Role of parenting in adolescent deviant behavior: Replication across and within two ethnic groups.

Abstract

The role of 2 parenting variables, monitoring and communication, in adolescent deviant behavior was examined within 4 samples; Black Americans living in Montgomery, Alabama, and the Bronx, New York, and Hispanics living in the Bronx, New York, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. The participants comprised 907 14- to 16-year-old adolescents and their mothers recruited through high schools in 3 communities. The results indicated that higher levels of parental monitoring, but not parent--adolescent communication, predicted lower levels of adolescent deviance in each of the samples. The replication of these findings in samples that vary by ethnicity and location provides strong support for the generalizability of the association between parental monitoring and low levels of adolescent deviant behavior.