Parenting in urban slum areas families with children in a shantytown of Rio de Janeiro

Abstract: This is a study of parenting and child development in a slum area in a developing part of the world. The aims of the study were threefold. The first aim was to explore the physical and social contexts for parenting in a shantytown in Rio de Janeiro using an ecological perspective. The second aim was to examine parenting and subsequent child outcomes among a sample of families living in the shantytown. The third aim was to explore what factors contribute to differences among parents in how they nurture and protect their children. The theoretical framework of the study was an updated version of Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model of human development. Using self-report questionnaires developed by Rohner, data on perceived parental acceptance–rejection were collected from 72 families with adolescents 12–14 years old, representing approx. 75% of all households with children in this age group in the shantytown. Besides self-report questionnaires, each adolescent’s main caregiver replied to several standardized questionnaires developed by Garbarino et al., eliciting demographic and social-situational data about the family, neighborhood, and wider community. The results of the study paint a complex portrait of the social living conditions of the parents and children. Despite many difficulties, most parents seemed to raise their children with loving care. The results from the self-report questionnaires indicate that the majority of the adolescents perceived substantial parental acceptance. The adolescents’ experience of greater or lesser parental acceptance–rejection seems to influence their emotional and behavioral functioning; it also seems to be related to their school attendance. Much of the variation in degree of perceived acceptance–rejection seems to be related both to characteristics of the individual adolescents and their main caregiver(s) and to influences from the social and environmental context in which they and their caregivers interact and live their lives.