Scott Coltrane

• Provost Emeritus
• Professor Emeritus at University of Oregon

The primary goal of the current study was to test whether parent and adolescent preference for a common language moderates the association between parenting and rank-order change over time in offspring substance use. A sample of Mexican-origin 7th-grade adolescents (Mage = 12.5 years, N = 194, 52% female) was measured longitudinally on use of tobac...

The primary goal of this study was to test how mother and adolescent proficiency in a common language moderates the link from parenting to adolescent development. A sample of Mexican-origin fifth-grade adolescents (N = 674, 50% female) was measured longitudinally on self-control and aggression. Mothers were rated on observed positive discipline, wa...

The purpose of this study was to examine differences and similarities across ratings of parenting by preadolescents, parents, and observers. Two hundred forty-one preadolescents rated their parents on warmth and harshness. Both mothers and fathers self-reported on these same dimensions, and observers rated each parents' warmth and harshness during...

We evaluated maternal gatekeeping attitudes as a mediator of the relation between marital problems and father-child relationships in 3 waves when children were in Grades 7-10. We assessed each parent's contribution to the marital problems experienced by the couple. Findings from mediational and cross-lagged structural equation models revealed that...

Women face an earnings penalty associated with motherhood but researchers have paid scant attention to how fatherhood might influence men's long-term earnings. Using multiple waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and employing ordinary least squares regression and fixed effects models we investigate what happens to men who modify their...

Families in the United States are more ethnically and racially diverse than ever before (Menjívar, 2010). In particular, the Latino population has experienced rapid growth in the United States (Landale & Oropesa, 2007) which has been accompanied by increased research on Latino families. However, many researchers assume that Latino families are trad...

Focusing on the StepfatherFactors Contributing to Stepfather InvolvementMexican American Families as a Case Study in Cultural ContextConclusion

Families, communities and societies influence children's learning and development in many ways. This is the first handbook devoted to the understanding of the nature of environments in child development. Utilizing Urie Bronfenbrenner's idea of embedded environments, this volume looks at environments from the immediate environment of the family (inc...

Our study examined discrepancies in Mexican American adolescent–parent perceptions regarding parental autonomy promoting and their associations with adolescents’ adjustment. A total of 138 Mexican American sixth graders reported their global self-worth and depressive symptoms. Adolescents and parents also reported their perceptions of parental auto...

Mexican-American adolescents are at an elevated risk for adjustment difficulties. In an effort to identify parenting practices that can affect the adjustment of Mexican-American youth, the current study examined parents' promotion of psychological autonomy and parents' psychological control as perceived by Mexican-American early adolescents, and ex...

The current study investigated how fathering behaviors (acceptance, rejection, monitoring, consistent discipline, and involvement) are related to preadolescent adjustment in Mexican American and European American stepfamilies and intact families. Cross-sectional data from 393 7(th) graders, their schoolteachers, and parents were used to examine lin...

This commentary evaluates and extends Lachance-Grzela and Bouchard’s (2010) review of household labor studies published between 2000 and 2009. Article sampling choices and coverage issues are reviewed and critiqued, followed by a discussion of gender theories and the relationship of divisions of household labor to systems of gender stratification....

This chapter focuses on the division of labor between women and men and the distinction commonly drawn between domestic work and paid work. Work performed directly in the service of families – including housework and childcare – is often unacknowledged because of cultural assumptions that a wife or mother should do it in the privacy of the home. Pa...

Previous research suggests that the quality of parents' relationships can influence their children's adjustment, but most studies have focused on the negative effects of marital conflict for children in White middle-class families. The current study focuses on the potential benefits of positive marital quality for children in working-class first ge...

In this article, the authors explore how data on the use of time might be used to investigate the multilevel connections between family-related policies and fathers' child care time in a cross-national context. The authors present a case study analysis of “fathering strategies” in which empirical findings from time-use data are compared with detail...

Mutual gaze has been shown to be a valuable channel of nonverbal communication. To examine mutual gaze between parents and children, 43 European American (EA) and 57 Mexican American (MA) families were coded on the occurrence of talking and gaze during a brief discussion. MA families showed lower levels of father-to-child gaze, mother-to-son gaze,...

