An Exploration of Mothers’ Beliefs,Expectations,and Behaviors Regarding Young African American Children’s Early School Experiences and Success

Abstract

We explored mothers’ beliefs, expectations, and behaviors as these relate to early academic success, their roles as parents to young children, and the influence of other ecological factors. Eleven African American mothers of children in kindergarten through third grades were interviewed twice with daily journaling for 2 weeks. Utilizing both Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory and Spencer’s phenomenological variant of ecological systems theory as our primary theoretical underpinnings, results were interpreted emphasizing contextual, cultural, and personal characteristics that may serve as protective or risk contributors during children’s education. As mothers defined their contributions to the early academic success of their children, related themes emerged from the data including the significance of parent involvement, family routine and cohesiveness, the availability of resources, and racial issues. Findings provide a contextualized cultural understanding of African American mothers’ beliefs and their potential influence on their children’s early school experiences and how these beliefs are enacted in structured and intentional ways.

Keywords

early academic success academic socialization racial socialization mothers

The National Education Goals Panel (1997), commissioned by President George H. W. Bush with representation from governors, members of Congress, and state legislators, established five national education goals. The first goal was that “by the year 2000, all children will start school ready to learn” (p. xiv). The panel defined school readiness as encompassing five dimensions: (a) physical well-being and motor development, (b) social and emotional development, (c) approaches to learning, (d) language development (including early literacy), and (e) cognition and general knowledge. To help reach the goal, the panel created three objectives for families and communities: (a) children will have access to high-quality preschool programs, (b) every parent will be a child’s first teacher, and (c) children will receive health care, nutrition, and access to physical activities. However, 27 years later, President Barack Obama created the Race to the Top—Early Learning Challenge, which provided discretionary grant funding for states to raise the quality of early learning and development programs (Samuels, 2015). Specifically, the funding was designed to support the connections among physical, mental, and family support for our most at-risk children.

With the expansion of federal policy initiatives, it is no surprise that over time the definition of school readiness has been widened to address not only children’s readiness for school but also families’ readiness for the schooling of their children, and schools’ readiness for children and their families. When researchers conduct studies on types of influences on early academic success, there is typically a narrow focus on children’s cognitive skills and the role of parenting styles with little attention given to parental beliefs, perspectives, or practices (McAllister et al., 2005). When attention is given to the role of parents and family environments on a child’s readiness for school, it is often examined through a deficit-based lens (Gorski, 2008), where parenting styles and race are treated as passive or static variables (Rimm-Kaufman & Pianta, 2000). Due to either the omission of consideration of the meanings mothers actually attach to parenting strategies (Suizzo et al., 2008) or to their limited characterization (Gorski, 2008), recent researchers have endeavored to assess these meanings without making comparisons with other groups (Baker et al., 2012; Monteiro, 1999).

Several issues plague researchers on racial and ethnic minority children and their families. First, many research studies on African American children and their parents are focused on risk factors linked to the group (Cunningham & Francois, 2016). Second, judgments about African American parents’ values on education are often made by educators and administrators in the absence of direct knowledge, which may limit the lens through which issues and solutions that impact children’s early academic success are examined (Kunjufu, 2006). Third, perhaps due to the combined effects of these two problems, racial and ethnic minority children and their families are often described in contradictory ways. For instance, Hill and Craft (2003) reported that teachers believed that parents who volunteered at school valued education more than parents who did not volunteer, a belief that correlated highly with teachers’ ratings of students’ academic performance and skills. By contrast, other researchers have found that racial and ethnic minority parents, even those who do not volunteer at school, still value their children’s academic success (Ryan et al., 2010).

The discrepant results described in the previous paragraph pinpoint how the application of largely European American constructs may not reliably apply to racial and ethnic minority families (Rious et al., 2019). This reality is why further examination of parent behaviors within the home could prove beneficial to researchers on parental involvement and early academic success of young African American children (Joe & Davis, 2009). For example, Baker et al. (2012) highlighted African American parents’ beliefs about the importance of academic and social-emotional skills, specifically for fostering positive academic outcomes in young African American children. Jeynes (2003) emphasized that overall parent involvement has a significant influence on racial and ethnic minority children’s academic success. Finally, Hill (2001) showed that African American mothers who exhibited maternal warmth or acceptance and who held high expectations for their children’s early school success believed in the relationship between academic success and future occupational success. In sum, further examination of parent behaviors within the home and parental beliefs concerning the home-school transition is necessary. When African American beliefs are examined through an African American lens (same cultural lens), it is hoped that a clearer view emerges of the relationship between those beliefs and on-the-ground practices.

Racial Socialization

Numerous researchers have described the relationship between parents who provide their children with explicit racial socialization and the achievement of positive academic outcomes for African American children (Caughy et al., 2002; Hill & Tyson, 2008; Perry et al., 2003; Smalls, 2010). Thomas and Speight (1999) indicated that racial socialization “prepares children to cope with racism through the development of positive racial identity, and [contributes to] the process of raising children to be physically and emotionally healthy in an oppressive environment” (p. 153). African American parents of young children who live in inner-city neighborhoods often engage in racial socialization practices as a part of their daily parenting (Coard et al., 2004; Joe & Davis, 2009).

