Poster #81 - Parenting, social support, and children’s adjustment in the Bedouin society in Israel

• In Event: Poster Session 18

Abstract

The current study focuses on parenting practices and social support in a large representative sample of Bedouin mothers and their kindergarten children in Israel. Bedouin Arabs are indigenous inhabitants of Israel living mainly in Israel's southern Negev desert. They are defined by their tribal structure, which substantially affects family structure and child development and emphasizes the value of the collective. They are also defined by its extremely low socioeconomic status which is by far the lowest compared to all other ethnic and cultural groups in Israel (Marey-Sarwan et al., 2018).
Children aged up to six years make up about a quarter of the Bedouin population in Israel. The socioeconomic and infrastructure gaps faced by the Bedouin population present a variety of risk factors for young children. These arise primarily from the family home environment, the community or area in which they grow up, and the types of education, health, and welfare services provided to them. In the current study, we examined parenting practices and social support and their associations with children's adjustment using conventional questionnaires.

Study participants included 1,046 Bedouin mothers and their kindergarten children (Mage = 5.59 years; 545 boys; 501 girls). A sub-sample participated in a follow-up study. It included 213 of the mothers (108 mothers of boys and 105 mothers of girls: child Mage = 5.66 years). Mothers were asked to rate their perceptions of the amount of, and satisfaction with, the support they receive from different social agents in their close environment (e.g., spouse, mother, etc.) using Sarason’s (1983) social support questionnaire. They were also been asked to describe their parenting practices using the Me and My Child questionnaire - Preschool and Primary School Form (Meunier & Roskam, 2009). The children kindergarten children reported children’s social adjustment (SDQ, Goodman, 1997); their approaches to learning (PLBS; McDermott et al., 2002), and academic achievement (Mock Report Care; Pierce et al., 1999).

Table 1 presents the correlations between parenting and child factors. Table 2 presents Regression models predicting child outcomes from background variables, parenting practices, and social support. Three models describe the association between social support and parenting practices and children’s kindergarten outcomes. In the first two, trusting the spouse’s social support was meaningful to children’s prosocial behavior and externalizing behavior. In the third, positive parenting was meaningful to children’s academic skills. Finally, differences in maternal reported parenting practices and maternal perceived social support were found between the two time-points (pre and during pandemic): Bedouin mothers relied on their fathers (t (146) = -3.36, p=.001), close friends (t (155) = -1.86, p=.06), and other acquaintances (t (156) = -7.2, p<.001) more during COVID-19 than they had previously. Mothers were also more satisfied with this social support than they were before COVID-19. Parenting practices were less positive during the pandemic compared to before: t (204) = 2.41, p=.017, Cohen d = .76.
Our findings tentatively indicate the significant role of social support as an important protective factor in Bedouin society.

Group Authors

Faten Darawsheh MUED
Yair ziv
Miri Scharf
Salim Abu-Rabia

Authors

• Faten Khaled Darawsheh Mued, University of Haifa
  Presenting Author

• Yair Ziv, University of Haifa

• Miri Scharf