley (1992, 1995)found that low-income mothers compared tohigher income mothers were less responsive toand interactive with their children, and Raviv,Kessenich, and Morrison (2004) found thatmaternal sensitivity was associated with chil-dren’s language at 36 months. Further, sensitiveand nurturing parenting has been linked to betterschool readiness outcomes for children, includ-ing early language knowledge and literacy devel-opment (Birch & Ladd, 1996; Dodici, Draper,& Peterson, 2003; Parker, Boak, Griffin, Ripple,& Peay, 1999; Pianta, 1997; Pianta, Nimetz, &Bennett, 1997; Pianta & Walsh, 1996). Tamis-LeMonda, Bornstein, and Baumwell (2001)found that maternal responsiveness during

SES, Race, Parenting and School Readiness 659

infancy and early toddlerhood was associatedwith children’s achievement of language mile-stones, and Mistry, Biesanz, Taylor, Burchinal,and Cox (2004) found that maternal sensitivitywas significantly associated with expressive andcomprehensive language skills at 36 months ofage. In a sample of low-income African Amer-ican children, Connell and Prinz (2002) foundthat parent-child interactions characterized asstructured and responsive to the child’s needswere positively related to school readiness.

Negative intrusive parenting has receivedless attention in studies of children’s schoolreadiness. This dimension of parenting behaviorrefers to the degree to which the parent interfereswith the child’s needs, interests, or behaviorsabove and beyond the developmental or safetyneeds of the child. Intrusive and controllingbehaviors include unnecessarily restraining thechild, consistently disrupting the child’s effortswith the parent’s own bids for attention, or ver-bally controlling the child with repeated andunnecessary direction. These behaviors reflectthe parent’s imposition of her or his own agendaonto the child and a failure to understand andrecognize the child’s effort to gain autonomyand self-efficacy (Egeland, Pianta, & O’Brien,1993). Characterized by highly controlling andnegative behavior directed toward the child,negative intrusiveness can undermine children’sautonomy and confidence and has been linkedto negative child outcomes, including regulatoryand socioemotional problems (Heller & Baker,2000; Mistry, Melsch, & Taheri-Kenari, 2003;Rubin, Burgess, Sawyer, & Hastings, 2003) andlower academic achievement (Culp, Hubbs-Tait,Culp, & Starost, 2000).

Maternal negativity is also related to SES.Belsky, Bell, Bradley, Stallard, and Stewart-Brown (2007) found that income-to-needsratio and maternal education were negativelycorrelated with maternal negativity (negativeregard or harshness), such that lower incomeand lower education were associated withmore maternal negativity. Tamis-LeMondaet al. (2009) found that African Americanmothers with more education were morelikely to use maternal sensitivity (e.g., positiveaffect, responsiveness) than maternal control(e.g., negative affect, intrusiveness) duringparent-child interactions, whereas mothers withless education showed equivalent levels ofsensitivity and control during parent-childinteractions.

Lugo-Gil and Tamis-LeMonda (2008) exam-ined parenting quality as the mechanism linkingSES and cognitive development. Parenting qual-ity was measured with direct assessments ofparent-child interactions (maternal sensitivity,positive regard, and cognitive stimulation) andthe quality of the home environment using theHOME scale. The researchers found that familyresources, including family income and maternaleducation, indirectly affected children’s cogni-tive development via parenting quality. Mistry,Biesanz, Chien, Howes, and Benner (2008) alsoexamined linkages among SES, parenting, andchildren’s cognitive development. In this study,SES was operationalized as income-to-needsratio, maternal education, and welfare receipt;parenting included an observational assessmentof maternal sensitivity, cognitive stimulation,and positive regard termed maternal support-ivenss as well as language and literacy stimu-lation in the home environment, and parentingstress. Results indicated that SES significantlypredicted maternal supportiveness, language andliteracy stimulation, and parenting stress. Mater-nal supportiveness and language and literacystimulation in turn predicted children’s cognitivedevelopment. These studies provide empiricalsupport for the role of parenting in explain-ing links between SES and children’s cogni-tive development. This research, however, hasfocused on low-income populations, and it isunclear to what extent these relations hold acrossvarious levels of SES.