African American parents engage in racial socialization in a variety of ways, which provide children with messages about racial pride, racial barriers, egalitarianism (emphasis on equality and coexistence), and self-worth. Furthermore, parents often engage in socialization behaviors, such as purchasing African American books and art (Neblett et al., 2009). S. M. Smith et al. (2016) showed that African American mothers and fathers who experienced racial discrimination were more likely to implement racial socialization practices at home. African American parents were found to employ racial socialization practices to convey strengths-based (rather than deficit-based) attitudes toward racial differences. For example, African American parents raising young children in large urban cities tended to discuss cultural heritage as a racial socialization message or to stress the importance of equality as opposed to discussing racial barriers (Banerjee et al., 2011; Caughy & Owen, 2015). Limited work on racial socialization has described the practices of African American parents outside of urban settings. Moreover, researchers have called for additional study of the practices of African American mothers who are married or who reside in different regional backgrounds besides the Southeastern United States (Edwards & Few-Demo, 2016). There is also a call to investigate differences among parents’ academic and racial child-rearing practices with attention to the child’s gender (Suizzo et al., 2008).

Ecological Systems Theory

Rogoff (2003) has strongly encouraged researchers to use theories that positively acknowledge children, families, and schools, and that are embedded within social, cultural, and historic influences. One such theory is the ecological systems approach in which Bronfenbrenner (1979) detailed five different systems that embody the context surrounding a child. In his theory, children are enveloped in ever-larger contexts beginning with the microsystem of direct influences on the child (family, teachers, schools) through the macrosystem of indirect influences, including the attitudes and ideologies of the child’s culture. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory was influential in the development of Spencer, Dupree’s et al. (1997) phenomenological variant of ecological systems theory (PVEST). Spencer et al’s (2006) theory provides a nonstatic lens through which one can view cultural, historical, and social issues as normative developmental processes within component processes of (a) net vulnerability, (b) net stress engagement, (c) reactive coping strategies, (d) stable coping processes/emergent identities, and (e) life-stage outcomes/coping products (Spencer, Dupree et al., 1997; Spencer et al., 2006).

The construct of net vulnerability consists of factors at the contextual or individual level that may create obstacles during a person’s development. For instance, being a member of marginalized groups such as being African American can predispose a youth to adverse outcomes, but gaining cultural capital can mitigate the impact of such outcomes (Swanson et al., 2003). The concept of net stress engagement refers to the real-life experiences or conditions that challenge or promote a person’s well-being. For example, while experiences of racism could present as a stressor, parent support could serve as an actualized protective factor. Protective factors include actualized social supports that can help young people navigate stressful situations. Reactive coping strategies consist of problem-solving skills that can be adaptive in one setting (e.g., neighborhood) and maladaptive in another (e.g., school). The component stable coping processes/emergent identities concerns how persons view themselves within various contextual environments such as family, school, or neighborhood. Finally, the component life-stage outcomes/coping products consists of behavioral and health-relevant outcomes that can be either productive or adverse. PVEST illuminates the significance of child-rearing practices and their influence on meaning and behavior within context (Spencer, Cole et al., 1997; Spencer & Swanson, 2013). Spencer et al.’s phenomenological approach “affords a method for capturing the individual’s ability to understand societal expectations, stereotypes and biases” (Spencer, Dupree, et al., 1997, p. 818), and such an approach provides an opportunity to examine social cognition and social experiences that affect meaning-making processes. In other words, PVEST offers a framework for understanding how such practices could affect the ways children view and respond to their early school experiences.

Researchers have used PVEST as a theoretical framework to examine the cultural and social influences on racial and ethnic minority children’s development and identity (Swanson et al., 2003). Connell et al. (1994) reported that children’s academic experiences can be positively or negatively influenced by the perceptions of their parent’s involvement, self-efficacy, and relatedness to self and others. They suggested the results indicated that adolescents’ self-esteem was influenced by their parents’ involvement in their academic success. Spencer et al. (2006) demonstrated that PVEST could offer a lens to investigate coping mechanisms and resilience as normal developmental processes for African American youth who encounter discrimination. Using the PVEST as a theoretical underpinning, Cunningham and Swanson (2010) emphasized the nonlinear nature of developmental change when they described educational resilience of African American youth as dynamic and multilayered. Moreover, studies have demonstrated the need for contextually and culturally driven understandings of the role of African American parenting strategies and the relationship found between these strategies and positive school experiences (Rious et al., 2019).

Current Study

Investigators have called for more research that examines various contexts, such as individual, family, and neighborhood factors that can contribute to a young child’s sense of identity and competence (C. O. Smith et al., 2009). Moreover, Anderson (2018) reported there is a need to consider family-based cultural factors that can serve as protective factors for young children; to this date, such factors have not been captured in parent-child relationship measures. Further research examination of parent behaviors and beliefs within the home could prove beneficial to understanding the early academic success of young African American children (Joe & Davis, 2009), especially with regard to how these behaviors and beliefs are informed by specific intersections of factors across the child’s ecosystem. We aimed to explore one such intersection: the role of African American mothers’ academic and racial socialization beliefs and practices that could possibly influence children’s early school experiences.

This study was conducted using a phenomenological approach in order to capture the lived and common experiences of the African American mothers as they raise their young children. The premise of phenomenological research is that individuals’ knowledge is based on theories, beliefs, values, and attitudes, which allow them to create meaning and familiarity out of their experiences (Creswell, 2007). Following Moustakas’s (1994) approach to phenomenological research, we wanted to collect data that would lead to a textural and structural description of these mothers’ experiences of socializing their children, academically and racially.

