African American Children is a comprehensive exploration of historical and contemporary patterns of parenting in black families. Historically, it focuses on how slavery, race, the racial caste system and Black culture influenced the ways in which Blacks parented their children. This series of social forces seriously circumscribed the ability of African Americans to conform to the ideologies about the nature of children and the roles of parents that began to evolve in the early twentieth century.

In the context of growing diversity, ShirleyA Hill examines the work parents do in raising their children. Based on interviews and survey data, African American Children includes Blacks of various social classes as well as a comparative sample of whites. It covers major areas of child socialization - for example: teaching values, discipline strategies, gender socialization, racial socialization, extended families - showing how both race and class make a difference, and emphasizing patterns that challenge exisiting research that views Black families as a monolithic group.