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Community Differences in the Association between Parenting Practices and Child Conduct

ProblemsAuthor(s): Ronald L. Simons, Kuei-Hsiu Lin, Leslie C. Gordon, Gene H. Brody, Rand D. CongerSource: Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 64, No. 2 (May, 2002), pp. 331-345Published by: National Council on Family RelationsNational Council on Family RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3600107

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RONALDL. SIMONS University of GeorgiaKUEI-HsIu LIN* Iowa StateUniversity

LESLIEC. GORDON** Clemson UniversityGENE H. BRODY*** AND VELMA MURRY****

University f GeorgiaRANDD. CONGER***** University of California-Davis

Community ifferencesn the AssociationBetweenParentingractices ndChildConduct roblems

Varioushypotheseswere identified egarding hemanner n whichcommunityontextmightinflu-ence the associationbetween two dimensionsofparenting-controland corporalpunishment-onchild conductproblems.The authors used hier-archical inearmodelingwith a sampleof 841Af-ricanAmericanamilies to test thesehypotheses.

Consistentwith the evaporationhypothesis, heresults ndicated hatthedeterrent ffectof care-takercontrolon conductproblemsbecomes mall-er as deviantbehaviorbecomesmorewidespreadwithin a community.Thefindings for corporalpunishment upportedhe normative arenting r-gument.Although here was a positive relation-ship betweencaretaker orporalpunishment ndchild conductproblems in communitieswherephysicaldisciplinewas rare, there was no asso-ciation between he two variables n communitieswherephysical disciplinewas widely prevalent.These resultssuggestthat a particularparentingstrategymaybe moreeffective n someneighbor-hood environments han others. The theoreticalimplications f this view are discussed.Inrecentyears,severalstudieshaveexamined heeffect of neighborhoodon families (Booth &Crouter,2001; Brooks-Gunn,Duncan,& Aber,1997;Burton& Jarett,2000; Furstenberg,Cook,Eccles, Elder,& Sameroff,1998). Much of thisresearchhas focused on the extent to whichpar-enting strategies vary across differenttypes ofcommunities(Furstenberg t al., 1998; Jerrett,

Journal f Marriage ndFamily64 (May2002):331-345 331

Department of Sociology, Baldwin Hall, University ofGeorgia,Athens, GA 30602-3622.*Departmentof Sociology, 107 East Hall, Iowa State Uni-versity, Ames, IA 50011-1070.**Department f Sociology, ClemsonUniversity,Clemson,SC.***Departmentof Child and Family Development, Uni-versity of Georgia,Athens, GA 30602-3622.****Departmentof Child and Family Development, Uni-versity of Georgia,Athens, GA 30602-3622.*****Departmentof Child Development and CommunityDevelopment,Universityof California,Davis, CA 95616-8523.Key Words: African American, conduct problems, com-munitycontext,corporal punishment,parenting.

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332 Journal of Marriage and Family1997;Simons,Johnson,Conger,& Lorenz,1997).Althoughresearchregardinghe relationshipbe-tween neighborhoodonditionsand parentalbe-havior s important,he present tudyaddressesrelated ssuethathas receivedmuch ess attention.We examinethe extent to which the associationbetweenvariousparenting racticesand child ad-justmentvariesby community ontext.Stateddif-ferently,we investigate hepossibility hatcertainparentingstrategiesare more effective in someneighborhoodnvironmentshan others.Ouranalysis s basedon a sampleof 841 Af-rican American hildrenandtheircaretakers.Wefocuson this ethnicgroupbecausewe expectthatanyeffects of community ontextare more ikelyto be evidentamongAfricanAmerican han Eu-ropeanAmericanamilies. Therearetwo reasonsfor believingthatthis is the case. First,the ma-jority population s more likely than ethnic mi-norities to select friends and activities basedoncommon nterestsrather hanspatialpropinquity.For minoritygroups,a sharedethnic identity slikely to reinforce he effects of residentialpro-pinquity South,2001). Second,pastresearchn-dicates thatcommunityeffects are most evidentwhenextremelydisadvantaged eighborhoodsrecomparedo moreadvantagedommunitiesWil-son, 1987). Communityeffects are often smallwhenworking-class eighborhoodsrecomparedto middle-class ommunities.White amilies,eventhose that are poor,tend to live in communitieswhere hemajority f familiesare notpoor.ManyAfricanAmericanamilies,on theotherhand, ivein extremely disadvantagedcommunities. Notonly arethey poorbut most of theirneighbors reas well (Sampson& Wilson, 1995;Wilson,1987,1996).Giventhese racialdifferences, ommunityeffects are morelikely to be evident for AfricanAmerican hanEuropeanAmerican amilies.We investigate he effects of two dimensionsof parental ehavior.The first nvolvestheextentto whichcaregiverset behavioraltandards,mon-itor theirchild'sbehavior,einforce uccesses,anddisciplinenoncompliance.n thisarticle,we referto this set of parenting ehaviors scaregiver on-trol. The second dimensionof parenting onsistsof the extent to whichcaregiversrely uponcor-poral punishmentwhen discipliningtheir child.Child conductproblems s used as the outcomevariable n investigatingheconsequences f theseparenting trategies.This constructwas selectedas pastresearchhas reportedhatparenting rac-tices are morestronglyrelated o child external-izing thaninternalizing roblems Hooper,Hynd,

