Culture, Parenting, and Child Development

Our lab has examined racial and ethnic differences in family processes. Much of the literature has focused on white upper-middle class children and our work seeks to establish how family processes may differ for other racial and ethnic groups. For example, we have found that parents’ emotion socialization practices are differentially related to their offsprings' functioning across different racial and ethnic groups. Similarly, we have focused on understanding parenting values among Latino immigrant parents. We have also sought to understand racial/ethnic differences in perceptions of parenting and child behavior, which has important implications for assessment in both research and practice with parents and children from different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Lugo-Candelas C, Harvey E, Breaux R, Herbert S. Ethnic differences in the relation between parental emotion socialization and mental health in emerging adults. Journal of Child And Family Studies. Forthcoming;

Lugo-Candelas C, Harvey E, Breaux R. Emotion socialization practices in Latina and European American mothers of preschoolers with behavior problems. Journal of Family Studies. 2015 June;

Harvey EA, Fischer C, Weieneth JL, Hurwitz SD, Sayer AG. Predictors of discrepancies between informants' ratings of preschool-aged children's behavior: An examination of ethnicity, child characteristics, and family functioning. Early Child Res Q. 2013 Oct 1;28(4):668-682. PubMed PMID: 23935240; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3735230.

Harvey EA, Friedman-Weieneth JL, Miner AL, Bartolomei RJ, Youngwirth SD, Hashim RL, Arnold DH. The role of ethnicity in observers' ratings of mother-child behavior. Dev Psychol. 2009 Nov;45(6):1497-508. PubMed PMID: 19899909.