Method

Participants

Participants were 11 African American mothers from a predominantly blue-collar town of approximately 60,000 in the Midwestern United States (see Table 1 for demographic information). All mothers in the study identified their children as African American. Both mothers and children were given pseudonyms. In terms of marital status, five of the mothers reported being single, and six indicated they were either married or partnered. Meanwhile, four mothers had a high school diploma, and seven had earned a postsecondary degree, which was used as a proxy for social class. We did not ask mothers to disclose their age. Seven of the children were in kindergarten and first grades, and the other four were in second or third grades.

Table 1.

Demographic Characteristics of Participants.

Pseudonym	Marital status	Degree status	Child’s level
Kelly	Single	High school	Second grade
Yolanda	Single	High school	Kindergarten
Eno	Single	Bachelor’s	First grade
Deborah	Single	Associate’s	Kindergarten
Rachel	Single	High school	Third grade
Lauren	Cohabiting	Associate’s	Third grade
Imani	Married	Medical doctorate	Kindergarten
Michelle	Married	High school	Second
Tiffany	Married	Master’s	Kindergarten
Frances	Married	Master’s	Kindergarten
Karen	Married	Master’s	Kindergarten

Note: N = 11.

Study’s Context

The study was implemented through a local daycare center in a Midwestern town. In the town, approximately 81% of the population identified as White and 9% identified as African American. The daycare center was a small house consisting of four rooms. One room served as the main room with tables and chairs for children. It was decorated with academic materials, such as worksheets and drawing paper for the children. Another room served as a computer room and quiet reading area for older students. All four rooms had displays of African American historical figures, individuals with disabilities, and other individuals representing various diverse backgrounds. At that time, there were three older African American women and one younger White woman who were the daycare workers. For many of the parents who utilized the center, it was a safe place for their children to receive quality early childhood academic skills and support. At the time of the study, the director was the only African American operating a daycare that had received certification for achieving high-quality standards in the town.

Recruitment and Selection Process

The mothers were recruited from a local daycare center with the assistance of the director. The director permitted the interviewer to spend time in the after-school program. As part of the recruitment process, the interviewer spent approximately 15 hours with the children and with the parents during parent reading events at the center over a period of several weeks. Then, at the request of the interviewer, the director herself shared information about the study with the families served. All of the children were current participants in the daycare center programming, which included an after-school program for children in grades K-3. The director assisted the researchers in organizing an information session at the daycare center for mothers who were interested in participating in the study.

Data Collection

All interviews took approximately 90 minutes and were conducted by the principal author. He tape-recorded the interviews at a location chosen by the mothers, such as their home, the daycare center, their jobsite, or at a local coffee shop. These tape-recordings were transcribed verbatim and presented to the mothers at a subsequent visit to encourage mothers to reflect on the responses. In addition, the mothers were asked to keep a daily journal for 2 weeks to record their mother-child interaction from the point of the child returning home from school until bedtime.

Interview Protocols

Two semistructured interviews were developed for use with each mother. In the first interview, the mothers were asked to describe their (a) beliefs about early academic success and (b) concern and hopes regarding their children’s future well-being (see Appendix A). In the second interview, the mothers were asked to describe (a) specific behaviors they use to encourage their children’s early academic success and (b) specific factors they believe promote or impede their children’s overall success and well-being (see Appendix B).

To develop the interview questions, we conducted an extensive literature search to understand factors that have been associated with early academic success, including both risk and protector variables. We also considered the possible influences of race and racism on African American mothers’ perceptions of early academic success. The interview protocols were shared with an African American female professor who was a well-regarded expert in qualitative research, and we read them to a White American male professor who considered himself a quantitative researcher. Both individuals reported that the questions were clear and oriented around early academic success as a conceptual theme.

Bracketing

The first author was the researcher and sole interviewer. He was a 27-year-old, African American, male doctoral student working with the second author, a 50-year-old, White female, who was his dissertation advisor. The first author was studying school psychology, and the second author was a professor of educational psychology with publications on the emergence of narrative-like ability of 2-year-olds in a family context. Neither of us were experts at the beginning of the study in early school experiences. As data collection began, we deliberately set aside our own personal views of parental beliefs about early school experiences. Throughout the research project, memos were collected to document the cognitive process of conducting the study, outlining the methodological process, and noting any observational comments regarding the interviews or journals. This approach allowed us to acknowledge and evaluate our assumptions that all of the parents do engage in activities that support African American children’s early academic success, and not allow these assumptions to distort our ability to analyze the data for themes that actually emerged.

Journals

Mothers were provided notebooks to journal about the strategies they used to prepare their children each day to be academically successful. Our goal was to use the journals to triangulate their interview responses with their on-the-ground reports of what they did and said on a daily basis to their children.

Data Analytic Strategies

To interpret these data employing the structural categories of PVEST, we analyzed the data using Moustakas’s (1994) approach for conducting a phenomenological data analysis. Before identifying common themes or ideas across the transcripts and journal records, we waited until all fieldwork was completed, in keeping with LeCompte and Schensul’s (1999) recommendations. Three of the mothers withdrew from the study before the second interview could be conducted. However, they gave us permission to analyze their first interview.