Race Variations in SES, Parenting, and SchoolReadiness

Determining the linkage between SES, parent-ing, and school readiness is made more complexby the confound between SES and race. Over60% of African American children in the UnitedStates under the age of 6 live in low-incomehouseholds compared to 30% of White children(Kreider & Fields, 2005; National Center forChildren in Poverty, 2007; Proctor & Dalaker,2003). Duncan and Magnuson (2005) contendedthat the Black-White school readiness gap par-allels the economic gap between racial groups,an indication of the difficulty in ascertaining theunique relations between SES and race and chil-dren’s pre-academic knowledge. Work by Coley(2002) using the ECLS-K data set indicated thatnearly all racial and ethnic gaps in reading andmath disappeared when SES was taken into


account. Yeung and Conley (2008), however,did not find that family income mediated theBlack-White score gap in language skills, liter-acy, and problem solving in children ages 3 – 12.Complicating this issue is the potential notionthat the meaning of income or SES may notbe equitable across racial groups because ethnicminority children are more likely to experience‘‘a range of cumulative, chronic, and deleteriousdisadvantage’’ (Raver, Gershoff, & Aber, 2007,p. 112).

Further, the link between SES, parenting,and school readiness may vary by race. Studieshave noted the differential association betweenparenting and child outcomes across ethnicgroups (Baldwin, Baldwin, & Cole, 1990;Deater-Deckard & Dodge, 1997; Dornbusch,Ritter, & Steinberg, 1991). At times, AfricanAmerican parenting has been viewed as beingharsher and stricter compared to EuropeanAmerican parenting. When African Americanparenting is seen to occur within a broadersociohistorical context of poverty, prejudice,discrimination, and disenfranchisement, and tobe more influenced by religion and familialvalues (Brooks-Gunn & Markman, 2005; GarciaColl et al., 1996; Julian, McKenry, & McKelvey,1994; McAdoo, 1988; Phinney & Landin, 1998),however, it is viewed as strength based.

Research also suggests that parenting may belinked differently to child outcomes for AfricanAmerican children compared to EuropeanAmerican children (for reviews, see Bugental& Grusec, 2006; Ispa et al., 2004). In theirexamination of whether parenting and materialresources were the mechanisms through whichincome was linked to children’s cognitive skillsand socioemotional competence in kindergarten,Raver and colleagues (2007) found materialresources to be a mediator across racial andethnic groups, but they also found that parentingprocesses, such as warmth and provisionof stimulating activities, mediated the linkbetween income and children’s outcomes, withthe magnitude of this finding varying acrossethnic groups (unstandardized coefficient was1.93 for European Americans and 1.31 forAfrican Americans). Previous research indicatesthat observations of parenting, and AfricanAmerican parenting in particular, may includeboth sensitive and controlling behaviors (Tamis-LeMonda et al., 2009), sometimes called ‘‘nononsense parenting’’ or ‘‘tough love’’ (Baldwinet al., 1990; Brody & Flor, 1998). Thus, there

is a need to examine whether parenting as amechanism linking SES and children’s schoolreadiness differs for African American andEuropean American children.

A further aim of this study was to under-stand mechanisms that may explain the linkbetween SES and parenting, and subsequently tochildren’s pre-academic knowledge. The finan-cial stress paradigm postulated by Conger andcolleagues (1992, 1993) contends that, whenparents have limited income or resources, theyare more likely to feel stress related to thislack of income, which in turn hinders their abil-ity to be responsive to their child’s needs. Intheir examination of this model, Conger et al.(1992, 1993) found that economic pressure ledto parental depression and disrupted parental dis-cipline, which in turn led to poor behavior for 12-to 14-year-old adolescents. Testing this modelwith preschool-age children, Linver, Brooks-Gunn, and Kohen (2002) found that income waslinked to young children’s cognitive develop-ment through maternal distress and parentingpractices. African American families and chil-dren are more likely to live in poverty and tobe exposed to more stressors beyond income(McLoyd, 1990); thus there is a potential thatthis paradigm may be more relevant for AfricanAmericans than for European Americans.

Current Study

The current study explored two pathways thatmight explain the association between SES andchildren’s pre-academic knowledge. The firstmodel included only parenting, and the secondmodel added financial stress to the analysis. Wealso were interested in testing the comparabilityof these models for African American andEuropean American children. The researchquestions guiding this study were (a) doesparenting mediate the association between SESand pre-academic knowledge and does racemoderate this association and (b) does financialstress mediate the path from SES to parentingand pre-academic knowledge, and does racemoderate this association?

