The Central Role of Familial Ethnic Socialization in Latino Adolescents’ Cultural Orientation

The current study utilized an ecological framework to examine the longitudinal interrelations among Latino adolescents’ (N = 323) cultural orientation (i.e., ethnic identity and enculturation), familial ethnic socialization experiences, and generational status. Findings indicated that ethnic identity and enculturation were both predicted by adolescents’ generational status, although some of these relations were indirect via the relation between generational status and familial ethnic socialization. Findings underscore the importance of examining the dimensions of cultural orientation independent of one another and considering the central role of familial socialization practices in these processes. Moreover, the current work provides direction for further theoretical work to advance our understanding of the unique aspects of cultural orientation.     

Intergenerational Contact in Chinese Families: Structural and Cultural Explanations

Although the determinants of intergenerational contact have been well documented in Western countries, we know virtually nothing about the situation in China, a country that has recently experienced unprecedented socioeconomic and demographic change. This study analyzed the frequency of (a) visits and (b) other contact (phone, text message, etc.) in a representative sample of 16,715 adult child–parent dyads, focusing in particular on the role of migration as well as children's gender, marital status, and education level. Adult children generally maintained intensive social relations with parents, although distance was a major barrier to face‐to‐face contact. Sons visited more often than daughters, but daughters were more likely to stay in touch by other means. Moreover, the strength of parent–daughter ties was strongly dependent on education level. These findings suggest that women's empowerment and the spread of mobile technology have created new opportunities for intergenerational solidarity.     

Child,Parent, and Situational Correlates of Familial Ethnic/Race Socialization

This study examines child, parent, and situational correlates of familial ethnic/race socialization using nationally representative data gathered as part of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998 – 1999 (ECLS‐K). The ECLS‐K sample (N = 18,950) includes White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, American Indian, and multiracial kindergarteners, with survey data available at the child, parent/guardian, teacher, and school level. We find that child correlates such as race and gender, parent correlates such as education and warmth of parent‐child relationship, and situational correlates such as percent of minorities at the child’s school and cultural event participation influence how often family members discuss children’s ethnic/racial heritage with them. We advocate for continued research of contextualized family dynamics.     

Family Cohesion in the Lives of Mexican American and European American Parents

This study investigated similarities and differences in relations between stress and parenting behaviors for 509 Mexican American and European American fathers and mothers in Southern California. Our model posited that family cohesion mediates the relation between stressors and parenting behavior, and we found that family cohesion strongly mediated most of the relations between stress and parenting behaviors. Important ethnic and gender differences were evident. In contrast with other groups, Mexican American fathers reported higher levels of family cohesion when faced with economic pressures. Implications for future research on stress and parenting are discussed.     

Multigenerational Punishment: Shared Experiences of Undocumented Immigration Status Within Mixed‐Status Families

Estimates suggest that approximately 16.6 million people in the United States are members of mixed‐status families composed of undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens or documented immigrants. Drawing on interviews with 32 undocumented 1.5‐generation parents, the author explores how immigration laws affect undocumented parents and their citizen children. She finds that U.S. citizen children and their undocumented parents often share in the risks and limitations associated with undocumented immigration status. She conceptualizes this phenomenon as multigenerational punishment, a distinct form of legal violence wherein the sanctions intended for a specific population spill over to negatively affect individuals who are not targeted by laws. Though not restricted to familial relationships, multigenerational punishment tends to occur within families because of the strong social ties, sustained day‐to‐day interactions, and dependent relationships found among family members. This sheds light on how laws can further the reproduction of inequality within families and over generations.     

Relative Spousal Earnings and Marital Happiness Among African American and White Women

The distinctive economic histories of African American and White wives suggest that involvement in household income production holds contextually situated unique meanings for these groups. Yet research has not addressed racial differences in the effects of relative earnings on marital well‐being. Surveying 431 employed wives in 21 U.S. cities, we found that wife‐to‐husband income ratio and marital happiness were negatively associated when women held traditional values, but in racially distinct ways. Among White women only, a negative association between income ratio and marital happiness was reversed when financial need was reported. Findings are discussed in terms of variability in the meaning of wives’ earnings as a function of situational, historical, and sociocultural dynamics.     