& Mattison, 1992; Maccoby & Martin,1983).Further,rime anddelinquencys a majorsocialproblem n manyAfricanAmerican ommunities(Gibbs,1998).Thus,we examinewhether heef-fect of caretaker ontroland use of corporalpun-ishment on child conductproblemsdependsonthe neighborhoodnvironment.

COMMUNITYONTEXTANDCAREGIVERONTROLPast researchhas established hatparents ignifi-cantlyreduce heirchild'schancesof involvementin antisocialbehavior o the extent thatthey useinductive easoningo explainrules,monitor heirchild'sbehavior,positivelyreinforcedesiredac-tions,andare consistent n theiruse of discipline(Patterson,Reid,& Dishion, 1992;Simons,John-son, Conger,& Elder,1998). Much of this evi-dence comes from longitudinal tudies that uti-lized comprehensivemeasuresof bothparentingand child behavior.Although hereis an impres-sive body of literatureuggestinga linkbetweentheseparenting racticesand child conductprob-lems, it maybe that the strength f thisrelation-ship dependsupon neighborhoodontext.One possibility s that the effect of such par-enting s greatern communitieswheredeviantbe-havior s widelyprevalent.Childrenwhoreside nconventionalneighborhoodsmay be at low riskfor conductproblemsregardlessof how they areparented,whereasparental ontrolmaybe a mustif a childis to eschewdelinquentbehaviorwhilelivingin an areawhereantisocialbehavior s oftenmodeledandencouraged.Thismightbe called heparentalbufferinghypothesis. t suggests hatpa-rental controlbecomes more critical when chil-dren ive in a high-riskneighborhoods suchpar-enting reduces the chances that they will beinfluencedby environmentalressures o engagein antisocialbehavior. f this is true,the associa-tion betweenparental ontrol and child conductproblems houldbe strongern high-crimeneigh-borhoods han n more conventional reas.It is also possiblethatthe converse s true. Itmay be thatparental ontrol deters a child fromengaging n delinquentbehaviorso long as anti-social influences in the broadercommunityaremodest. These parentingpracticesmay becomeless effective, however,when crime and otherforms of deviant behavior are widely prevalentwithin hecommunity.n suchneighborhoods,e-linquentopportunitiesndpressuresromdeviantpeers mayoverwhelma parent's bility o prevent

