Taylor & Francis

This study is the first to use the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) to reexamine the relationships between long-term economic well-being and child outcomes. We decompose the differences between the Official Poverty Measure (OPM) and the SPM and examine such relationships with 15 cognitive, physical, and social–emotional outcomes for 754 ten- to nineteen-year-olds as reported in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) 2007 Child Development Supplement.

Factors that affect children’s school readiness potential are evident even from birth. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses that certain factors related to gender, approaches to learning, age at school entry, family income, and the health status of the child at birth have an effect on low-socioeconomic status (SES) children’s readiness for school. Data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) was used to test the hypotheses. Included in the sample were 1700 children of diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds.

Preschool attendance problems negatively impact children's school readiness skills and future school attendance. Parents are critical to preschoolers’ attendance. This study explored parental barriers and solutions to preschool attendance in low-income families. School-district administrative data from a racially/ethnically diverse sample of parents with children attending the district's half-day preschool program were obtained (N = 111). Subsamples of parents participated in a phone interview and follow-up, in-person interview. Parents valued early learning and preschool.

The purpose of this research is to examine the process of psychological empowerment as it impacts exoffenders’ self-sufficiency. This transformational process of social inclusion involves developing employment hope as one strives for economic success. Using a sample of 154 exoffenders receiving services from a community-based social service organization in Chicago, this study investigated how self-esteem, self-efficacy, and employment hope affect self-sufficiency.

Little is known about the extent and nature of low-income parents’ interactions with other parents and staff at childcare centres, despite the potential for these interactions to provide emotional, informational, and instrumental support. This study interviewed 51 parents at three childcare centres in low-income neighbourhoods in New York City. Twenty-six percent of parents reported talking with other parents at drop-off and pick-up, and another 35% reported meeting with parents outside the centre in addition to talking with them at the centre.

This article suggests that kin are engaged as a resource by local departments of social services and diverted into informal kinship care, outside of foster care, and that these families often are not connected to services. The authors offer a procedure for insuring that kin who are diverted are connected to kinship navigators and direct services. (Author abstract)

An estimated 50,000 parents are behind bars on average daily for child support nonpayment, but information about these fathers and their recidivism rates are lacking. Using a jail sample (N = 16,382), multinomial logistics regression method was utilized; subgroup analysis was used to investigate differential beta weights of predictor variables. Informed by Critical Race Theory, findings showed that fathers incarcerated for arrears had significantly higher rates of recidivism than other jailed men, but had an interaction effect with race.

The purpose of this study was to understand how young Appalachian mothers retrospectively construct sexual and reproductive health communication events. Sixteen in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with mothers between the ages of 18 and 22 from the South Central Appalachian region of the USA. Findings indicate that within this population, peer influence, stereotypes medical encounters and formal health education are experienced within a culture that exhibits tension between normalising and disparaging adolescent sexuality.

This study uses administrative records for the state of Wisconsin as well as Zillow Real Estate data on median house values to examine the associations between the regularity of child support receipt on moves and changes in housing values following moves. Our sample consists of 13 329 custodial mothers with new orders from 2002 to 2006. Across several measures of child support and specifications of moves, regular receipt is negatively associated with any moves and with more than one move a year, holding constant the value of the child support received.

This study investigates how unemployment, traumatic sexual experiences, substance use, intimate partner violence, and parental involvement collectively contribute to involvement with child protective system (CPS) and court-restricted access to children among low-income, ethnically diverse fathers. Participants were 164 fathers involved in a statewide fatherhood program. The majority of the fathers in the program were unemployed (76%) and ethnic minorities (66%).