Race Identity and Race Socialization in African American Families

Abstract

In recent decades, theoretical and empirical efforts have enhanced our understanding of race identity and race socialization in African American families. This review of that literature identifies ways in which this growing knowledge base might assist social workers who work with African Americans. Prominent theories of race identity are outlined with a brief summary of research that has found linkages between race identity and well-being. Race socialization is defined and research investigating age, gender, and social class differences in socialization are discussed. Finally, research that examines the consequences of race socialization for psychological adjustment, academic achievement, and identity development is summarized, along with recommendations for social workers.     

Mothers, Fathers, Peers, and Mexican-Origin Adolescents' Sexual Intentions

Drawing on a symbolic-interaction perspective and a compensation model, the processes linking mother-and father-adolescent relationship qualities, deviant peer affiliations, and adolescents' sexual intentions were investigated for 246 Mexican-origin youths born in the United States and in Mexico using multiple-group structural equation models. Deviant peer affiliations significantly mediated the relations between paternal acceptance and sexual intentions and between disclosure to mothers and sexual intentions for U.S.-born youths but not for Mexico-born youths. Findings highlight the importance of examining variability as a function of youth nativity.     

Acculturation Gap,Intergenerational Conflict,Parenting Style,and Youth Distress in Immigrant Chinese American Families

This study examined mother–child acculturation gaps in relationship to youth distress and the possible mediating role of parent–child conflict and parenting style in a sample of 81 Chinese American families. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses provided partial support for a relationship between acculturation gaps and youth distress. No mediators of this relationship were found; however, post-hoc analyses indicated that intergenerational conflict and parenting style were associated with youth distress above and beyond acculturation gaps. These results suggest that interventions developed to reduce parent–child conflict and increase parental bonding (increase parental warmth and decrease parental overprotection) may be valuable for Chinese American adolescents, regardless of acculturation gap status.     

Paternal Hostility and Maternal Hostility in European American and African American Families

The authors examined the hypothesized influence of maternal and paternal hostility on youth delinquency over time. The investigation addressed significant gaps in earlier research on parental hostility, including the neglect of father effects, especially in African American families. Using prospective, longitudinal data from community samples of European American (n = 422) and African American (n = 272) 2‐parent families, the authors examined the independent effects of paternal and maternal hostility on youth delinquency. The results indicated that paternal hostility significantly predicted relative increases in youth delinquent behaviors above and beyond the effects of maternal hostility; conversely, maternal hostility did not predict youth delinquency after controlling for paternal hostility. Multiple‐group analyses yielded similar results for both ethnic groups and for boys and girls. These results underscore the importance of including both parents in research on diverse families. Neglecting fathers provides an incomplete account of parenting in relation to youth development.     

Cross‐Ethnic Equivalence of Socialization Measures in European American and African American Youth

We examined the cross‐ethnic equivalency of socialization measures developed primarily with European American families. Four aspects of measurement equivalence were assessed: conceptual, operational, scalar, and functional. Evidence of between—and within—group measurement equivalency of socialization measures was derived from youth reports of 500 European American and 134 African American individuals ages 10 to 18, using confirmatory factor analyses and item response theory analyses. Findings indicate that most individual indicators of socialization, with the exception of paternal psychological control and parent‐youth conflict, demonstrated cross‐ethnic equivalence. The findings also suggest that lax control is better represented as a multidimensional construct (leniency and laxness).     

Being Authentically American Indian: Symbolic Identity Construction and Social Structure among Urban New Indians

This study investigates the individual and group level reconstruction of a racial‐ethnic identity. Specifically, we investigate the experience of “new Indians,” or people who did not previously identify as American Indian, but are now reclaiming this racial‐ethnic heritage. Because many new Indians lack both official (tribal and/or federal) recognition of their Indian status and the phenotypic traits associated with Indians in popular culture, their authenticity as American Indians is often questioned in interactions with others. We document how new Indians work to reconstruct the symbolic meaning of authentic Indianness by emphasizing specific values and actions rather than biological lineage. Moreover, we demonstrate how new Indians achieve interactional validation of their redefined Indian identities in the context of a proximate social structure.     

