The Contribution of Parenting to Ethnic and Racial Gaps in School Readiness

The authors describe various parenting behaviors, such as nurturance, discipline, teaching, and language use, and explain how researchers measure them. They note racial and ethnic variations in several behaviors. Most striking are differences in language use. Black and Hispanic mothers talk less with their young children than do white mothers and are less likely to read to them daily. They also note some differences in harshness. When researchers measuring school readiness gaps control for parenting differences, the racial and ethnic gaps narrow by 25-50 percent. And it is possible to alter parenting behavior to improve readiness. The authors examine programs that serve poor families-and thus…