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Economic Hardship, Neighborhood Context, and Parenting: Prospective Effects on Mexican–American Adolescent’s Mental Health

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American Journal of Community Psychology

Abstract

This study examined family and neighborhood influences relevant to low-income status to determine how they combine to predict the parenting behaviors of Mexican–American mothers and fathers. The study also examined the role of parenting as a mediator of these contextual influences on adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Study hypotheses were examined in a diverse sample of Mexican–American families in which 750 mothers and 467 fathers reported on their own levels of parental warmth and harsh parenting. Family economic hardship, neighborhood familism values, and neighborhood risk indicators were all uniquely associated with maternal and paternal warmth, and maternal warmth mediated the effects of these contextual influences on adolescent externalizing symptoms in prospective analyses. Parents’ subjective perceptions of neighborhood danger interacted with objective indicators of neighborhood disadvantage to influence maternal and paternal warmth. Neighborhood familism values had unique direct effects on adolescent externalizing symptoms in prospective analyses, after accounting for all other context and parenting effects.

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Acknowledgements

Work on this paper was supported, in part, by grant MH 68920 (Culture, context, and Mexican–American mental health), grant T-32-MH18387 to support training in prevention research, and the Cowden Fellowship program of the School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University. The authors are thankful for the support of Marisela Torres, Jaimee Virgo, our Community Advisory Board and interviewers, and the families who participated in the study.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Arizona State Univeristy, P.O. Box 871104, Tempe, AZ, 85287-1104, USA

    Nancy A. Gonzales, Stefany Coxe, George P. Knight & Delia Saenz

  2. School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Mark W. Roosa, Rebecca M. B. White & Katharine H. Zeiders

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  1. Nancy A. Gonzales
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  2. Stefany Coxe
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Correspondence to Nancy A. Gonzales.

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Gonzales, N.A., Coxe, S., Roosa, M.W. et al. Economic Hardship, Neighborhood Context, and Parenting: Prospective Effects on Mexican–American Adolescent’s Mental Health. Am J Community Psychol 47, 98–113 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-010-9366-1

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