To ensure accuracy, thoroughness, and a bracketing of our own personal views, we conducted three edits of the transcripts and reviewed the interviews twice to immerse ourselves in the data. All journal entries from each mother were typed into a single document. Interview transcriptions and journal information were processed using Dedoose, a web-based application for analyzing qualitative data (Silver & Lewins, 2014). Dedoose provided a system for identifying and coding sentences and phrases that illustrated how the mothers believed they were supporting the academic success of their children (Moustakas, 1994). Then, in Dedoose, we grouped statements or ideas that were similar in meaning, essentially reducing the information into themes. For each mother, themes that highlighted their experiences as mothers of African American children were captured. From there, we sought universal themes, with a focus on the common experiences and perspectives of the mothers. Frequency checks were conducted to verify commonality. Common themes emerged across the transcripts, allowing us to identify how these mothers as a group viewed their children’s early school experiences and which factors seemed influential.

Trustworthiness

The interviewer spent time interacting with the parents before, during, and after data collection as indicated. This process was important because qualitative researchers are a part of the interaction they want to investigate and are not a neutral tool (Fontana & Frey, 2005). The interview transcripts were shared with parents and their corrections and feedback were collected. Finally, during thematic coding, interrater reliability of 80% agreement was sought (Miles & Huberman, 1994). The percentages of agreement between two raters of the coding of one third of the samples were as follows: mothers’ journals had 94% agreement, interview one had 93% agreement, and interview two had 97% agreement. All disagreements were resolved through a meeting of the raters.

Results

The following themes were identified from the interviews: (a) mothers’ definitions of early academic success, (b) role of parent involvement in early academic success, (c) family routine, (d) family time and family cohesiveness, (e) neighborhood factors, (f) mothers’ hopes and concerns, (g) parent-child interactions, (h) available and trusted resources, (i) values, and (j) racial issues. As stated earlier, we triangulated these interview results with mothers’ journal entries about daily familial routines. Each time the parent logged a certain activity, it was counted. A token analysis of journal entries is presented in Table 3, and results are reported with the appropriate theme.

Mothers’ Definitions of Early Academic Success

The coding of the interviews revealed four general conceptualizations of early academic success by parents: (a) literacy skills, (b) numeracy skills, (c) social skills, and (d) the earning of passing grades. All 11 of the mothers equated early academic success with literacy skills, which included reciting the ABCs, learning basic reading skills, and developing reading comprehension skills. For example, Michelle observed that success means “to be academically aware, and what I mean by academically aware is that he recites his ABCs.” Along with literacy, six mothers included numeracy skills in their definitions of early academic success. Statements that highlighted this characterization are developing “number recognition, recognizing numbers” or “counting to 20” (see Table 2). Journal entries supported these statements, especially given the frequency of times mothers reported their children doing homework or engaging in family or independent reading.

Table 2.

Conceptualizations of Early Academic Success Identified by African American Mothers.

Conceptualizations	Number of parents who identified theme
Literacy skills	11 (100%)
Numeracy skills	6 (55%)
Social skills	6 (55%)
Earning of passing grades	3 (27%)

Note: N = 11.

Of the 11 mothers, 6 of them defined academic success as involving the acquisition of appropriate social skills. Of the six who identified social skills as relevant, five of them had sons. Lauren indicated that if “he is goin’ by the rules, he is payin’ attention [then] he [is] learnin’.” Tiffany, who also had a son, expressed the importance of social skills, saying her son needed to know “how to work in a group, how to line up, [and] follow directions.” Again, journal entries corroborated these concerns as many mothers emphasized their children’s enjoyment of social activities (family dinnertime, family outings, and board games) in their daily routines (see Table 3).

Table 3.

A Token Analysis of Parents’ Report of Home Activities.

Activities reported by mothers	Number of times mothers reported activity	Percentage of the number of times mothers reported
Homework	134	29
Dinner	66	14
Review for school	54	12
Family reading	51	11
Family outings	50	11
Movies	21	5
Video games	15	3
Board games	13	3
Independent reading	9	2

Note: N = 11.

Notwithstanding these references to specific skills, three mothers indicated that children passing all of their subjects should be considered early academic success. One mother clarified her belief that “getting good grades, even in elementary, is important because the foundation it sets to get better grades in high school and those are important ones for college.”

The Role of Parent Involvement in Early Academic Success

All 11 mothers believed the role of parents is key to a solid academic foundation, and, based on journal entries, the role of parents clearly involved working with their children on their homework, reviewing for spelling and math tests, and making sure backpacks were ready for the morning. In her interview, Lauren discussed the importance of being an involved and attentive parent. She stressed this necessity:

Working with them at home, not just leaving everything else up to the teacher. You have to work with them on a regular, consistent basis. Because, if you don’t, they are that young, so they forget. You have to work over and over with them. Be real repetitive.

Most mothers stressed the importance of parental involvement despite their marital status, with four out of five of the mothers who headed single-parent households compared with two out of six married mothers endorsing this value (see Table 4). However, the single mothers, in particular, questioned how involved they could be in their children’s lives while also providing for the household. Furthermore, mothers who were working long hours and working more than one job to provide for their families appeared to be worried about how their lack of availability might influence their children’s academic performance.

