Assessing child-rearing style in ecological settings: its relation to culture, social class, early age intervention and scholastic achievement

Middle- and lower-class black and white adolescents were observed interacting with their mothers during a discussion of seven child-rearing problems. Maternal references to a range of disciplinary measures were identified, analyzed, and related to the subjects' scholastic performances concurrently. A factor analysis of process measures confirmed earlier findings based on self-report data concerning parental disciplinary style. Low SES mothers who participated in an early-age intervention and upper middle-class mothers tended to be less punitive than those in the low SES untreated group. Black mothers were less permissive than those in the white group. Parental disciplinary style was found to be significantly related to school performance. The results are discussed in terms of the development of methodological procedures for interaction analysis in semi-structured, ecological research, for the evaluation of process variables in early-age intervention follow-ups and theory relating disciplinary style to intellectual development.