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Differences in Parenting 333his or her child from participatingn antisocialbehavior.This mightbe labeled the evaporationhypothesis. t suggeststhat the deterrent ffect ofcaretaker ontroldecreases i.e., evaporates) stheprevalenceof antisocialbehaviorwithinthe com-munity ncreases.COMMUNITYCONTEXTAND THE CONSEQUENCESOF CORPORALPUNISHMENTA varietyof cross-sectional nd ongitudinaltud-ies have reporteda positive associationbetweencorporalpunishment ndchildexternalizing rob-lems (Cohen & Brook, 1994; Dodge, Bates, &Pettit, 1990; Dodge, Pettit, Bates, & Valente,1995; Goodmanet al., 1998; Straus, 1994; Si-mons,Wu,Lin, Gordon,Conger, 000; Straus,Su-garman,& Giles-Sims,1997).These resultssug-gest thatphysicaldisciplinemay promoteratherthan deter antisocialbehavior.Most of this re-search, however, has focused upon EuropeanAmericansamples.Studiesof AfricanAmericanfamilies have reporteda differentpatternof re-sults. These investigationshave found either norelationor an inverseassociationbetweencorpo-ral punishment and child conduct problems(Baumrind, 1972; Deater-Deckard & Dodge,1997; Deater-Deckard,Dodge, Bates, & Pettit,1996;Gunnoe&Mariner, 997;Wasserman,Mill-er,Pinner,& Jaramillo,1996).Suchdifferencesn findings or AfricanAmer-ican comparedto EuropeanAmerican familieshave led to the hypothesisthat the meaningofcorporalpunishment ariesby culture Barbarin,1993;Deater-Deckert al., 1996, Deater-Decker& Dodge, 1997; Gutierrez& Sameroff, 1990;Kelley,Power,&Wimbush,1992;Whaley,2000).Speculations egardinghe nature f these culturaldifferenceshave taken two forms. First, somehave suggestedthat the effects of corporalpun-ishmentvary by the extentto whichit is viewedby parentsand childrenas normative arental e-havior.Deater-Deckerndhis colleagues Deater-Decker & Dodge, 1997; Deater-Decker t al.,1996)haveargued hat childrenare less likelytorespondto physicaldisciplinewith hostilityanddefiance f they considersuchpractices o be anappropriatepproach o parenting.Further,heynoted thatpast studies have foundphysicaldis-ciplineto be morewidely used and acceptedbyAfrican American hanEuropeanAmericanpar-ents (see Heffer & Kelley, 1987; Hill, 1999).Hence, they concludedthat it is the widespreadacceptance f corporalpunishmentwithinthe Af-

rican Americancommunity hatexplainsthe ab-sence of a relationship etweencorporalpunish-ment andconductproblemsn studiesof AfricanAmerican amilies.If Deater-Decker nd colleaguesare correct,thenthe associationbetweencorporalpunishmentandchild conductproblems houldvary by com-munityprevalence f physicaldiscipline.Corporalpunishments apt to be perceivedas an illegiti-mateapproacho parentingn communitieswherephysicaldisciplinerarelyoccurs and the use ofcorporalwouldbe expected o evokedefianceandantisocialbehavioramongchildren ivingin suchneighborhoods.n contrast,childrenresidingincommunitieswherecorporal unishments highlyprevalentand thereforenormativewould not beexpectedto demonstrate n adverseresponsetobeing physically disciplined.One would predicteither no association or a negativerelation be-tweenexposure o physicaldisciplineandconductproblems or children ivingin such areas.A second argument egarding ulturaldiffer-ences in the meaningof corporalpunishmento-cuses on parentalmotivations or using physicaldiscipline.Disciplinary tylescan be eitherparentor child centered(Baumrind,1972;Maccoby&Martin,1983).A parent-orientedpproachonsid-ers obedience to parentalauthorityas an end initself, whereasa child-oriented erspective iewsdisciplineas a vehicle for helpingchildren o be-comeself-respecting,esponsible dults.Althoughphysicaldisciplinetendsto be correlatedwith aparent-orientedpproach mongEuropeanAmer-icanparents,Kelley,Power,andWimbush1992)and Kelley, Sanchez-Hucles, nd Walker 1993)found that corporal punishmentwas associatedwith both parent-and child-orientedparentingstyles amongAfricanAmericanparents.Consistentwith the findingthatphysicaldis-ciplineis often associatedwithchild-focusedpar-entingin AfricanAmerican ommunities, everalresearchershave observed that corporalpunish-ment in Black communities includes concernsabout survival (Baumrind,1972; Belsky, 1993;Kelley et al., 1992;Mason, Cauce, Gonzales,&Hiraga,1996;Whaley,2000).Incontrasto Whitemothers,who can afford to be tolerantof mildlevels of misbehavior,he consequencesof dis-obediencearemuchmoreserious n manyAfricanAmericanneighborhoods.Kelleyet al. (1992) ar-gue thatthe residentsof suchcommunitiesoftenview corporalpunishment s a meansof teachingchildrenrespectfor authorityn order to protectthem from the adverseconsequencesof violating

