Race, Class, Network Embeddedness, and Family Violence: A Search for Potent Support Systems

Abstract

The number of years in the neighborhood and the total number of children are the network variables closely associated with low rates of severe parent to child violence for both Black and White parents. A review of the literature on family violence and race under-scores the need for caution. The husband's occupational class is highly associated with the occurrence of child abuse, sibling abuse, and parent abuse for Black respondents than it is for white respondents. Although Black respondents are more likely to approve of family violence and to report that they actually slapped a spouse within the last year, when class and social network embeddedness are controlled, most of these differences disappear. One hypothesis implicit in the literature on the Black extended family is that family-kin-neighborhood social networks are particularly salient for Black Americans and serve as potent support systems and buffers against the socio-economic forces which might cause a variety of pathological disorders in more isolated nuclear families.

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