Socioeconomic Status, Parenting, and Externalizing Problems in African American Single Mother Homes: A Person-Oriented Approach

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Anton, Margaret
- Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience

Abstract

African American youth, particularly those from single mother homes, are overrepresented in statistics on externalizing problems. Parenting has been identified as a central context in which to understand youth externalizing problems; however, research on African American families has primarily relied on parenting constructs and norms developed with middle income, intact, European American families. The current study demonstrated that 1) a person-oriented approach elucidates variability in parenting practices ,<italic>within</italic> African American single mother families; 2) patterns in the data suggest that SES predicts variability in parenting style; and 3) parenting style and income were related to youth externalizing behavior, and that the relationship between Permissive and Disengaged parenting and youth externalizing problems depended on maternal income level. Findings have implications for understanding the specific maternal parenting and socioeconomic contexts in which externalizing problems are most likely to occur within this at-risk, yet relatively underserved group.

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