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334 Journal of Marriage and Family

social norms. These negative consequences n-cludeharassment y thepolice (Belsky).Whaleynotes thata commonsaying n the AfricanAmer-icancommunitys "I'drathermychildgeta beat-ing fromme than romthepolice" (p. 8). Hegoeson to assertthat from an AfricanAmericancul-turalperspectiveharshdisciplinary ractices uchas spankingare often considerednecessary n or-derto protectchildren rom thedangersposed bytheirsocial environment.Thesearguments uggest hat heconsequencesof corporalpunishmentmay vary by prevalenceof crime anddelinquencywithinthe community.The residentsof communitieswheresocial devi-ance is rareareaptto considerphysicaldisciplineas an extreme and illegitimateapproach o par-enting.The children n suchneighborhoodsmightbe expectedto respondto corporalpunishmentwith defiance and antisocialbehavior.The resi-dents of high-crimeareas, on the other hand,mightbe expectedto view physicaldisciplineasa necessary componentof child-oriented arent-ing. For childrenliving in such neighborhoods,eitherno associationor a negativerelationwouldbe expected.

Usinga sampleof 841 AfricanAmerican am-ilies residing n various ypesof communities,wetested these various hypotheses regardingthemanner n which the effects of parentalcontroland of corporalpunishment ary by communitycontext. We employedhierarchicalinear model-ing (HLM)to examine the extent to which theassociationbetween caretaker ontroland childconductproblemsvariesby prevalenceof socialdeviance,and we investigatedheextent o whichtherelationship etweencorporalpunishmentndchild conduct problems varies by communityprevalenceof eitherphysical disciplineor socialdeviance.In order to avoid potentialconfounds,twocommunity-leveland two individual-levelvari-ables were included n theanalysesascontrols.Atthecommunityevel, we controlledor thepercentof residentswho were AfricanAmericanand fordegree of economic disadvantage.Past researchhas reported hatthese two variablesare relatedto crimeanddelinquencySampson& Lauritsen,1994)andto the use of corporal unishmentHill,1999). At the individual-level,we controlled orfamilyincome andgenderof child. Past researchhas shown that inept monitoringand discipline(Patterson t al., 1992) andcorporalpunishment(Straus& Gelles, 1990)are morecommonamonglow income parentsand that their children are

more likely to manifestbehaviorproblems hanchildren from higher income families (Elliott,Huizinga,& Menard,1989). Similarly,boys aremore ikelythangirlsto be therecipients f phys-ical discipline Straus& Gelles, 1990)andto dis-play externalizingproblems Elliottet al., 1989;Gottfredson& Hirschi,1990).Thus it wasessen-tial that these variablesbe controlledwhen ex-aminingthe relation betweenparentalbehavior,community ontext,and child conductproblems.

METHODThisstudy s basedon the firstwave of data romthe Family and Community Health Study(FACHS),a multisiteinvestigationof neighbor-hood andfamilyeffectson the healthand devel-opmentof AfricanAmerican hildren iving out-side of large metropolitanareas. Data werecollectedin Georgiaand Iowausingidenticalre-searchprocedures.Theparticipants ere 867 Af-ricanAmerican hildren 400 boys and467 girls;462 in Iowa and405 in Georgia),who were 10-12 yearsold (meanof 10.5years)when firstcon-tacted,and theirprimary aregivers.Ouranalysesincludedonly those children and caretakers orwhomtherewas completedatafor the variablesincluded n the presentarticle(i.e., our analyseswere basedon listwisedeletion).Thisconsistedof841 childrenand theircaretakers.Most of theprimary aregivers articipatingnthe studywere the children'sbiologicalmothers(84%)and fathers 6%).Caregivers'ages rangedfrom23 to 80 years,with a mean of 37.1 years.Their educational evels rangedfrom less thanhigh school (19%)to a graduatedegree(3%);ahigh schooldiplomawas the mode.The participantswere recruited n 1997 fromtowns and smallcities withvaryingdemographiccharacteristics.Using data from the 1990 U.S.Census, we identified259 Block GroupAreas(144 in Iowa and 115 in Georgia) n whichAfri-can American amilies madeup 10%or more ofthe population nd in which 20%to 100%of thefamilies withchildren ived in povertyas definedby Census Bureaustandards.The studyfamilieswere recruited romthese Block GroupAreas.