METHOD

Participants

Participants (N = 164) were drawn from anurban community via fliers and postings at birth


and parenting classes as well as through mail-ings and phone contact inviting participation ina longitudinal study of child health and develop-ment. To reduce the typical confound betweenSES and race, recruitment was focused onfour groups: African American middle-income,African American low-income, European Amer-ican middle-income, and European Americanlow-income families (these groups were used toguide recruitment only, not for analytic pur-poses). Fifty-seven percent (n = 94) of theparticipating families were African American,and 43% (n = 70) were European American.Mother-child dyads were all the same race.The sex distribution of children was compa-rable across the race groups, with 48% of theEuropean American children being girls and52% of the African American children beinggirls. At the 3-month time point (the first timepoint in the original study), maternal aver-age years of education was 13.46 (SD = 2.68;range = 10 – 20) for African Americans and15.54 (SD = 2.50; range = 10 – 20) for Euro-pean Americans; the difference was significant,t (162) = 5.07, p = .01. Despite recruitmentgoals, preliminary analyses revealed a signif-icant income difference between the two racegroups; the income-to-needs ratio averaged 3.99(SD = 2.95) for European Americans and 2.32(SD = 1.99) for African Americans, t(159) =4.00, p < .01. The average family size wasapproximately four, and family size was notsignificantly different across racial groups. Mar-ital status and race were not independent, χ2(3,164) = 10.68, p < .05; European Americanfamilies were more likely to be married orcohabiting (90% of European American com-pared to 70% of African American families; atotal of seven families in each group were clas-sified as cohabitating specifically), and AfricanAmerican families were more likely to be sin-gle, never-married (26% of African Americanfamilies compared to 8% of European Americanfamilies).

Measures and Procedure

Control variables. Mother’s verbal ability wasassessed with the Peabody Picture VocabularyTest-III (Dunn & Dunn, 1997). The PPVT-III isan untimed measure that assesses an examinee’slevel of vocabulary acquisition. Marital statusand child gender were also used as controlvariables.

SES. Mothers provided information on familyincome and their education level at child ages 3,6, 12, 30, and 36 months. Each family’s income-to-needs ratio (INR) was computed by dividingthe total family income by the poverty thresholdfor the appropriate family size, as determinedby the U.S. Department of Health and HumanServices. An index for SES was created bystandardizing INR and maternal education leveland taking the average of these variables acrossthe time points. Bivariate correlations of SESacross the four time points revealed consistencyacross time, with stability coefficients rangingfrom .78 to .92.

Parenting behaviors. Maternal behavior wasobserved during a 10-minute semi-structuredmother-child free-play episode at 12 monthsof child age and during a 10-minute puzzlecompletion task at 24 months and 36 months ofchild age. Both tasks were conducted duringlaboratory visits with the mother and child. Forthe free-play task, mothers and children werepresented with a standardized set of toys andasked to play as they normally would duringthe day; the interaction lasted for 10 minutes.For the puzzle task, mothers and children wereseated at a table, a puzzle was placed beforethem, and the pieces were removed. Motherswere informed that this was a task for the child,but they could help in any way they wanted.After the completion of the first puzzle, a second(and third if necessary) puzzle of increasingdifficulty was given to the child. If the thirdpuzzle was completed before the 10 minutes hadpassed, the mother was asked to continue playingwith the child and third puzzle for the remainderof the time. The mother-child interactions ateach time point were videotaped for later coding.

Trained and reliable coders assessed sevendimensions of maternal behavior adapted fromEgeland and Heister (1995) and the NICHDEarly Child Care Research Network (1997).Each behavioral dimension was double codedon a 5-point scale at 12 months and a 7-pointscale at 24 months and 36 months (for the cur-rent analyses, the 7-point scale was calibratedto make it comparable with a 5-point range anddistribution). Interrater disparities were resolvedby conferencing. Coders were not race matchedwith participant families; rather African Amer-ican and European American coders were ran-domly assigned. Every pair of coders maintaineda minimum .80 intraclass correlation on each


