Families were recruited from six school districts in two southwest U.S. metropolitan areas (Riverside/San Bernardino, CA and Phoenix/Tempe, AZ). Individual interviews with mothers, fathers, and adolescents were conducted when the target adolescent was in the 7th grade. The average age of the adolescent was 12.9 years (SD = .48). The families were of either Mexican American (MA) (n = 194) or European American (EA) descent (n = 199), with all three family members of the same self-identified ethnicity. The sample consisted of two-parent families, either “intact” (i.e., two birth-parents, n = 218; MA = 108, EA = 110) or “stepfather” (i.e., a birthmother and a stepfather, n = 175; MA = 86, EA = 89). Stepfather families were defined as those in which the target adolescent’s birthmother had been living with a man who was not the adolescent’s birthfather for at least the past year, and in which the target adolescent lived with the mother more than half time.
