Single Parenting

Single Parenting: Eliminating the Bias in Social Research

Single parenting in America has dramatically increased since the 50s. Today's statistics suggest that every year more than one million children's lives will be disrupted by divorce. Before the age of sixteen, 38% of white and 75% of black children will experience the effects of divorce upon their daily lives (Amato, 1991, p. 26). Recent research indicates that previous studies of single parenting and their children have been saturated with cultural and ethnic bias (McHenry, 1993, p. 99). Although children can be traumatized by the effects of divorce and single parenting, current research indicates that a more detailed analysis with greater sensitivity to class, status and racial difference needs to be conducted. Only within the last fifteen years have sociologists realized their need for radical revision when studying the culture of divorce and recognized that a unilateral approach to this multi-layered topic must be jettisoned.

In their innovative book, The kids' book about single-parent families, Dolmetsch and Shih compile children's own responses to the challenges offered by living in single-parent families. Interacting with the children themselves, Dolmetsch and Shih begin by trying to arrive at a working definition for single-parent families. They dismiss the mythic qualities of family life as portrayed by the 70s television show "The Brady Bunch" as unrealistic (Dolmetsch, 1985, p. 4). Since

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nry, 1993, p. 101). In tandem, a study by Brown in 1977 establishes that post-divorce blacks are marked by a "significantly higher level of self-esteem" and "inner-directedness" than for their white counterparts. Hartnagel in 1970 adds that black single mothers are more effective than whites in "fostering a sense of competency in their children" (McHenry, 1993, p. 101). In highligting the significant cultural differential of black culture, sociologists began to realize that since blacks experience less stigma while undergoing a divorce than whites, they actually suffer less depression and many fewer adjustment difficulties. The great advance which this new culturally-sensitive material uncovers is that the very model for comprehending single parenting and the divorce phenomenon as experienced across a range of racial and cultural spectrums must be changed. What this has offered sociological research is a much needed new model for research -- the cultural-ecological model. This new model focuses on "blacks strengths and resilience" as tauted by Elder in 1985 and starts to distance itself dramatically from the earlier prejudicial although commonly held concept of the "broken home" (McHenry, 1993, p. 102). The cultural-ec

Category: Psychology - S