A major contribution of this study was the use of an observation system assessed for measurement equivalence across race prior to investigating mean differences or moderated effects. Our findings, based on observational measures, were generally comparable to other studies that use latent variable analyses. Our sample size, although large for an observational study, was inadequate to fully investigate contributions of demographic risk to our findings. Larger studies with longitudinal designs are needed to address this issue. The ethnic differences we found in mean levels of parenting variables may be due to differences in income or poverty level, and differences should be interpreted with some caution accordingly. Given the income and other demographic differences between racial/ethnic groups in this sample, it is encouraging that we did not find more instances of nonequivalence in measurement or predictive relationships.
