Parental socialization entails purposeful and goal-driven strategies that promote positive youth development and prevent youth-related risks and challenges. Guided by a family management perspective, we examined the variety in African-American mothers’ academic expectations and risk concerns for adolescents, and the parenting strategies they employ to address each of these beliefs. We also examined the associations between mothers’ beliefs and strategies, as well as variations across adolescent gender and socioeconomic status (SES). We used open-response data collected from 619 African-American mothers of eighth-graders from Prince George’s County, Maryland, varying in adolescent gender, maternal education, family income, and family structure. We systematically coded interview data and tabulated main categories, subcategories, and first-round codes. Then, we conducted multivariate regression analyses to examine the relations between academic expectations, risk concerns, socialization strategies, and socio-demographic characteristics. Overall, mothers held high academic expectations, perceived contextual and behavioral problems for adolescents, and reported strategies that positioned them as direct and positive socializers. When mothers reported concerns for underachievement, they had increased odds of providing necessary materials and services, holding discussions, and expressing negative reactions. Finally, adolescent gender and family SES predicted academic expectations and risk concerns, as well as parenting strategies. Our study highlights the importance for studies to consider the purposeful nature of parenting, as socialization strategies were linked to specific developmental goals. Our findings call for the development of measures that capture a wider range of parenting strategies and contextualize these strategies to parents’ aims.

父母社会化需要有目的性和以目标为导向的战略，以促进青年积极发展并预防与青年有关的风险和挑战。在家庭管理的角度指导下，我们研究了非裔美国人母亲的学业期望和对青少年的风险关注的多样性，以及他们针对这些信念所采用的育儿策略。我们还研究了母亲的信念和策略之间的关联，以及青春期性别和社会经济地位（SES）之间的差异。我们使用了从马里兰州乔治王子县的619名八年级学生的非洲裔美国母亲那里收集的开放式应答数据，这些数据在青春期性别，孕产妇教育，家庭收入和家庭结构方面有所不同。我们对采访数据进行了系统编码，并列出了主要类别，子类别，和第一轮代码。然后，我们进行了多元回归分析，以检验学业期望，风险关注，社会化策略和社会人口特征之间的关系。总体而言，母亲对学业抱有很高的期望，对青少年感知到上下文和行为方面的问题，并报告了将其定位为直接和积极的社会交往者的策略。当母亲报告对成就不佳的担忧时，她们增加提供必要的材料和服务，进行讨论并表达负面反应的几率增加。最后，青春期的性别和家庭SES预测了学业期望和风险，以及育儿策略。我们的研究强调了研究必须考虑育儿的目的性的重要性，因为社会化策略与特定的发展目标相关。我们的发现要求制定措施，以涵盖更广泛的育儿策略，并将这些策略与父母的目标联系起来。