Table 4.

Maternal Acknowledgement of Two Ecological Factors of Child-Rearing Based on Marital Status.

Marital status	Total number of mothers	Number of mothers who referenced parental involvement	Number of mothers who referenced peaceful and quiet neighborhoods
Single	5	4 (80%)	5 (100%)
Married/partnered	6	2 (33%)	4 (67%)

Note: N = 11.

Family Routine

All 11 mothers believed a family routine that is structured and consistent was relevant to early academic success. Moreover, mothers strongly linked structure and schedule not only to early academic success but also to long-term success as an adult. For instance, Imani stated as follows:

They [her children] need to know there is schedule in school and outside of school and their behavior and performance is dictated by the schedule, but also the schedule is flexible enough to accommodate their needs. If he has extra work on an evening and requires more time, we can adjust to that. But, yes, routines are vital to providing a structure that they fit into and they help uphold and so that they understand that what they do at school is a continuum for what they do at home and vice versa. Throughout their lives they need to understand they will have a schedule at a pace that is either set by them or someone else.

Family Time and Family Cohesiveness

Seven mothers spoke about how family time was important to early academic success. Of those 7 mothers, 5 of them were raising daughters. An example of family time was presented by Deborah:

I think promoting academics is like we try to have family time at least once a week: play games and talk, eat pizza. I think that has a lot to do with it . . . I just think giving a child a balance is important. A balance between academic and social.

Family cohesiveness was also considered a tenet of family routines. When discussing family cohesiveness, Imani asserted:

Good communication promotes it. When you gather the family around the dinner table and talk about today’s activities, you know concerns and areas of interest are exposed, can be talked about, dealt with. It fosters a sense of importance among children.

By contrast, Yolanda believed that family discord had a negative impact on children’s academic success. She recounted a personal childhood story to illustrate the impact of family discord on academic success:

I can speak from personal experience. My father was incarcerated from the time I was 6 to 16. Him being there [home] beforehand was great, and then, when he left, my grades went down, getting in trouble at school. Always something, so, like . . . it’s different if you started off without a parent but having a parent there and then leave, that kinda affects things. And like I’ve seen different [things occur] in the household. I have seen people in abusive situations and affect the kids really bad. I’ve seen a mom get hit or mom and dad fightn’. Stuff like that would really affect a kid. It could turn a good child into, wow, it’s just . . . .

Neighborhood Factors

The mothers identified specific neighborhood factors that might affect a child’s early academic success. The mothers highlighted that a “quiet and peaceful” neighborhood was necessary for a child to be academically successful (see Table 4). When Eno was asked which neighborhood factors promote academic success, her response was, “I think where I live is a good neighborhood. It’s quiet. It’s peaceful. Everybody’s yards are clean. When you wake up in the morning, see people going to work or walking.” Tiffany said, “My children don’t hear a lot of noise. They don’t hear gun shots. They don’t hear a lot of traffic at night because my neighbors are home at a decent hour of the night.” The mothers expressed interest in having an “educationally oriented” neighborhood, by which they meant having access to resources that might directly or indirectly affect their child’s academic performance, such as homework hotlines, dance classes, karate classes, and other academic enrichment programs.

The mothers’ references to the contribution of the neighborhood to their parenting echoed the concerns they had about the availability of time to be involved in their children’s lives. As demonstrated in Table 4, mothers who were co-parenting with a spouse or partner were much less likely to evince concern over either parental involvement or neighborhood factors.

Mothers’ Hopes and Concerns

We asked the mothers to identify academic concerns regarding their children’s education, and the mothers named race relations and maladaptive skills as areas of concern.

Concerns about racial issues

Of the 6 mothers who were concerned about racial issues, 4 of them were raising daughters. Rachel, who has a daughter, explained as follows:

She goes to Shelby Town, which is majority White, so I had concerns about that. She would be a minority at the school. I knew it was a good school and I kinda want her to have the best of both worlds. She is already gonna have Black friends, so I want her to have White friends. But I was worried about if she was gonna get left out, called names.

Tiffany stated as follows:

“To be frank and honest, I worry because he is an African American male. Sometimes African American males are under-served. And so that . . . it concerns me. We still fight for our child no matter what he needs.”

Concerns about social skills

Eight mothers identified a lack of appropriate social skills as a concern, 5 of whom were mothers of boys. Describing her son, Michelle reported, “Hyperness. He still has that in him, like, um, it’s like he can’t necessarily keep still. It’s like in group setting he is very easily distracted. His attention span is very, very short besides certain cartoons and movies.” Karen explained her concerns about her daughter’s social skills:

Just the fact she is kind of emotional, and she talks a lot, and I don’t want her teacher to label her a problem child. She has a good heart, but she talks a lot. But when I talk to her teacher, she seems to be able to control her talking. I think she know how to behave in her classes. I just don’t want it to get to the point where people are saying, “Here comes Ashley, she’s a talker. She cries a lot.” She is real sensitive.

Hopes for the future

The mothers also discussed their hopes for their children’s future, and attending college was a common theme. For instance, Kelly stated as follows:

I want him to go to college. I want him to be successful in whatever he does. Most of all, I want him to have his education, and there are a lot of dropouts today. I definitely want him to get his education.