dimension, which included the following: (a) aglobal sensitivity scale that rated the mother’sresponses to the child’s signals of emotional andphysical needs (e.g., responds warmly to childbids and anticipates the physical and emotionalneeds of her child); (b) an intrusiveness scale thatrated the degree to which the mother imposedher agenda on her child (e.g., physically restrain-ing the child or dominating the interaction withunnecessary verbal direction); (c) a detachmentscale that rated the mother’s emotional involve-ment and degree of physical activity with thechild (e.g., rarely making eye contact, verbalinteraction, or responses to children’s bids);(d) a positive regard scale that measured themother’s positive affect and delight in inter-acting with her child (e.g., warm vocal tone,physical affection, and smiling); (e) a negativeregard scale that rated maternal expressions ofnegative affect and behaviors toward the child(e.g., disapproval, harsh physical manipulation,unexplained punishment); (f) an animation scalethat rated the mother’s enthusiasm for her child(e.g., enthusiastic vocal tone and facial anima-tion); and (g) a stimulation of development scalethat rated mother’s cognitive stimulation of thechild (e.g., labeling materials, encouraging ver-balizations, and relating ongoing activities tobeyond the current context). The validity ofthese scales is supported by work demonstratingtheir convergent validity with other measures ofthe home environment such as the Home Obser-vation for Measurement of the Environment(NICHD Early Child Care Research Network,2006), as well as their predictive validity withinsocioeconomically and ethnically diverse sam-ples (Mills-Koonce et al., 2007) and specificallywithin African American subsamples (Propper,Willoughby, Halpern, Cox, & Carbone, 2007).

From the 12-month observations, compositevariables were constructed from these scalesbased on a principal factor analysis followedby a promax (oblique) rotation for identifyingpatterns of underlying structure. A scree test sug-gested only two meaningful factors. In interpret-ing the rotated factor pattern, an item was said toload on a given factor if the loading was .40 orgreater for that factor and was less than .40 forany other factor. Using these criteria, five itemsloaded on the first factor and two items loadedon the second factor. An overall composite forsensitive parenting was created by summingthe global sensitivity, detachment (reversed),positive regard, animation, and stimulation of

development scales (factor loadings were .94,.78, .84, .62, and .85, respectively). An overallcomposite for negative/intrusive behavior wascreated by summing the intrusiveness and nega-tive regard scales (factor loadings were .61 and.67, respectively). The intraclass correlations forthe sensitivity and negative/intrusive compos-ites were .90 and .85, respectively. At 24 and36 months, principal factor analysis followed bypromax (oblique) rotation was conducted andproduced a two-factor solution. A sensitivitycomposite and a negative/intrusive compositewere thus created using the same scales at12 months. The scores for the 12-, 24-, and36-month sensitive parenting composites wereaveraged to create the sensitive parenting scoreused in the current analyses, as were the 12-, 24-,and 36-month scores for the negative/intrusivebehaviors.

The factor structure of parent-child obser-vations was similar for African Americansand European Americans. Among both racialgroups, sensitivity, detachment (reversed), pos-itive regard, animation, and stimulation ofdevelopment consistently loaded on one factor(deemed sensitive parenting), and intrusivenessand negative regard consistently loaded on asecond factor. The factor loadings for sen-sitive parenting ranged from .40 to .94 forAfrican Americans and .41 to .92 for Euro-pean Americans. The factor loadings for neg-ative/intrusiveness ranged from .66 to .98 forAfrican Americans and .51 to .89 for EuropeanAmericans. In addition these items were mod-erately to strongly correlated in both groups:correlations among the sensitive parenting itemsranged from .32 to .73 for African Americansand from .55 to .75 for European Americans;negative/intrusive items were correlated at .69for African Americans and .58 for EuropeanAmericans.

Financial stress. Mothers reported on percep-tions of financial stress at 12, 30, and 36 monthsof child age. Financial stress was assessed withfour items adapted from the Chronic and AcuteFinancial Problems Measure (Cutrona, 2000),designed to reflect specific needs that cannot bemet because of financial hardship (sample item:‘‘We can afford the home we need’’). Partici-pants responded to items on a 4-point Likert scaleranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 4 (stronglydisagree). Scores at 12, 30, and 36 months wereaveraged to create an index of financial stress,


with higher scores indicating greater financialstress (α = .81).

Pre-academic knowledge. At 36 months, chil-dren were assessed with the Bracken BasicConcepts Scale (BBCS-R; Bracken, 1998). TheBBCS is an age-normed measure of cognitiveabilities consisting of 11 subtests. The 5 adminis-tered subtests consisted of a 10-item Colors test,a 10-item Letter Identification test, a 14-itemNumbers/Counting test, a 7-item Comparisonstest, and a 20-item Shapes test. Each item wasscored either 1 or 0 for pass or fail. Scores onthe 5 subtests were then summed and convertedinto a standard with a mean of 100 and stan-dard deviation of 15 to create the BBCS SchoolReadiness Composite.

