This study examined the process of how socioeconomic status, specifically parents’ education and income, indirectly relates to children’s academic achievement through parents’ beliefs and behaviors. Data from a national, cross-sectional study of children were used for this study. The subjects were 868 8‐12-year-olds, divided approximately equally across gender (436 females, 433 males). This sample was 49% non-Hispanic European American and 47% African American. Using structural equation modeling techniques, the author found that the socioeconomic factors were related indirectly to children’s academic achievement through parents’ beliefs and behaviors but that the process of these relations was different by racial group. Parents’ years of schooling also was found to be an important socioeconomic factor to take into consideration in both policy and research when looking at school-age children.

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The influence of parent education and family income on child achievement: the indirect role of parental expectations and the home environment.

Research during the past decade shows that social class or socioeconomic status (SES) is related to satisfaction and stability in romantic unions, the quality of parent-child relationships, and a range of developmental outcomes for adults and children. This review focuses on evidence regarding potential mechanisms proposed to account for these associations. Research findings reported during the past decade demonstrate support for an interactionist model of the relationship between SES and family life, which incorporates assumptions from both the social causation and social selection perspectives. The review concludes with recommendations for future research on SES, family processes and individual development in terms of important theoretical and methodological issues yet to be addressed.

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Socioeconomic Status, Family Processes, and Individual Development.

This article addresses the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES), family processes, and human development. The topic is framed as part of the general issue of health disparities, which involves the oft-observed positive relationship between SES and the cognitive, social, emotional, and physical well-being of adults and children. A review of recent research and theory identifies three general theoretical approaches that provide possible explanations for the association between SES and individual development: the social causation, social selection, and interactionist perspectives. Empirical evidence demonstrates support for the social causation view that SES affects families and the development of children in terms of both family stress processes (the family stress model) and family investments in children (the family investment model). However, there also is empirical support for the social selection argument that individual characteristics lead to differences in SES. Especially important, recent research is consistent with an interactionist approach, which proposes a dynamic relationship between SES and developmental change over time. Drawing on the combined set of research findings, the article concludes with the description of an interactionist model that serves as a heuristic for future studies of the links among SES, parenting behaviors, and child development.

An Interactionist Perspective on the Socioeconomic Context of Human Development

The COVID-19 pandemic poses an acute threat to the well-being of children and families due to challenges related to social disruption such as financial insecurity, caregiving burden, and confinement-related stress (e.g., crowding, changes to structure, and routine). The consequences of these difficulties are likely to be longstanding, in part because of the ways in which contextual risk permeates the structures and processes of family systems. The current article draws from pertinent literature across topic areas of acute crises and long-term, cumulative risk to illustrate the multitude of ways in which the well-being of children and families may be at risk during COVID-19. The presented conceptual framework is based on systemic models of human development and family functioning and links social disruption due to COVID-19 to child adjustment through a cascading process involving caregiver well-being and family processes (i.e., organization, communication, and beliefs). An illustration of the centrality of family processes in buffering against risk in the context of COVID-19, as well as promoting resilience through shared family beliefs and close relationships, is provided. Finally, clinical and research implications are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Risk and resilience in family well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A biopsychosocial model of the development of adolescent chronic conduct problems is presented and supported through a review of empirical findings. This model posits that biological dispositions and sociocultural contexts place certain children at risk in early life but that life experiences with parents, peers, and social institutions increment and mediate this risk. A transactional developmental model is best equipped to describe the emergence of chronic antisocial behavior across time. Reciprocal influences among dispositions, contexts, and life experiences lead to recursive iterations across time that exacerbate or diminish antisocial development. Cognitive and emotional processes within the child, including the acquisition of knowledge and social-information-processing patterns, mediate the relation between life experiences and conduct problem outcomes. Implications for prevention research and public policy are noted.

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A Biopsychosocial Model of the Development of Chronic Conduct Problems in Adolescence

This study of 422 two-caregiver African American families, each with a 10-11-year-old focal child (54% girls), evaluated the applicability of the family stress model of economic hardship for understanding economic influences on child development in this population. The findings generally replicated earlier research with European American families. The results showed that economic hardship positively relates to economic pressure in families. Economic pressure was related to the emotional distress of caregivers, which in turn was associated with problems in the caregiver relationship. These problems were related to disrupted parenting practices, which predicted lower positive child adjustment and higher internalizing and externalizing symptoms. The results provide significant support for the family stress model of economic hardship and its generalizability to diverse populations.

Economic pressure in African American families: a replication and extension of the family stress model.

ABSTRACT Background Little is known about how health behaviors cluster to form meaningful patterns that influence health outcomes in young adult nursing students. Purpose The purpose of this study was to identify the unique health behavior patterns among young adult nursing students in China and examine the associations between health behaviors and chronic diseases. Methods Using an electronic app, the achievements of an exercise target, sedentary behavior, smoking and drinking, and dietary patterns were assessed in 1,480 nursing student participants aged 18–24 years from two medical universities in Eastern China. Results A four-class model was developed using latent class analysis that included the “failure to achieve exercise target, alcohol-drinking, and insufficient fruit and vegetable group” (Group 1, n = 187, 12.6%), the “alcohol-drinking and sedentary behavior group” (Group 2, n = 290, 19.6%), the “sedentary behavior only group” (Group 3, n = 721, 48.7%), and the “failure to achieve exercise target only group” (Group 4, n = 282, 19.1%). Logistic regressions indicated that nursing students in Group 2 (odds ratio [OR] = 0.42), Group 3 (OR = 0.51), and Group 4 (OR = 0.30) were less likely to have chronic diseases than those in Group 1 after adjusting for sociodemographic variables. Conclusions The health behaviors were clustered in different patterns among young adult nursing students. Tailoring interventions to specific groups is suggested to improve health outcomes.

https://doi.org/10.1097/jnr.0000000000000521

Yumei Sun

Papers

Economic pressure in African American families: a replication and extension of the family stress model.

Patterns of Risky Health Behaviors and Associations With Chronic Diseases Among Young Adult Nursing Students: A Latent Class Analysis

Influence of lifestyle on stroke risk among adults over 65 years in northern China: A propensity score matched study