The authors examined the degree to which disparities in parent and child acculturation are linked to both family and child adjustment. With a sample of 1st- and 2nd-generation Mexican American children, acculturation and parent-child relationship quality at 5th grade, and parent-child conflict, child internalizing, and child externalizing at 7th gr...

This study investigated similarities and differences in relations between stress and parenting behaviors for 509 Mexican American and Euro-pean American fathers and mothers in Southern California. Our model posited that family cohesion mediates the relation between stressors and parenting behavior, and we found that family cohesion strongly mediate...

Using OLS regression we model predictors of housework hours for 393 Mexican origin and Anglo families from California and Arizona. Contradicting cultural theories, Mexican origin mothers performed less housework when they were employed more hours, had higher relative earnings, and when husbands had more education. Mexican origin fathers performed m...

Numerous scholars have called for increased attention to, and sophistication in, understanding the family roles of fathers and their influence on children's development. The articles in this section provide notable moves forward in several arenas, focusing on traditionally understudied populations of fathers, employing a variety of data collection...

At a time when people are lamenting the death of the American family, Ross D. Parke, Scott Coltrane, and Thomas Schofield discovered that many of its ideals are alive and well—and they’re being imported from Mexico.

No-fault statutes changed divorce from an adversarial system pitting victims against victimizers, with the state acting as enforcer of marital norms, to a private decision between unhappily married but legally blameless partners. Divorce reform following no-fault primarily focused on making divorce more fair for the parties involved. Over the last...

The reliability and validity of Hoffman and Kloska’s (1995) Gender-based Attitudes toward Marital Roles (GATMR) and Gender-based Attitudes toward Child Rearing (GATCR) were assessed for a sample of Mexican American mothers and fathers (n = 167) of fifth-grade children in a large metropolitan area in the southwestern United States. Factor analysis w...

To assess the impact of economic hardship on 111 European American and 167 Mexican American families and their 5th-grade (M age=11.4 years) children, a family stress model was evaluated. Structural equation analyses revealed that economic hardship was linked to indexes of economic pressure that were related to depressive symptoms for mothers and fa...

Men and women are increasingly likely to pursue careers in elite professions, but gendered expectations about homemaking and breadwinning continue to shape opportunities for professional advancement and individual decisions to marry, have children, regulate employment hours, or use “family-friendly” programs. This article describes how the Victoria...

We identify multiple predictors of five types of father involvement in 167 low- to moderate-income two-parent Mexican American families with fifth-grade children. Analyses show that fathers’ egalitarian gender attitudes and mothers’ education are associated with higher levels of father involvement. Fathers are more involved in monitoring and intera...

Although divorce rates have been stable or dropping for two decades, Americans seem anxious about the state of marriage. Drawing on the sociology of knowledge and a social constructionist approach to the study of social problems, we examine reasons for this collective anxiety, documenting how the divorce “problem” has been framed by organizations p...

Despite advances in our understanding of fatherhood, most social and behavioral science research is based on data from white, middle-class, European-American families. In this chapter, the authors argue for including Latino families in fatherhood studies and highlight some special issues in the assessment of Latino men's family involvement that hav...

The goal of this study was to investigate the impact of poverty and economic pressure upon the adjustment of mothers and children in immigrant Latino families. Participants included 56 first generation Latina mothers who completed questionnaires addressing economic difficulties, depression, social support, and behavior problems exhibited by their c...

Marriage and fatherhood policies, inspired by the Christian Right and backed by conservative think tanks, have gained widespread support based on moral framing of family issues and simplistic interpretation of sociological “evidence.” Hybrid political-religious organizations including the National Fatherhood Initiative, the Marriage Movement, and P...

Marriage and fatherhood policies, inspired by the Christian Right and backed by conservative think tanks, have gained widespread support based on moral framing of family issues and simplistic interpretation of sociological "evidence. " Hybrid political-religious organizations including the National Fatherhood Initiative, the Marriage Movement, and...

