Ethnic Variations in Personal Social Networks and Parenting

Ecological perspectives emphasize social network influences on child rearing, but do these effects vary with ethnicity, and are they mediated by parental well-being? Low-income parents (N = 500) of ethnically and ecologically diverse backgrounds completed a multidimensional hierarchical social map and measures of parental self-esteem and child-rearing practices. Consistent with prior ethnographic studies, American Indians had frequent interchanges with an interconnected web of kin; Hispanic' parents had large, close-knit social networks but a smaller number of people who provided emotional support; and Anglo parents had structurally diffuse but emotionally supportive networks. Within-ethnicity regression analyses, covarying psychosocial risk, revealed that the affective but not structural dimensions of social networks were consistently related to parenting. Parental self-efficacy was strongly related to child-rearing practices across all ethnic groups, and mediated the effects of social support. Implications for the social ecology of child rearing and the central role of parental self-appraisals are discussed.