Assistant Professor Scott Awarded Fellowship to Improve Parenting Resources in Boston’s Chinatown

Friday, February 8, 2019 | Boston University School of Social Work

Beginning April 2019, BU School of Social Work assistant professor Judith C. Scott will lead a study on parenting behaviors within a culturally unique group: low-income Chinese immigrant families living in Greater Boston.

Scott’s pilot study is sponsored by an $80,000 Research to Action grant from the Doris Duke Fellowship for the Promotion of Child Well-Being, which funds researchers who use innovative methods to prevent child abuse and neglect.

Scott became interested in parenting among Chinese immigrant caregivers through her work as an evaluation consultant for Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center. “As my evaluation team and I talked with staff about evidence-based parenting research and support, again and again, staff pointed out that the voices of the families they served were missing from research. My collaborators and I felt that investigating the parenting experiences of Chinese immigrant caregivers would help social service organizations better serve this community and ensure that the voices of Chinese immigrant caregivers are included in parenting literature.”

Scott will collaborate with the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center (BCNC), Julia Fleckman (Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine), and Bridget Cho (University of Kansas) to build a comprehensive understanding of their target population’s parenting behaviors and attitudes, including cultural and social context. The team will elicit Chinese caregivers’ recommendations about effective methods of leveraging community-based services for increasing culturally relevant, safe, supportive and nurturing parenting practices and disseminate the recommendations and information among low-income Chinese immigrant caregivers to help those who are providing services to this population.

This grant award is Scott’s second from the Doris Duke Fellowship, which previously sponsored her dissertation research on the use of physical discipline in African American families.