Latina mothers' parenting and girls' anxiety and depression in an urban sample: Associations with ethnic identity and neighborhood context.
Item
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Title
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Latina mothers' parenting and girls' anxiety and depression in an urban sample: Associations with ethnic identity and neighborhood context.
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Identifier
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AAI3213247
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identifier
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3213247
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Creator
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Ware, Angelica.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Colette Daiute
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Date
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2006
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Social | Hispanic American Studies | Sociology, Individual and Family Studies | Psychology, Clinical
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Abstract
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In spite of the rapid growth of the Latino population in the United States, research continues to inadequately represent Latinos, particularly urban Latina adolescent girls and mothers. One cannot assume that empirical findings derived from non-Latina samples apply to Latina girls and mothers.;Using an ecological-contextual-developmental framework (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998) my dissertation aimed to close this gap in developmental research by focusing on a group of urban, Latina girls (n = 200) and their mothers (n = 101) to test constructs that were previously established with mostly non-Latina samples. In addition, I examined the associations among girl exposure to community violence, neighborhood crime/danger, perceived maternal control and affection, ethnic identity, and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Using the mother quantitative, scale-based data, I explored the links among socioeconomic status, maternal acculturation, neighborhood crime/danger, sense of collective efficacy, and the mothers' perceptions of their control of their daughters. This study contributes a new layer of understanding by also exploring the girls' and mothers' personal meanings of affection, control, and Latino family practices.;My research focused on a subsample of data collected from a larger longitudinal evaluation of a school-based violence prevention program. Quantitative, scale-based data from the girls and mothers were collected using a self-report format. Qualitative data were also collected via in-depth interviews with 19 mother-daughter pairs. The multiple methods and sources of data allowed me to go beyond the traditional individual unit of analysis to examine how intragroup variations were a function of contextual factors. Moreover, I examined how the concordance between the girls' and mothers' perceptions of the mothers' parenting influenced the girl outcomes.;My results support earlier findings on the negative effects of exposure to community violence and the beneficial influence of maternal affection on the girls' mental health symptoms. Diverging from earlier findings, I found that the macro-level factor of Latino family practices influenced the micro-levels factors of maternal acculturation and parenting which, in turn, affected the girls' mental health.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
