Predicting abuse-prone parental attitudes and discipline practices in a nationally representative sample

OBJECTIVE: According to sociological and ecological models of abuse, typically nonabusive parents could behave abusively towards their children under certain circumstances. The purpose of this study was to examine factors that place parents at risk of abusing their children by predicting parents' use of discipline practices and attitudes that may bias parents towards abusive behaviors, which we refer to as abuse-proneness. METHOD: A telephone interview was administered by the Gallup Organization to a nationally representative sample of 1,000 parents. Using a set of theoretically relevant risk factors, multiple regression was used to predict variations in parental attitudes (i.e., attitudes towards physical discipline and attitudes that devalue children) and parental discipline practices (i.e., physical discipline, nonphysical discipline, and verbal abuse). RESULTS: The findings confirmed the importance of examining elements of parental attitudes, history, personality characteristics, as well as religion and ideology in predicting abuse proneness. Child age also was an important predictor in all analyses except predicting parental attitudes that devalue children. The findings suggest also, however, that it may be unduly simplified to regard parents as somewhere on a continuum of nonpunitive to punitive disciplinarians. Social isolation was not a significant predictor in any of the analyses. CONCLUSIONS: Although many important theoretical predictors of abuse proneness were confirmed, many questions arise regarding the diversity of discipline practices that parents use, and the relevance of child's age and social isolation in predicting abuse proneness. Implications for practitioners and future research are discussed.     

The Color of Discipline: Sources of Racial and Gender Disproportionality in School Punishment

The disproportionate discipline of African-American students has been extensively documented; yet the reasons for those disparities are less well understood. Drawing upon one year of middle-school disciplinary data for an urban school district, we explored three of the most commonly offered hypotheses for disproportionate discipline based on gender, race, and socioeconomic status. Racial and gender disparities in office referrals, suspensions, and expulsions were somewhat more robust than socioeconomic differences. Both racial and gender differences remained when controlling for socioeconomic status. Finally, although evidence emerged that boys engage more frequently in a broad range of disruptive behavior, there were no similar findings for race. Rather, there appeared to be a differential pattern of treatment, originating at the classroom level, wherein African-American students are referred to the office for infractions that are more subjective in interpretation. Implications for teacher training and structural reform are explored.     

Personal and Interpersonal Motivation for Group Projects: Replications of an Attributional Analysis

We report the results of two replication studies using attribution theory to analyze personal and interpersonal motivation for collaborative projects. Undergraduate students responded to questionnaires containing hypothetical vignettes depicting success or failure outcomes due to ability or effort for dyads working on a group project. Dependent measures included emotions of shame, anger, pity, guilt, pride, and gratitude, as well as expectations for future success. Following the same procedures as the original study, we used doubly multivariate analyses to test 21 theoretical predictions from attribution theory for emotions and expectations for success. We replicated 17 of 21 results across all three studies and 20 of 21 results in the two replication studies. Results are discussed within the context of attribution theory.     

A Half Century of Progress in US Student Achievement: Agency and Flynn Effects,Ethnic and SES Differences

Educational Psychology Review - Policymakers, conceptualized here as principals, disagree as to whether US student performance has changed over the past half century. To inform...