Faculty Publications

Maternal Warmth: A Re-Examination Of The Role Race And Socioeconomic Status Play

Document Type

Article

Keywords

African-American population, family services, Hispanic/Latino population

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Social Work

Volume

25

Issue

1

First Page

36

Last Page

49

Abstract

Of particular importance to the development of young children is the extent to which parents provide a warm, responsive, and helpful environment. Child well-being is generally maximized when parents support their children and avoid harsh punishments. The purpose of this research is to investigate the role ethnicity plays in the warmth of the relationship between mothers and their children independent of socioeconomic status (SES), social emotional risk of the child, and child-reported relationship with the mother. Using data collected as part of the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project (EHSRE), 647 caregiver/child dyads were studied. Mother’s education, child’s report of mother’s warmth, and child risk of social emotional issues were entered into the regression model as predictors of mother’s reported warmth. Except for mother’s education, all the variables were significantly related to parental warmth at p < 0.5. However, in this sample parents who identified their child as White were less warm (on average) than the other parents in the sample. Implications of this finding are discussed, as well as implications for future research.

Department

School of Applied Human Sciences

Original Publication Date

1-2-2016

DOI of published version

10.1080/15313204.2016.1145089

Repository

UNI ScholarWorks, Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa

Language

en

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