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Parenting, Child Behavior, and Academic and Social Functioning: Does Ethnicity Make a Difference?

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Abstract

Background

Most research on the relation between parenting behaviors and child outcomes has not focused on cross-ethnic variation in these relations.

Objective

This study examined if ethnicity moderates associations between parenting, child agency/persistence, and child academic achievement and social competence.

Design

Participants included 608 parents and their 5-year-old children (96 African American, 117 Hispanic, and 395 European American). Parenting was assessed with the Parent Behavior Inventory (support/engagement, hostility/coercion) and a semi-structured interaction paradigm, the NICHD 3-Boxes Task (scaffolding). Child agency/persistence also was assessed with this task. The Social Skills Rating Scale was used to assess social competence (assertion, cooperation, responsibility, self-control). The Woodcock-Johnson-Achievement Test-3rd Edition was used to assess reading and math.

Results

Child agency/persistence was related to academic achievement and support/engagement and hostility/coercion were related to child social competence. Only a few interaction effects between parenting and ethnicity were significant. Higher levels of scaffolding were related to higher scores in reading and mathematics in African American, but not in European American children. Hostility/coercion was associated with lower reading scores in European American, but not in Hispanic children. Support/engagement was related to higher levels of responsibility in both European American and African American children, but this relation was stronger in European American families.

Conclusions

There are more similarities than differences in the effects of parenting and child variables in different ethnic groups. Higher levels of scaffolding are related to higher reading and math achievement in African American families; thus strategies to increase parental scaffolding may be effective in decreasing the “achievement gap.”

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a National Institute of Mental Health grant RO1MH 063665, Principal Investigator John V. Lavigne. We thank the Chicago Public Schools Department of Early Childhood Education, along with participating school principals and lead teachers, and the pediatric practices in the Pediatric Practice Research Group who participated in this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Illinois Institute of Technology, 3102 South State Street, Suite 252, Chicago, IL, 60616, USA

    Hyo Bae & Joyce Hopkins

  2. Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Karen R. Gouze

  3. Mary Ann and J. Milburn Smith Child Health Research Program, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, Research Center, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA

    John V. Lavigne

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  1. Hyo Bae
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  2. Joyce Hopkins
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  3. Karen R. Gouze
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  4. John V. Lavigne
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Correspondence to Joyce Hopkins.

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Bae, H., Hopkins, J., Gouze, K.R. et al. Parenting, Child Behavior, and Academic and Social Functioning: Does Ethnicity Make a Difference?. Child Youth Care Forum 43, 433–454 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-014-9246-1

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