RESULTS

Preliminary Analyses

Table 1 provides the means, standard deviations,and ranges for parenting behaviors, parentingstress, and pre-academic knowledge scores forthe two race groups. Bivariate correlations ofthe variables of interest were conducted byrace group (see Table 2). T tests indicated thatthe racial gap in pre-academic knowledge wasevident at 36 months, with European Americanchildren scoring higher on the Bracken schoolreadiness scale than African American children,t (162) = 6.88, p < .001. SES was positivelycorrelated with pre-academic knowledge, andthis association was stronger among AfricanAmericans (r = .60, p < .001) than amongEuropean Americans (r = .31, p < .01); thisdifference in magnitude was significant, z =−2.38, p < .05. We also tested whether theeffect of race on school readiness remained

Table 1. Descriptive Statistics for Stress, ParentingBehaviors, and School Readiness by Race

AfricanAmerican(n = 94)

EuropeanAmerican(n = 70)

Financial stressM

SDRange

8.312.80

4 – 16

6.692.61

4 – 16Sensitivity

M

SDRange

−0.330.84

−2.51 – 1.73

0.400.69

−1.52 – 1.48Negative/intrusive

M

SDRange

0.380.82

−1.39 – 2.36

−0.480.57

−1.33 – 0.94Pre-academic knowledge

M

SDRange

93.5017.42

65 – 140

112.4417.49

77 – 144

significant when controlling for SES. Ananalysis of covariance indicated that indeedracial differences in school readiness remained,F(2, 163) = 21.37, p < .001.

Path Analysis

Given our goals of examining the mechanismsthat explain why SES is related to schoolreadiness and whether these associations aremoderated by race, we conducted multiple grouppath analyses using MPlus 5.0. Evidence ofmediation was determined by evaluating thesignificance of the indirect effect (Bollen, 1987)and using bias-corrected confidence intervals.

Table 2. Bivariate Correlations by Race (N = 164)

Variables SESFinancialHardship

SensitiveParenting

Negative/IntrusiveParenting

Pre-academicKnowledge

1. SES — −.47∗∗∗ .61∗∗∗ −.55∗∗∗ .60∗∗∗

2. Financial hardship .50∗∗∗ — −.32∗∗ .24∗ −.34∗∗∗

3. Sensitive parenting .41∗∗∗ −.24∗ — −.56∗∗∗ .46∗∗∗

4. Negative/intrusive parenting −.49∗∗∗ .39∗∗∗ −.63∗∗∗ — −.55∗∗∗

5. Pre-academic knowledge .31∗∗ −.08 .37∗∗ −.50∗∗∗ —

Note: African American above the diagonal, European American below the diagonal.∗p < .05, ∗∗p < .01, ∗∗∗p < .001.


This approach was chosen over the causal stepsapproach (Baron & Kenny, 1986) because ofthe limitations associated with that approachsuch as no direct estimate of the size ofthe indirect effect of X on Y or standarderrors to construct confidence limits. Further,a mediation analysis conducted within the pathanalysis framework using MPlus allowed usto test multiple mediators, whereas the causalsteps approach in regression analysis does not.Model fit was assessed by the obtained χ2,Confirmatory Fit Index (CFI), Tucker LewisIndex (TLI), and root mean square error ofapproximation (RMSEA). CFI values above.95, TLI values above .95, and RMSEA valuesbelow .05 are generally considered to indicategood fit (Bentler & Bonett, 1980; Brown &Cudeck, 1993). Models were estimated usingmaximum likelihood. All models includedstatistical controls for mother’s verbal ability,marital status, and child gender. Figures containthe standardized path coefficients, and theindirect effects are presented in text.

Models in which paths were constrained tobe equal for the two groups (African Americansand European Americans) were estimated first.These models did not fit the data (χ2 values wereover 150 and significant at the .000 level, CFIand TFI values were in the .4 range, and RMSEAvalues were in the .3 range). Models in whichthe paths for the two groups were free to varygreatly improved model fit, demonstrating thatit was appropriate to proceed with the multiplegroup models.

Parenting models. We estimated two modelsthat explored parenting behaviors as mediatorsof the SES-Pre-academic knowledge link. Webegan by first examining sensitive parentingfollowed by negative/intrusive parenting. Begin-ning with parental sensitivity, model fit wasgood, χ2(16, 164) = 22.62, p = .12 (χ2 contri-bution for European Americans was 10.80; χ2

contribution for African Americans was 11.81),CFI = .97, TLI = .96, RMSEA = .07. Socioe-conomic status was a significant predictor of sen-sitive parent-child interactions for both AfricanAmericans and European Americans, such thathigher socioeconomic status parents were morelikely to engage in sensitive parent-child inter-actions. Sensitive parent-child interactions inturn was a significant predictor of pre-academicknowledge (see Figure 1), and the indirect effectwas significant, B = .14, SE = .07, p < .05,

FIGURE 1. SENSITIVE PARENT-CHILD INTERACTIONS AS

A MEDIATOR.

