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The Complexity of Support: The Impact of Family Structure and Provisional Support on African American and White Adolescent Mothers' Well‐Being
Author(s) -
Henly Julia R.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1023/a:1024634917076
Subject(s) - conceptualization , social support , health psychology , psychology , white (mutation) , race (biology) , developmental psychology , population , family support , association (psychology) , african american , social psychology , public health , demography , sociology , medicine , gender studies , biochemistry , chemistry , ethnology , nursing , artificial intelligence , computer science , psychotherapist , gene , physical therapy
The importance of social support to the well‐being of adolescent parents is a frequently discussed topic in the teen parenting literature. However, the meaning and conceptualization of social support varies across study and the heterogeneity within the teen parent population is often overlooked. In an effort to understand its role more precisely, the present study defined support both in terms of its structural and provision components, and examined the association of these components with both perceived psychological and behavioral measures of maternal well‐being for a sample of white and African American teen mothers. Specifically, the relative contribution of household structure and provisional social support to the well‐being of a sample of 107 African American and 146 white teen mothers was measured respectively. Results indicate great variability in the structural and provisional support adolescent mothers receive, regardless of race. Independent of other effects, provisional supports are more strongly associated with maternal well‐being than is family structure. Further, the impact of these different types of support varies by race.