Black Families and the Moynihan Report: A Research Evaluation

The major hypothesis of the Moynihan Report posits that the black family socializes children very differently from the way that the white family socializes children. It thus produces more antisocial behavior, ineffective education, and lower levels of occupational attainment. The current study employs data collected from a random sample of the 14-18 year old population of Illinois and examines the joint effects of race, gender, social class, and family organization on a number of indicators of family interaction, antisocial behavior patterns, educational aspirations, and gender role conceptions. Few differences were found in the ways that families treat their children, and these differences were not concentrated in the lower class. Even in the lower-class broken family, there was no indication that black families are dramatically different from white families. Thus, in terms of delinquency, educational expectations, perceptions of the education desired by the parents, self conceptions, and notions of appropriate gender role behavior of adults, the empirical evidence does not provide adequate support for the conclusions of the Moynihan Report.