A culturally sensitive conceptualization of parental intrusiveness and its effects on child adjustment within Latino families.

UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
Marta Benito-Gomez (Creator)
Institution
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
Advisor
Anne Fletcher

Abstract: The goals of this study were (a) to examine measurement invariance of a traditional observational measure of parenting across European American and Latina mothers, (b) to compare the factor structures of traditional versus culturally informed observational measures among Latina mothers, (c) to examine traditional versus culturally informed observational assessments of Latinx parenting to determine whether early indicators of parental intrusiveness and parental guidance were associated with internalizing and externalizing behaviors during early childhood among Latinx children, (d) to examine whether maternal warmth moderated associations between traditionally versus culturally informed observational measures of parental intrusiveness and guidance, and Latinx children’s adjustment. Parenting behaviors were measured using an observational semi-structured parent-child interaction task during home visits when children were on average 14 and 24 months and children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors were based on mothers reports. Parental intrusiveness and parental guidance were coded using a traditional and a culturally informed coding system. Results indicated partial measurement invariance in parenting behaviors across groups when applying a measure initially developed for European American and middle-class samples to families from Latinx backgrounds. Additionally, findings indicated that during early childhood and within the Latinx cultural context, parental intrusiveness was an indicator of negative parenting, whereas parental guidance was a good indicator of positive parenting. Parental guidance was negatively associated with internalizing behaviors only for children whose mothers showed high levels of warmth. In contrast, parental guidance was negatively associated with externalizing behaviors for children whose mothers showed average and below average levels of warmth. Finally, parental intrusiveness was positively associated with externalizing behaviors for children whose mothers displayed low levels of warmth during a free play task. These findings provide new knowledge that can guide preventive and intervention efforts and have important theoretical and measurement implications that emphasize the use of culturally informed frameworks to better understand the implications of early caregiving experiences for child development within Latinx families.

Additional Information

Publication
Dissertation
Language: English
Date: 2020
Keywords
Culture, Early Childhood, Latino, Parenting
Subjects
Child rearing $v Cross-cultural studies
Parent and child $v Cross-cultural studies

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