This article reviews more than 200 scholarly articles and books on household labor published between 1989 and 1999. As a maturing area of study, this body of research has been concerned with understanding and documenting how housework is embedded in complex and shifting social processes relating to the well-being of families, the construction of ge...

Scholars have long argued that popular consumer culture is both producer and product of social inequality, but few detailed empirical studies have explored the ways that advertising imagery simultaneously constructs stereotypes of race and gender. This article reports on a content analysis of television commercials (n = 1699) aired on programs with...

Explores how popular cultural imagery reflects and reproduces work–family segregation and gender inequality. Social constructionist research on television, advertising, and gender is reviewed, and theories explaining gender inequality in the workplace and the home are summarized. Results of a study of 1,699 television commercials from the 1990s are...

Recent researchers have argued both that there has been change in the way gender is portrayed in television commercials and that gender images have remained stereotypical. Comparing television commercials from the 1950s/early 1960s to commercials from the 1980s, this study explores the issue of how much, if any, change has occurred in gender images...

This article explores how feelings of entitlement, obligation, and gratitude affect family work. Exploratory interviews suggested that memories of past events, including extramarital affairs, created expectations and referents that influenced subsequent divisions of household labor. Using regression analysis of survey data from a random sample of 1...

Determinants of gender stratification range through every institutional sphere and every level of sociological analysis. An integrated theory is presented which charts the connections and feedbacks among three main blocks of causal factors and two blocks of outcomes. The GENDER ORGANIZATION OF PRODUCTION block includes the degree of compatibility b...

Using a representative sample of married couples with preschool-aged children in the United States, this study analyzes the conditions under which husbands share household tasks conventionally performed by wives. Survey data are analyzed using LISREL VII procedures, with proportional hourly contributions to child care (feeding, bathing, dressing, o...

Laws regulating the postdivorce custody and support of minor children underwent major changes during the 1980s. This paper uses the social constructionist approach to analyze the claims making of fathers' rights groups promoting state joint custody preference statutes and mothers' groups promoting strict federal child support enforcement. Although...

Using data from a nationally representative sample, this research investigated husbands' contributions to household labor in four types of families: first-married couples with biological children, remarried couples with biological children only, remarried couples with stepchildren only, and remarried couples with biological and stepchildren. Absolu...

Regression analysis using coded ethnographic data from a sample of 93 nonindustrial societies showed that patterns of child rearing and property control are significantly associated with outward displays of men's dominance. In societies in which women exercise significant control over property and men have close relationships with children, men inf...

Using a representative sample of married couples with children in the United States, this study explored how the timing of the transition to parenthood is associated with later divisions of domestic labor. Three common explanations for gender-segregated divisions of household labor—ideology, relative resources, and time availability—were tested for...

This article reports on the results of an exploratory study of domestic role-sharing in a purposive sample of dual-earner couples with school-aged children. Divisions of household labor are analyzed with reference to the couples' accounts of how and why they attempt to share child care and housework. Postponing the transition to parenthood facilita...

This paper explores how twenty dual-earner couples with school-aged children talk about sharing child care and housework. In about half of the families, fathers are described as performing many tasks traditionally performed by mothers, but remaining in a helper role. In the other families, fathers are described as assuming equal responsibility for...

Tested the hypothesis that male participation in childrearing enhances the public status of women, using data on 90 nonindustrial societies compiled by G. P. Murdock and D. White (1969). Results indicate that parental proximity, affection, and responsibility for routine childcare were positively associated with female participation in community dec...

In spite of high potential for saving energy in US buildings, adoption rates for residential conservation technologies have been low. Research in the social and behavioural sciences helps to explain these low adoption rates and suggests strategies for improving conservation delivery systems. The authors propose a social diffusion model as a useful...

drawing on recent interview studies, national surveys, and sociological theories, this chapter reviews the current state of knowledge about men in families / offer . . . optimistic assessments about the future of fatherhood in America pressures for change in men's family roles / recent changes in the division of family work / culture and socializ...

Typescript. Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1988. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 400-420).