Explores the relationship of family and demographic factors to the frequency of receiving emotional support and the frequency of engaging in negative interactions with family members (i.e., criticism, burden, and being taken advantage of). Overall, no significant differences were found between African Americans and Caribbean Blacks in the frequency of emotional support or negative interaction; several significant correlates (e.g., age, family closeness) were found for both groups.
Several theories of stress exposure, including the stress process and the family stress model for economically disadvantaged families, suggest that family processes work similarly across race/ethnic groups. Much of this research, however, treats African-Americans as a monolithic group and ignores potential differences in family stress processes within race that may emerge across ethnic groups. This study examines whether family stress processes differ intraracially in African-American and Black Caribbean families.
Data from the National Survey of American Life are used to investigate relationship satisfaction and their relation to extended family relations (i.e., emotional support and negative interaction) among nationally representative samples of African American and Black Caribbean adults. The study contributes to the literature by focusing on two groups of unmarried persons -- those who are cohabiting and persons who are unmarried/non-cohabiting -- in addition to married persons.
Argues that the task for the researcher is attempting to understand how race and class differently interact in particular contexts. Concludes that a focus on Black Caribbean heritage families can further develop the concept of concerted cultivation, and demonstrate the complex ways in which, for these families, such a strategy is a tool of social reproduction but also functions as attempted protection against racism in White mainstream society.