.19 .47*

.66***

.25

.57***

.29***

SES

Sensitive Parent-Child Interactions

Pre-AcademicKnowledge

Note: Multiple group path analysis conducted in MPLUS.Model fit statistics: χ2(16, 164) = 22.62, p = .12; CFI =.97; TLI = .96; RMSEA = .07. Path analyses controlled formarital status, mother’s verbal ability, and child gender.Results in bold italics are for African Americans. ∗p < .05,∗∗∗p < .001.

with a 95% confidence interval of 0.003 to 0.30,for European Americans. Sensitive parent-childinteractions did not mediate the relation betweenSES and pre-academic knowledge for AfricanAmericans.

The model for negative/intrusive parentingfit the data well, χ2(16, 164) = 13.24, p = .42(χ2 contribution for European Americans was7.29; χ2 contribution for African Americanswas 5.95), CFI = .99, TLI = .99, RMSEA =.02. SES was a significant predictor of neg-ative/intrusiveness parenting for both AfricanAmericans and European Americans, such thatlower socioeconomic status parents were morelikely to engage in negative/intrusive parent-child interactions. Negative/intrusive parentingwas, in turn, related to pre-academic knowl-edge (see Figure 2), and the indirect effectswere significant, B = .23, SE = .10, p < .05,with a 95% confidence interval of 0.009 to 0.62(European Americans) and B = .13, SE = .05,p < .05, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.008to 0.25 (African Americans).

Financial stress models. Next, we incorporatedfinancial stress into models that included par-enting behaviors in order to test the hypothesisthat economic stress mediated the associationbetween SES and parenting behaviors. The firstmodel examined financial stress and sensitiveparenting as mediators, χ2(17, 164) = 23.58,p = .17 (χ2 contribution for European Amer-icans was 9.38; χ2 contribution for AfricanAmericans was 14.20), CFI = .98, TLI = .96,RMSEA = .06. SES was a significant predictorof financial stress for both African Americansand European Americans, but financial stressdid not, in turn, predict sensitive parenting (see


FIGURE 2. NEGATIVE/INTRUSIVE PARENT CHILD

INTERACTIONS AS A MEDIATOR.

SES

Negative/Intrusive Parent-Child Interactions


-.30***-.50***

.46**

-.03

-.26*

-.76**

Note: Multiple group path analysis conducted in MPLUS.Model fit statistics: χ2(16, 164) = 13.24, p = .42; CFI =.99; TLI = .99; RMSEA = .02. Path analyses controlled formarital status, mother’s verbal ability, and child gender.Results in bold italics are for African Americans. ∗p < .05,∗∗p < .01, ∗∗∗p < .001.

Figure 3). Thus, this model was not supported forAfrican American or European American fami-lies. The second model examined financial stressand negative/intrusive parenting as mediators,χ2(17, 164) = 21.51, p = .15 (χ2 contributionfor European Americans was 10.80; χ2 con-tribution for African Americans was 10.71),CFI = .99, TLI = .98, RMSEA = .04. SES wasa significant predictor of financial stress for bothAfrican Americans and European Americans,but financial stress did not, in turn, predict neg-ative/intrusive parenting (see Figure 4). Thus,this model was not supported by our data.

DISCUSSION

The main goal of this study was to examinethe associations among SES, race, parenting,financial stress, and children’s pre-academicknowledge at 36 months of age in a sampleselected to reduce the confound betweenincome and race. More specifically, we testeda moderated mediation hypothesis, exploringwhether parenting behaviors mediated theassociation between SES and pre-academicknowledge and if race moderated this path. Ourfindings suggest that the factors that mediatethe association between SES and pre-academicknowledge do differ between African Americanfamilies and European American families.

In this sample, negative/intrusive parent-ing was found to mediate the associationbetween SES and children’s pre-academicknowledge scores for both African Americanand European American families such thatas SES decreased, negative/intrusive parentingbehaviors increased, which were in turn associ-ated with children’s lower pre-academic knowl-edge scores. The effect was weaker, however, for

FIGURE 3. FINANCIAL STRESS AND SENSITIVE PARENTING

AS MEDIATORS.

