AFRICAN-AMERICAN MOTHERS' COMMUNITY SOCIAL CAPITAL AND PARENTING QUALITY: DOES PERSONAL OUTLOOK MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

This study examined community characteristics as predictors of parenting quality among African-American mothers. Residential stability and social capital are defined as positive features of community social organization, especially in areas with high concentrations of poor, single, African-American mothers with children. In residentially stable communities, members are able to form social ties to community, and this helps community members build social resources in the form of social capital. Among the 759 African-American mothers who participated in the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS), there was a positive and direct relationship from perceptions of community social capital and organizational group participation to parenting quality. Personal outlook did not mediate the relationship between any of the social capital study variables (residential stability, perceptions of social capital, and organizational group participation) and parenting quality. To the contrary, personal outlook was significantly related to parenting quality among these mothers' net effect of the main study variables and an extensive set of community-and individual-level social and demographic control variables.