Observing maternal sensitivity in a South African township: an exploratory study into behavioral features using different measures

ABSTRACT

There is evidence that sensitive responsiveness is manifested differently in varying cultural contexts. This exploratory study examines a sample of 50 South African mothers in the context of a socioeconomically deprived Township, and investigates differences between the Ainsworth sensitivity scale (that does not specify particular manifestations of sensitivity) and the Maternal Behavior Q-sort (MBQ) mini, that assesses a more specified array of behaviors. Results showed a significant but modest association between the two measures, and maternal education was related to the MBQ-mini but not the Ainsworth scores. This pattern of results appears to be due to the higher salience of social games and verbal teaching in the MBQ-mini than in the Ainsworth scale. Such behaviors are less common in South African parenting, where more physical forms of responsiveness seem more typical. A local “South African” sort was developed to capture culture-specific manifestations of sensitivity.

KEYWORDS:

• Maternal sensitivity
• South Africa
• culture-sensitive assessment
• video observation

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Ububele Educational and Psychotherapy Trust and the families who participated for their contributions to this study, as well as acknowledge addition, the partial funding from the World Childhood Foundation and the DG Murry Trust for this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).