ProceduresBeforedatacollectionbegan, ourfocusgroups nGeorgiaand four in Iowa examinedandcritiquedthe self-reportnstruments. achgroupwas com-posedof 10 AfricanAmericanwomen who lived

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Differences in Parenting 335

in neighborhoodsimilar o thosefrom which thestudyparticipants ere recruited.Groupmemberssuggestedminor modifications f items thattheyperceived o be culturallynsensitive, ntrusive, runclear.Afterthefocusgroups'revisionswerein-corporatednto the instruments,he protocolwaspilot tested on 16 families,8 fromeach site. Re-searchers ook extensive notes on the pilot testparticipants' eactionsto the questionnaires ndofferedsuggestions or further hanges.Toenhancerapport nd cultural nderstanding,AfricanAmericanuniversitystudentsand com-munity members served as field researchers ocollect data rom he families n theirhomes.Priorto data collection, the researchersreceived 1monthof trainingn the administrationf the self-reportednstruments.All studyfamilies receivedtwo homevisits,eachof which asted2 hours.Thesecond visit occurredwithin 7 days of the first.Duringthe firstvisit, informedconsent was ob-tained;primary aregivers onsented o theirownand their children'sparticipationnd the childrenagreed o participate.At each home visit, the self-reportquestion-naireswere administeredo the caregiverand thechild in an interview ormat.Eachinterviewwasconductedprivatelybetweenone participantndoneresearcher, ith no other amilymembers re-sent. The instrumentswere presentedon laptopcomputers.Questionsappearedn sequenceon thescreen,whichboththe researcher ndparticipantcould see. The researcherread each questionaloud and entered heparticipant'sesponseusingthe computerkeypad.

Creationof NeighborhoodClustersorMultilevelAnalysesMost of the Block GroupAreasfromwhich thesamplewas drawn ncludedfewer thanfive par-ticipatingfamilies, makingthe use of HLM onseparateBlockGroupAreasdifficult.To solvethisproblem,we combinedBlock GroupAreas withsimilar socioeconomiccharacteristicsnto largercommunitygroups based on results generatedfrom clusteranalysis.Five censusvariableswereused to perform he clusteranalysis:averagepercapita ncome,proportionf households hatwerefemale-headed,proportionof personson publicassistance,proportionof households below thepoverty level, and proportionof males unem-ployed.Previousstudies have used some combi-nationof these variables o assesscommunity o-cioeconomic status (Sampson, Raudenbush,&

Earls, 1997) and factor analysis indicated thatthese variables oadedon a single factorfor theBGAsin oursample.Theclusteranalysiswasper-formedusingWard'sminimum-variance ethod,which is available within the SAS Clusterpro-gram.This method tends to join clusters with asmall numberof observations ndis stronglybi-ased towardproducing lusters with roughlythesame number of observations SAS ProceduresGuide,1990).Analyseswere performed eparately or vari-ous geographicareaswithinIowaandGeorgia norderto identifyclustersof geographically rox-imal Block GroupAreas thatwere similar n so-cioeconomic status. The analyses generated46clusters,23 in Iowa and23 in Georgia.Althoughthe number f families in a clusterranged rom7to 56, most clusters 31) included15 to 30 fami-lies. The BlockGroupAreas n a clusterwere notalways geographically ontiguousbut they wereinternallyhomogenouson the demographicndi-cators and shared similar geographiclocationswithina town or city.