SES

Sensitive Parent-ChildInteractions


Financial Stress

-.30***

-.36***

.11-.12

.49**.14

.13.39

.61**.29**

Note: Multiple group path analysis conducted in MPLUS.Model fit statistics: χ2(17, 164) = 23.58, p = .17; CFI =.98; TLI = .96; RMSEA = .06. Path analyses controlled formarital status, mother’s verbal ability, and child gender.Results in bold italics are for African Americans. ∗∗p < .01,∗∗∗p < .001.

FIGURE 4. FINANCIAL STRESS AND NEGATIVE/INTRUSIVE

PARENTING AS MEDIATORS.

SES

Negative/Intrusive Parent-Child Interactions

Pre-Academic Knowledge

Financial Stress

-.30***-.36***

-.09.07

.42*-.07

-.26*-.78**

-.53***-.28**

Note: Multiple group path analysis conducted in MPLUS.Model fit statistics: χ2(17, 164) = 21.51, p = .15; CFI =.99; TLI = .98; RMSEA = .04. Path analyses controlled formarital status, mother’s verbal ability, and child gender.Results in bold italics are for African Americans. ∗p < .05,∗∗p < .01, ∗∗∗p < .001.

the African American children than for the Euro-pean American children. This finding adds to theliterature that has found associations betweennegative/intrusive parenting and child outcomesto vary by race, with some finding negligibleand others finding even beneficial effects ofmore controlling parenting for African Ameri-can children, especially when also paired withparental warmth (Baldwin et al., 1990; Brody &Flor, 1998; Ispa et al., 2004; McLoyd & Smith,2002; Pungello, Iruka, Dotterer, Mills-Koonce,& Reznick, 2009). The present study also addsto the literature by examining how such par-enting practices may mediate the associationbetween SES and pre-academic knowledge inearly childhood, an important contribution giventhe widespread concern over school readiness.

Some researchers have suggested the moder-ating effect of race on the association betweennegative/intrusive parenting and child outcomes


is due to the different meaning these behav-iors may have across groups (Deater-Decker &Dodge, 1997). Parke and Buriel (2006) sug-gested that although the socialization practicesof many African American families are oftendescribed as harsh and strict, these descrip-tions often neglect to acknowledge the adaptivevalue such strategies may have, given the set-ting in which many African American familiesmust raise their children, with the increased riskassociated with more dangerous neighborhoods.Thus, the environmental context as well as dif-ferences in interpretations of the meaning ofspecific parenting behaviors may contribute tothe moderating effect for race found here.

Race was also found to moderate the pathfrom SES to sensitive parenting to pre-academicknowledge. The pattern differed from that foundfor negative/intrusive parenting in that sensitiveparenting was found to be a significant mediatorfor only the European American families.Although SES was associated with sensitiveparenting for both race groups such that asSES decreased so did sensitive parenting, theindirect effect of sensitive parenting linking SESand pre-academic skills was not significant forAfrican Americans. Whereas much prior workhas demonstrated positive associations betweensensitive parenting and child outcomes (e.g.,Baumwell, Tamis-LeMonda, & Bornstein, 1997;McCabe, Clark, & Barnett, 1999; Mistry et al.,2004), some have failed to find this associationwhen specifically examining cognitive ability.Raver et al. (2007) investigated the associationbetween positive parenting and both socio-emotional and cognitive outcomes in a diversesample and found that although positiveparenting was significantly associated with thesocioemotional competence, the link betweenpositive parenting and cognitive skills wasnot supported. Similarly, in their examinationof the association between the quality ofparent-child interactions and social skills,expressive and receptive communication skills,and school readiness in a sample of low-incomeAfrican American kindergarten aged children,Connell and Prinz (2002) found higher qualityparenting was associated with better social andlanguage skills, but did not find a significantassociation between parenting and overallcognitive performance. Our findings suggestsensitive parenting is a mediator between SESand cognitive ability for European Americanchildren but not for African American children.

Some scholars have suggested that measure-ment issues may play a role in understanding thismoderating effect of race, both in terms of mea-suring cognitive outcomes as well as parenting(see Raver et al., 2007). Concerning measure-ment of cognitive performance, although earliermeasures may not have attended to culturalequivalence issues as much as they might have,most current developers of such tests do addressthis issue specifically in both item developmentand standardization in order to assure assess-ments are culturally fair. For example, with theBracken used here, care was taken to remove biasin items and include a representative sample inthe standardization and development of norms(Bracken, 1998). In contrast, more questionsremain concerning the assessment of parenting,especially on dimensions of parental expressionsof warmth and control (e.g., Simons et al., 2002).

