A Dyadic Analysis of Head Start Parent Involvement: Sense of Mastery as a Mediator

• In Event: Roundtable Session 52
  In Roundtable Session: Parent Involvement in the Early Years

Abstract

This study used the mother-father dyadic context to examine the association among Head Start parent involvement, parents’ depressive symptoms, and sense of mastery. This study tested whether sense of mastery mediated the relation between depressive symptoms and parent involvement. The data came from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES 2000 cohort) that included biological/adoptive resident mothers with various marital status, as well as biological and non-biological resident and non-resident fathers. Results of the actor-partner interdependence mediation model showed that the effect of mothers’ depressive symptoms on fathers’ Head Start involvement was mediated by mothers’ sense of mastery. Findings have implications to the mother-father dyad as an important relational context to study Head Start parent involvement.

Authors

• Ya-Fang Cheng, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Christine Meng, Edgewood College