MeasuresIn an effort to avoidtheproblemof sharedmeth-ods (Lorenz,Conger,Simons,Whitbeck,& Elder,1991),caregivers'reportswere used to constructmeasures of the explanatoryvariables whereaschildren'self-reportswere used to assess their n-volvement n antisocialbehavior.Conductproblems.This constructwas measuredusing child self-reportson the conduct disordersection of the DiagnosticInterviewScheduleforChildren,Version4 (DISC-IV).The DISC-IVcovers DiagnosticStatisticalManual-IV DSM-IV; AmericanPsychiatricAssociation,1994) aswell as InternationalClassificationof Disease-9criteria or diagnoses.The DISC was developedovera 15-yearperiodof research n thousands fchildrenand parentsand has demonstratedeli-abilityandvalidity(Shafferet al., 1993).VersionIV became availablein 1995 and representsamodestrevisionof theDISC-IIIbasedon findingsfrom the MetropolitanEpidemiologicalCatch-mentAreaStudy Shaffer t al.).Theconductdis-order section contains a series of questionsre-gardinghow often during he precedingyeartherespondent ngagedin various deviant acts suchas shoplifting,physicalassault,ying,setting ires,crueltyto animals,vandalism,burglary, nd rob-bery. The scale can be used to constructeither

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336 Journal of Marriage and Familysymptomcounts or diagnoses.Symptomcountswere used in the present study. Diagnoseswerenot used for two reasons:(a) fewer than 3% ofthe childrenn oursamplemet criteria orconductdisorder, nd(b) hierarchicalinearmodelingre-quires a continuousdependentvariable. Coeffi-cientalphafor the 26-item instrumentwas .93.Corporalpunishment.Primary aregiversused a2-item scale (Simons,Johnson,& Conger,1994;Simons, Wu, Lin, Gordon, & Conger, 2000)adapted rom the ConflictTacticsScale (Straus,Gelles,& Steinmetz,1980)to report he extent owhichthey utilizephysicalpunishmentwhen ad-ministeringdiscipline.They were asked to thinkabout imesduring hepast yearwhen theirchildhad done somethingwrong.Using this frame ofreference, heywere asked:

How often do you spank(nameof child)when(he/she)does somethingwrong?Whenyou discipline nameof child),how oftendo you hit (him/her)with a belt, a paddle,orsomething lse?Theresponse ormat or the itemsranged rom

never(1) to always(4). The correlation etweenthe two items was .61.A caretaker'sorporal un-ishment score consisted of the sum of the twoitems.Parental control. Past research has establishedthateffectiveparentsmonitor heirchild's behav-ior,use inductivereasoning o explainrules,pos-itivelyreinforcedesiredbehavior, nd areconsis-tentin theiruse of discipline Maccoby&Martin,1983).Parentswho areuninvolvedn theseactiv-ities increase their child's chances of conductproblems(Patterson t al., 1992; Simonset al.,1998). Parentalcontrol was assessed by havingcaregivers complete a 14-item parentingscaleadapted rom instruments eveloped ortheIowaYouth and Families Project(see Conger,Elder,Lorenz, Simons, & Whitbeck, 1992; Simons &Associates,1996).Thequestions ocusedon mon-itoring(e.g., "How often do you know who yourchild is with whenhe/she is awayfromhome?"),consistencyof discipline e.g., "Howoften doyoupunish yourchild for somethingat one timeandthen at other times not punishhim/herfor thesame thing?"),inductivereasoning(e.g., "Howoften do you discipline yourchild by reasoning,explaining,or talkingto him/her?")andpositivereinforcemente.g., "Whenyour child has donesomethingyou like or approveof, how often do