In addition to attending college, the mothers stressed contentment and happiness with life. More mothers whose children were in kindergarten and first grade compared with mothers of older children stressed their hope for their children that they will be happy.

Parent-Child Interaction

All mothers reported spending time every day with their children. All mothers described doing homework with their children. Furthermore, the interviewer asked the mothers to discuss various strategies they utilize to teach their children. Tiffany discussed using her older son as a model to encourage her other child to learn a skill:

I use modeling a lot of time. For instance, he is in competition with his brother, and so if he is a little bit resistant, I will talk to his brother and say, “Corey, let’s do this.” Because he does not want to be on the outside, we will do it. If it does not work on a particular day, I will try [it] on another.

The teaching strategies employed by mothers with less than a bachelor’s degree demonstrated wider variety. Three of these mothers reported using modeling techniques. In addition, 1 mother reported using flashcards, and another said she used songs and games. Another interesting technique that 2 mothers highlighted was the drilling of information, which was defined as repeating information or facts until the child retained a set of knowledge or skills. For instance, Lauren said, “Um, when he can’t get something right, he starts [to] pout. I make him read it over and over until he figures it out.”

When all of the mothers were asked to discuss strategies used to motivate their children, some mothers indicated giving their children a choice. Also, the mothers reported using words of encouragement so their children would participate in various activities. Also, parental support through their attendance at their children’s activities was another motivating factor identified by the mothers.

Available and Trusted Resources

One motivational strategy the mothers discussed was encouraging children to solicit help from others. The mothers reported a wide range of individuals from whom they might seek assistance: daycare teachers, community center personnel, school counselors, friends, teachers, doctors, school psychologists, principals, and family members. Seven of the mothers reported they regularly sought out certain individuals because of their expertise or knowledge in a certain area. Five mothers specified they sought out individuals who spent a significant amount of time with their child. Three mothers sought out individuals who were able to navigate through a school system and locate resources. Kelly asked school counselors, school leaders, and people from a local community organization “because most of them would have their master’s or bachelor’s . . . they can help guide him to success.”

Values

The interviewer also inquired about values these parents thought were culturally relevant to their children’s academic success. Important values and morals were being respectful, compassionate, polite, family- and friends-oriented, spiritual, honest, and service-oriented, and possessing a strong work ethic. Six mothers specifically identified “being respectful” as related to success. Of the 7 mothers who had children in kindergarten or first grade, 4 of them believed being respectful was important. Michelle stated, “Treat others the way you like to be treated. Respect for others and their property, especially for his elders. And treat people the way you want to be treated . . . you reap what you sow.”

Another value was compassion. More mothers who had a bachelor’s degree or higher identified compassion as an important value. Spirituality was another value the mothers suggested was related to academic success. Karen stated:

Well, I was always brought up with religion, and it was something that really got me through a lot of different periods in my life. I just think that would be something very important for her because, as you get older, you go through things, and I want her to be able to have a strong faith base to get her through things when she gets older in life.

Racial Issues

We wanted to understand the role race played in the lives of these mothers and its influence on their child-rearing practices. Three mothers reported they discussed interracial issues with their children. One mother reported as follows:

I just teach her that she is a young African American girl and that she . . . right now she is in a phase in her life where hair is a big thing. You know, she wants hers to be wavy. She thinks she can put water in her hair. I have to explain to her that is not going to happen. I’m explaining to her now to be happy with the hair she has. You know African American females’ hair is different from African American males’ hair and also of people from various cultures, so I’m to teach her that about her culture. We don’t run into a lot of racism issues. You know, my husband and I deal with that. He may have an issue at work or outside of work. We deal with that in a very intimate setting, but not at the table. So, if the issue were to occur with Breanna outside the house, it would probably be foreign to her. I have talked to her saying things about White people. She would say “those White people” and would say I’m not sure why you’re saying “those White people.” Where is that coming from? They are people like we are people. I don’t want you calling people White people, Hispanic people, because then you starting to separate groups.

While 4 mothers discussed African American history with their children, 4 other mothers reported they do not discuss race with their children. Kelly said, “We don’t because it’s never been an issue with us, so to speak. The way we raise him in general, everybody has a difference about them. I say, don’t judge someone by their color.” Tiffany gave a different reason for not discussing race with her son. She said as follows:

I try not to talk about it because we live in a predominately Caucasian neighborhood part of town. He is the only African American student in his class, so we try not to talk about it. However, as he gets older, we will probably talk more. He is starting to tell the difference between a Black person and a White person. So, I try not to talk about it to him. I don’t know how awkward it would be if these things were to come up in public.

Discussion

This study expands on the growing body of literature on African American mothers’ self-reported academic and racial socialization practices as evidence of potential mechanisms for early school experiences. Our study triangulated interview data and behavior journal data from African American mothers, describing the value these mothers place on education through their beliefs about potential protective and risk factors to their children’s early academic success and the expected influence of their behaviors. Also, our study considered self-reported racial socialization practices for children in grades kindergarten to third. Finally, we offer insight into how the PVEST (Spencer, 1999) can be used to understand not only adolescents’ educational resiliency and vulnerability but also the early emergence of resiliency and vulnerability in young children whose mothers want them to attend college and be happy. The PVEST allows educators, researchers, and policy makers to investigate risk contributors, coping products, stress engagement, reactive coping methods, and emergent identities related to children’s socioemotional functioning because it provided information about how individuals cope and adapt to conditions encountered in everyday life (Spencer & Swanson, 2013).