This study also tested whether financial stressaccounted for the associations between SESand parenting in the models, again testing ifrace moderates these paths. The results did notsupport the indirect path through financial stressfor either race group. As noted above, priorresearch has found a link between financial stressand child outcomes via parenting behaviors(Conger et al., 1992, 1993). Conger examinedthese associations with adolescents and theirfamilies, finding increased economic pressure tobe associated with higher parental depressedmood, which, in turn, was associated withpoorer parenting, which, in turn, was associatedwith adolescents’ poor behavior and schoolperformance. Perhaps during the preschoolyears, the path between SES and parentingbehaviors and cognitive outcomes is accountedfor by factors other than financial stress per se.Linver et al. (2002) examined the financial stressmodel with preschool-aged children predictingto cognitive ability and behavior problems,finding that lower family income was associatedwith increased maternal emotional stress, which,in turn, was associated with poorer parentingpractices, which, in turn, were associated withincreased behavior problems. Similar to theresults found here, however, this path was notsupported when predicting to cognitive ability.

The present study provided a unique oppor-tunity to examine mechanisms linking SESand school readiness. Limitations of the studymust be acknowledged, however. First, althoughthe sampling technique drew European Amer-ican and African American participants from


low- and high-SES backgrounds, it must benoted that even in this sample race and SESwere not completely unrelated. Thus, the con-clusions concerning the associations with SESand race need to be interpreted with some cau-tion. Further, the sample only included AfricanAmerican and European American families, thuslimiting the generalizability of the findings toother racial and ethnic groups. Also, the nonex-perimental design results in an inability to makecausal inferences from the data. Finally, anotherlimitation is that other factors that have beenfound to influence cognitive outcomes in youngchildren (e.g., child-care experience, parentalinvolvement, socioemotional behavior) were notincluded in our analysis.

Despite these limitations, the results suggestimportant implications for research concern-ing cognitive outcomes in young children aswell as the implementation of intervention pro-grams aimed at increasing the school readinessof young children at risk for poor academicoutcomes. Concerning research, this work sug-gests the associations between race and youngchildren’s cognitive outcomes may be separateand unique from the SES-school readiness link.Given that race and SES are often confoundedin this literature, care should be taken whenresults are interpreted. Further, these resultsadd to the growing literature suggesting thatthe meaning and effects of different parentingbehaviors can vary by racial groups, and find-ings obtained for European American familiescannot be assumed to apply to ethnic minorityfamilies as well. Additional studies are needed tocomprehensively examine factors that accountfor the different meaning or effect of SESfor European American compared to AfricanAmerican families and children. Here, the asso-ciations between sensitive and negative/intrusiveparenting behaviors and pre-academic knowl-edge in young children were found to varyby race. Further, the models were found todiffer for sensitive and negative/intrusive par-enting. Future work needs to examine bothof these aspects of parenting and not assumethey are different aspects of the same con-struct.

Concerning the implementation of interven-tion programs, this research underscores theimportance of intervening early by adding to thegrowing body of evidence that the achievementgap emerges prior to school entry (Halle et al.,

2009). Also, programs that are aimed at increas-ing school readiness and closing the achievementgap need to be mindful of the cultural contextin which children are raised, being sure to focuson culturally relevant practices that are benefi-cial for children’s development. Findings fromthis study suggest that focusing on enhancingsensitive and responsive parenting and reduc-ing negative/intrusive parent-child interactionsis likely beneficial for children. It is also critical,however, to utilize culturally informed multidi-mensional aspects of parenting, especially whenconcerned with strengthening African Americanchildren’s pre-academic skills, thereby reduc-ing the achievement gap. Furthermore, policiesand funding are needed that support and attendto the early care and development of childrenthrough programs, initiatives, and interventionswhile also considering the interplay betweenfamily economic situations and culture (e.g.,Early Head Start, home visitation programs,etc.). With increased understanding and con-sideration of the full cultural and family contextin which young children are developing and themechanisms by which these factors are associ-ated with young children’s outcomes, programsaimed at increasing the early cognitive andschool readiness capabilities of the most vulner-able children may be more effective in reachingthese goals.

NOTE

This study was supported by The North Carolina ChildDevelopment Research Collaborative, which is funded by theNational Science Foundation through a Children’s ResearchInitiative Grant #BCS-0126475. The authors would like tothank all the families who participated in the Durham ChildHealth and Development Study and the research assistantsfor their valuable help in collecting these data.

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