Black mothers' ethnotheories of moral development: A client-centered approach

Abstract

Child development research has engaged the concept of parental ethnotheories as a theoretical framework for understanding and analyzing how culture shapes child development. It assumes that a child's environment is organized in part by a cultural system that forms a three component developmental niche including (1) the physical and social settings, (2) the customs and practices of child rearing, and (3) the psychology of caregivers. Despite its use in child development research, the ethnotheory framework has been less prevalent in social work research. This paper presents a study whose findings describe parental ethnotheories related to Black mothers' beliefs about the moral development of their daughters. This research is relevant to increasing concerns regarding the development of conduct problems amongst Black girls. Rather than viewing Black mothers as a deficit, knowledge of a child's developmental niche enables social work practitioners and scholars to engage an emic understanding of Black parenting. It also furthers our knowledge about the process and mechanisms that characterize their mothers' parenting, thereby facilitating client-centered practice.