The PVEST was developed with an eye to Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory (Spencer, Dupree et al., 1997). As initially formulated, the PVEST is a self-appraisal theory that requires an individual to engage in a self-perceptual process to understand his or her identity and its interplay with social expectations, norms, assumptions, relationships, and biases (Swanson et al., 2003). In this manner, the mothers’ responses were conducive for understanding their views of the net vulnerability and stress factors of early academic success. We believe their responses offer insight into their own proactive and reactive coping methods, suggestions for emergent identities, and recommendations for life-stage-specific coping outcomes as their children were beginning to make their way in formal schooling. Finally, the mothers’ responses offered insight into how their perspectives and ideas should shape their children’s identity.

Definition of Early Academic Success

The mothers in this study understood that the definition of early academic achievement is a multifaceted concept, which includes literacy and numeracy skills as well as social skills. In light of PVEST, these mothers highlighted the lack of social skills as a net risk contributor that could lead African American boys, in particular, to be vulnerable to adverse outcomes. Restall and Borton (2010) reported parents tended to worry more about boys’ development than that of girls. McAllister et al. (2005) also focused on mothers’ emphasis on the importance of social skills for African American children facing difficult school environments.

Parental Involvement

The PVEST considers effective parenting as a productive life-stage-specific outcome product. The role of the parent was named by all 11 mothers as necessary to the academic success of a child. Also, their journal responses suggested that their behaviors were relevant to their children’s early academic success. However, mothers heading single-parent households tended to stress the importance of their role. Often, single parents’ work schedules made it difficult for them to be as involved as they might have liked in their children’s education, and they were concerned. Ogbu (1992) and Payne (2005) both have argued that racial and ethnic minority parents are passive participants in their children’s education. However, results of this study contradict such a deficit-based perspective of African American parents’ involvement with their children’s education. For example, single versus partnered mothers were more likely to express concerns over parental involvement and neighborhood factors, likely because of the increased demands on their time as a single parent. In this manner, the results of this study help demonstrate how organized the parental beliefs of these mothers were as they sensitively weighed the importance of context into their beliefs.

Family Routine and Family Time

Net stress engagement, which precipitates productive or adverse coping according to the PVEST, assists youth with negotiating stressful experiences with actual support (Spencer et al., 2006). The mothers’ interview responses and some of the activities noted in their journals highlighted the importance of structured and consistent family routines, which can serve as a social support because they foster a sense of family cohesiveness. Wildenger et al. (2008) reported single-parent families were less likely to have a highly structured daily routine. However, we noticed both single-parent and two-parent households supported a structured family routine. Parents seemed to endorse the idea that a structured home environment could potentially buffer young children from stressors that could negatively influence their early academic success.

Other factors were identified as influencing family routine. It should be noted that family discord was identified as a vulnerability factor by the participants. Also, gender differences emerged as influences of parental views regarding family time. For example, more mothers with girls reported family time to be important to academic success. Researchers have reported parents may be more sensitive to the need for boys to develop a healthy sense of autonomy to be successful (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network, 2008), so it is possible “too much” family time is viewed as an impediment to African American boys’ emergent identities. More research is needed to understand this particular phenomenon.

Neighborhood Characteristics

The mothers in this study also identified a peaceful neighborhood that includes various resources such as after-school tutoring and sports programs as important to positive developmental outcomes. Further analysis revealed that more mothers who were single parents than from two-parent households reported that having a quiet and peaceful neighborhood was necessary for early academic success. This current finding contradicts representations of racial and ethnic minority families as living in chaotic circumstances (Evans et al., 2005). Researchers have also demonstrated that mothers who are worried about external neighborhood conditions were less likely to direct their focus on parenting (Ceballo & Hurd, 2008). By contrast, the single parents in this study reported that living in quiet and peaceful neighborhoods was instrumental in helping mothers serve as a buffer against academic stressors. In sum, our results suggest that these mothers’ strategies do not entail less focus on parenting, but rather represent a well-choreographed dance that balances the defining variables of their individual families including marital status, socioeconomic status, and neighborhood factors.

Trusted and Available Resources

Another stress engagement factor was explored when we asked the mothers about trusted and available people they would turn to if they needed to support their children’s academic success. The list included a wide array of professionals, from daycare workers to school counselors, teachers, doctors, school psychologists, principals, as well as friends and family members. Mothers’ reasons for listing these resources were because the individual was someone who possessed expertise and knowledge, someone who spent significant time with their child, or someone who navigated the school system. Spencer (1999) reported that children learn what is important and significant from the goals established by their parents, and that taking academic risks occurs with the support of trustworthy individuals. It is possible these mothers are teaching their children who the dependable resources are in their environment. Thus, the resources available at the moment when the family experiences stress help serve the mothers’ goals of developing reactive coping skills. The higher number of positive development factors a young child is exposed to, the higher his or her chances of overcoming stressors (Scales et al., 2000), and in some cases, nonfamilial adult support individuals may be more correlated with positive outcomes than family members (Theokas & Lerner, 2006).