you lethim/herknowyou arepleasedabout t?").The responseformat for the items rangedfromnever(1) to always(4). Priorresearchhas shownthat this instrument orrelateswith observerrat-ings of parental ehaviorandpredictsa varietyofchild adjustmentproblems(see Conger et al.,1992;Simons & Associates, 1996;Simonset al.,1998). Coefficientalphafor the instrumentwas.75.Family income.Primarycaregiversreported heamountof moneythatthey andany otheradultsin the familyhadearnedduring hepreviousyearfromemployment,hildsupport, overnmentay-ments,and so forth.These amountsweresummedto forma measureof totalfamilyincome.Communityeviance.Two scales were summed oforma measure f community rime.These scaleswereadapted rom instruments eveloped or theProject on Human Development in ChicagoNeighborhoodsPHDCN; ee Sampson,Rauden-bush, & Earls, 1997). First,primarycaregiverscompleteda 7-item communitydeviance scale.The items askedabout heextent o which variouscriminal acts (drinking n public, selling drugs,gang violence)were a problemwithin the com-munity.The response ormatranged romnot atall a problem 1) to a big problem 3). Coefficientalphafor the scale was .89. Primarycaregiversalso completeda 3-itemcommunity afetyscale.The items focused on the extent to whichadultsfeel safe and children can play safely on localplaygroundsduringthe day or at night.The re-sponse formatfor these items rangedfromverysafe (1) to notat at all safe (4). Coefficient lphafor this instrumentwas .60. Scoreson the devi-ance and safety scales were standardized ndsummedto form a compositemeasureof com-munitycrime or eachcaregiver.These scorewereaveragedacrosscaregiverswithin each commu-nity to obtain an aggregatemeasureof crime foreach of the46 community lusters.Thereliabilitycoefficient or thisaggregatecale,assessedbytheintraclass orrelation,was .70.Community revalence of corporal punishment.As notedabove,caregiversused a 2-itemcorporalpunishment cale to reportthe extent to whichthey utilizedphysical punishmentso disciplinetheirchildren.Scoreson this scale wereaveragedacross childrenwithin each communityo obtaina measureof the prevalenceof corporalpunish-ment withineach of the 46 communities. nternal

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Differences in Parenting 337

consistencyfor this aggregatemeasurewas .52.The reliability oefficient or thisaggregate cale,assessedby the intraclass orrelation,was .68.PercentAfricanAmerican.U.S. Census datawasused to assess the proportion f persons n eachof thestudyBlockGroupAreaswhowereAfricanAmerican.The percentof residentswithineachcommunitycluster that was African Americanwas calculatedusing a weightedaverageof thescores for the Block GroupAreas in each com-munitycluster.Communitydisadvantage.A communitydisad-vantage measurewas constructedby summingfive U.S. Census tems for each community lus-ter: average per capita income, proportionofhouseholdsbelowthepoverty evel, proportionfadults unemployed, proportionof householdsheadedby a female,andproportionf personsonpublicassistance.These variableswere summedto obtaina compositescore foreach BlockGroupArea.A concentratedisadvantagecore was cal-culatedfor each of the 46 communitiesby com-putinga weightedaverageof thecomposite coresfor the clusterof Block GroupAreas thatcom-prisedeachcommunity.Thereliability oefficientor intraclass orrelationor this measurewas .98.

ResultsCompletedata orthe measuresusedin this articlewere available or 841 families.Although hepri-mary caregiversn Iowa had moreeducation hanthosein Georgia M = 12.8yearsvs. 12.3years),the two groupsdidnotdiffersignificantly n anyof the othermeasures ncludedin our analyses.On average,44%of the residentsof the commu-nity clusterswere AfricanAmerican.The com-munitiesshowed substantial ariability egardinglevel of disadvantage.Acrossneighborhoods,heaveragenumberof persons ivingbelow thepov-erty line was 25%. Wilson (1987) identifiesaneighborhood s a high povertyarea if 30% ormore of the families live in poverty.Using thiscriterion,32% of our communityclusters werehigh povertyareas.Three communitieshadpov-ertyratesof over50%.Onthe otherhand,severalof our communitieshowed ow levels of poverty.The percentageof poor families was less than10% n 20%of the communities.The communi-ties also showedsignificant ariabilitywithregardto our other indicatorsof disadvantage.Averageper capita income in our neighborhoodswas

