African American Adolescent Girls in Impoverished Communities: Quality of Parenting and Adolescent Outcomes

The relationship between parenting style and adolescent functioning was examined in a sample of 302 African American adolescent girls and their mothers who live in impoverished neighborhoods. Although previous research has found that authoritative parenting, as compared to authoritarian, permissive, and disengaged parenting, is associated with positive adolescent outcomes in both White, middle class and large multi-ethnic school-based samples, these parenting categories have not been fully explored within African American families living at or near the poverty line. Data were collected using in-home interviews and self-administered questionnaires of adolescent girls and their self-identified mothers or mother-figures. Parenting style was found to be significantly related to adolescent outcomes in multiple domains including externalizing and internalizing behaviors, academic achievement, work orientation, sexual experience and pregnancy history. Specifically, teens whose mothers were disengaged (low on both Parental Warmth and Supervision/Monitoring) were found to have the most negative outcomes. Furthermore, a significant difference was not found between authoritative and authoritarian parenting.