Mothers’ Teaching and Motivation Strategies

With regard to helping their children develop proactive coping skills, the mothers described teaching and motivation strategies they used to support their children’s academic success. Their responses across both interviews and journal entries implied their concern for developing their children’s adaptive coping skills. One counterintuitive finding was that mothers with higher education referenced fewer teaching strategies than did mothers with less education. This finding deserves further exploration.

The mothers also discussed strategies they used to motivate their children. Some mothers reported giving their children choices. Robinson (2005) suggested providing children with choices prepares them to have the strength and confidence to make decisions when countering opposition. Some mothers indicated that they do not provide their children with a choice; they are to do as expected. Rious et al. (2019) made the point that giving choices versus not giving choices may not be truly bidimensional but rather may be simply contextualized differently in particular families.

Race Relations and Cultural Heritage

Identity is the foundation for producing adverse or productive life-stage-specific coping outcomes (Swanson et al., 2003). The mothers’ views on race and ethnic heritage offered some perspective on their children’s emergent identity. For some mothers, this emergent identity involved the intersectionality of sex, race, and gender. For example, one mother stressed a concern with helping her daughter understand the relationship between her ethnic identity and caring for her hair. Ethnic identity and sex role understanding often interact to shape a youth’s identity (Spencer et al., 2006).

McAllister et al. (2005) reported concerns about racism impeding children’s school readiness in their interviews with African American mothers. One possible tool the mothers in this study used to reframe discussions about race with their young children was an emphasis on cultural heritage as a racial pride activity. For example, some mothers discussed celebrating Black History Month and offered other avenues to provide racial pride messaging to their children with books and movies. Racial pride development is a form of racial socialization where messages are conveyed to promote self-worth and a positive sense of one’s ethnic and racial identity (White-Johnson et al., 2010). While some studies suggest a positive relationship between parental racial socialization and children’s academic success (Perry et al., 2003), other researchers have reported no correlation between some forms of racial socialization such as pride development and academic performance (Friend et al., 2011). Nevertheless, the tenets of PVEST suggest that discussion of one’s emerging racial identity can promote self-efficacy and constitutes a motivating factor (Spencer, 1999). Interestingly, some of the mothers informed the researchers they discuss racial issues with their children, and others reported they do not plan to discuss race until race becomes problematic. This divergence of opinion is difficult to explain given the similarities of age of the children in this study. Thus, further examination of this result is warranted.

Limitations

The study, similar to all ethnographic studies, was limited by its small sample size, which necessarily limits its external validity. By contrast, the methods we employed here afford good ecological validity as the day-to-day lives of the participants are allowed to be seen from their perspectives. Another limitation is these mothers were recruited from a single daycare center, which may have biased the sample because this daycare center may have been more likely to take an active role on racial and ethnic heritage, and to encourage families to pursue community resources to enhance their children’s education. By contrast, this study and the selection of this daycare highlight an important contextual factor that most African Americans living in small, majority European American communities must face. Such communities offer few choices for diverse families as they seek to educate their children in the culturally sensitive environments they value.

Research Implications

Further research should investigate the findings of this study with a larger sample of African American parents. A longitudinal study using the PVEST would allow researchers to describe how the beliefs, expectations, and behaviors of African American parents change over time and how these could possibly influence their children’s self-appraisals. Such a study would allow researchers to develop a better understanding of how parents’ beliefs and actions impact their children’s educational resilience. It would be beneficial to investigate the academic and racial socialization practices of fathers specifically and their influence on African American children’s early academic success. Also, we believe in the value of additional studies that investigate parents’ racial socialization practices as they occur on the ground. Such findings could help schools provide informed culturally responsive practices in a manner consistent with Paris and Alim’s (2014) call for a culturally sustaining pedagogy.

Practice Implications

These mothers believed involvement in their children’s education was extremely important, consistent with Spencer’s (2017) discussion of the significance of parenting and family life for children and their development. Thus, schools should rely on the good faith efforts of families and emphasize the strengths of family practices in relation to children’s early academic experiences (Paris & Alim, 2014). Furthermore, school officials should provide resources that parents identify as vital to their children’s overall academic success. Integration of home, school, and neighborhood resources could enhance student academic outcomes (Swanson et al., 2003). Community-based organizations such as schools must establish open communication with the parents and children they serve in order to foster this integration of resources.

In sum, African American children’s ethnic and cultural background has a significant influence on their emergent identities and how they experience various environments. Ladson-Billings (2009) highlighted that a key cornerstone of culturally relevant school practices is fostering positive interdependent relationships between children and their parents. Therefore, academic environments should not only celebrate ethnic and cultural backgrounds of children and their parents but also use them as guides for programming and services.

Conclusion

We examined the utility of Spencer’s (1999) PVEST as an instrument to understand parents’ behaviors and perceptions of factors that promote or impede children’s educational success. Furthermore, we demonstrated how mothers who are raising African American children make meaning within the context of living in a small, predominately European American city. All mothers expressed their role as a vital component to promoting their children’s early academic success. Above all, these mothers reported using consistent, grounded practices to raise their children, a finding that contradicts prevailing deficit-based theories that families living in poverty inexorably face chaotic lifestyles. Overall, the current findings add to the growing literature that counters the notion African American mothers are passive agents in their children’s early academic success (Jackson & Remillard, 2005), rather painting a picture of the vibrant, organized patterning of parenting employed in these homes.

Footnotes

Appendix A

Appendix B

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Chavez Phelps

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