$13,190,witha rangeof $7,332to $70,147.Com-munityunemploymentanged rom 30% to 76%,with an averageof 30%; he proportion f singleparentsrangedfrom2.9%to 57%,with a meanof 19%.Deviantand criminalbehaviorwascommon nmanyof the studycommunities.Thirty-fiveper-cent of thetarget hildren eportedhat hereweresometimes ightswithweapons n theirneighbor-hood, 55% indicated hat there were violent ar-guments,31% stated that there were robberies,and17%reportedhat hereweremurders.Thirty-five percent ndicated hatpublic drinkingwas aproblemin their community,and 39% reportedthatsellingor usingdrugswas a problem.Again,however, herewas significantvariationbetweencommunities.Communitycoresranged rom .67to 4.87 with an averageof 1.86.Most of the children 76%of boys and 64%of girls)hadengaged n at leastone of thebehav-iors includedon the DISC measure of conductproblems. The number of symptoms reportedranged rom 0 to 26. Although heaverage ymp-tom score was 1.64,23%of boysand 13%of girlsscored above6 (i.e., theyhadengaged n at leastsix of the symptomatic ehaviorsduring he past12 months).The most frequently eported ehav-iors involved theft, fighting,and difficulties atschool. Forexample,12%of the boys had shop-lifted, 17%had bullied someone,and 26% hadbeen suspendedfrom school for misbehavior.Eleven percentof the girls had shoplifted,12%had bulliedsomeone,and13%had beensuspend-ed from school. Given the skewed distributionfthe conductdisordervariable, ts naturalog wasused in the analysespresentedbelow.

Caretakerscoredquite high on our measureof parentalcontrol.The averagescore on mostitems was between3 (often)and4 (always).Thusmost of the caretakers aw themselves as quiteconscientious n the way they explainedrules,monitored heirchild'sbehavior, ndappliedpos-itive andnegativeconsequences.The majorityof the primarycaregivers ndi-catedthat heyusedcorporalpunishments a dis-ciplinarystrategy.Only 31% reported hat theyneverutilizedcorporalmethodswhendiscipliningtheir child. Fifty-nine percent stated that theysometimes;8% indicated hatthey often;and 2%reportedthat they always spankedtheir childwhen he or she did somethingwrong. Fifty per-cent stated hattheysometimes;3%reportedhattheyoften;and 2% indicated hatthey alwayshit

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338 Journal of Marriage and Family

theirchildwith an objectsuchas a belt orpaddlewhenadministeringiscipline.There was substantial ariation n the preva-lence of corporalpunishmentacross the studycommunities.Mean corporalpunishment coresranged rom2.54 to 4.44. Twelvepercentof thecommunitieshad a score of less thanthree. Sucha low scoreindicates haton average he caretak-ers in these communitieseither never or some-timesusedphysicaldiscipline.In contrast,8% ofthe communitiescoredabove four.Scoresof thismagnitude ndicate that the caretakers n thesecommunities veragedbetweensometimes ndof-ten in theiruse of corporalpunishment.

Table1 presents he correlationmatrix or thestudyvariables.The table shows that threeindi-vidual-levelvariablesarerelated o conductprob-lems. The association or parental ontrol s neg-ative, consonant with the idea that it detersantisocial behavior.The positive correlation orgenderindicates thatboys are more likely thangirlsto report onductproblems.Caretakerseofcorporal unishmenthows a small(r = .082),butsignificant, ositivecorrelationwith conductprob-lems, consistentwith the suggestion hatphysicalpunishmentmayincreasea child'srisk forbehav-ior problems.Only one of the communityvari-ables is relatedto conductproblems.Thereis anegativerelationshipr = -.080) between con-ductproblemsandcommunityprevalenceof cor-poral punishment.Given the intercorrelatione-tween the predictor variables, multivariateanalysis was necessary in order to assess theuniqueeffect of each of thepredictors n conductproblems.Given the focus of the present study,ourprimarynterestwasnot with the maineffectsof the predictorvariablesbut in the interactionbetween the parentingand the communitycon-structs.HLM is ideallysuitedfor suchanalyses.HLMallows simultaneousnvestigations f re-lationshipswithin a particular ierarchicalevel,as well as relationships etween or across levels(Bryk & Raudenbush,1992). These models ex-plicitlyrecognize hat individualswithina partic-ular neighborhoodmay be more similarto oneanother han individualsn anotherneighborhoodand, therefore,may not provide ndependent b-servations.Thus,unlike traditional nalyticpro-cedures such as ordinaryleast-squares,HLMmodels avoid violatingthe assumptionof inde-pendenceof observationsBryk& Raudenbush).Anotheradvantageof HLMis that it allows in-vestigationof both individualand neighborhoodexplainedvariancen the outcomemeasurewhile

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