African American Family

1000 Words4 Pages
Ethnicity and Family (The African American Family) Ethnicity and family is a very broad realm of study as there are many cultures and ethnic groups in the world today. Among these different ethnic groups there are a number of similarities but there is also a distinct amount of differences. One ethnic group in particular that has very different characteristics is African Americans. Some avenues that African Americans differ from other groups are timing, gender roles, extended family structure, coping and dealing with unforeseen circumstances, their style of parenting and marriage. With that it is important to explain the differences and why they exist. There are several reasons why these distinctions in African American families exist but…show more content…
They are very strict and controlling. They are only accepting of certain behaviors and if that behavior is not displayed they resort to a physical punishment. Research suggests that physical discipline among blacks has a more positive outcome opposed to children in white families. Although the parenting style is authoritarian the parents also provide an even amount of love, support, and affection toward their children. Gender roles in African American families are typically balanced out between both male and female counterparts. However, for the children the older children take on a larger role of the responsibility. The female siblings are more prone to assist the mother with the households’ duties. These roles help provide a sense of independence and responsibility. (Strong, Christine & Cohen, 2014) Lastly, when unfortunate events take a turn in the lives of individuals in an African American family they have several variations of coping. One way is through spirituality. They tend to seek out some sort of higher power and associate themselves with a religion. Other ways is through each other. They may confide in one another in order to attain advice or just be an ear to listen. (Barbarin,…show more content…
The author discusses gender roles, parenting style, marriage and other factors in a general way. It shows the social and political issue in the world globally by exploring the life and experience of all of the different ethnic groups. It goes into a deep discussion regarding the families’ history, characteristics, and statistics. The author contributes his own view points throughout the book. Most of the chapters in the book are generally broken down but there are small passages regarding different ethnicities that talk about past life experiences, social and economic issues and other things regarding the reason why ethnic families are what they are presently and what got them to that point. This book is important to the research primarily because it talks about all aspects of family. This relates to the research because with a clear basis and understanding one is able to attribute the history and evolution with the dynamics of the African American family in today’s society. (Strong, Christine & Cohen,
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