Race/Ethnic Differences in the Marital Expectations of Adolescents: The Role of Romantic Relationships

I use a sample of 12,973 adolescents in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine race/ethnic differences in perception of the likelihood of marriage in adulthood and the role of heterosexual romantic relationship experience in explaining this difference. Compared to adolescents from other race/ethnic backgrounds, White adolescents are more likely to date and are especially more likely than Black adolescents to participate in serious romantic relationships that increase marital expectations. Although the type of current or recent relationship is associated with marital expectations, they do not explain the observed race/ethnic gap in these expectations. Overall, the results suggest that these adolescent romantic experiences likely play only a small role in determining differential marital expectations.     

Providing More but Receiving Less: Daughters in Intergenerational Exchange in Mainland China

This study investigates the gender pattern of both downstream and upstream transfers between older parents and their children in China. Based on theories about the generation gap in the understandings of family norm and the heterogeneous effects of the social forces that encourage women to contribute more in elder care by generation, the author proposes a gender asymmetrical pattern in which the patrilineal norm governs parents' decisions of downstream transfers but exerts little effect on children's upstream support for parents. Capitalizing on a survey of the population older than 60 years, the author fitted several simultaneous equation models. Empirical results suggest that, all being equal, daughters provide more monetary and housework assistance to older parents than do sons, but daughters are comparatively disadvantaged in the probability of receiving either type of transfer from their parents. The pattern of “providing more but receiving less” for female caregivers affirms the gender asymmetrical pattern.     

Intergenerational Transmission and the Formation of Cultural Orientations in Adolescence and Young Adulthood

In this article we wanted to shed light on the intergenerational transmission and the formation of cultural orientations in adolescence. The intergenerational transmission was analyzed in different age groups in a longitudinal design (orientations of parents and their adolescent children were measured twice, with a time lapse of 3 years). Results clearly revealed that late adolescence is the “formative phase” for the establishment of cultural orientations and suggested that psychological processes such as internalization are guiding this formation. This internalization was found for all investigated orientations. In addition, as adolescents grew older, their susceptibility to parental orientations diminished, but, in contrast, parents did not become more susceptible to their children's orientations. No age effects in sociocultural influences were found. It was concluded that the investigated sociocultural influences should be seen as providing a structural context within which the formation of orientations in adolescence takes place.     

Language Acculturation,Acculturation‐Related Stress,and Marital Quality in Chinese American Couples

The current study examines the longitudinal indirect pathways linking language acculturation to marital quality. Three waves of data were collected from 416 Chinese American couples for 8 years (M_age.wave1 = 48 for husbands, 44 for wives). Actor–partner interdependence model analyses revealed that for both husbands and wives, lower levels of language acculturation were associated with higher levels of stress over being stereotyped as a perpetual foreigner. Individuals' foreigner stress, in turn, was directly related to greater levels of their own and their partners' marital warmth, suggesting that foreigner stress may have some positive relational effects. However, individuals' foreigner stress also was associated with increases in their own depressive symptoms, which predicted higher levels of marital hostility in the partner. Overall, these results underscore the complexity of how language acculturation and foreigner stress relate to marital quality and the importance of considering the interdependence of the marital system.     

The Intergenerational Continuity of Fathers' Absence in a Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Sample

Fathers' absence is a pattern that shows intergenerational continuity, most notably within disadvantaged populations. The process whereby this pattern is repeated across generations is not well understood. Using data from the Concordia Longitudinal Risk Project, the authors investigated pathways between fathers' absence in 1 generation and the experience of fathers' absence by their children. The current sample included 386 socioeconomically at‐risk individuals across 2 waves of data collection: (a) when they were children and (b) when they were adults with their own children. Analyses based on structural equation modeling revealed that men whose fathers were absent when they were children were more likely to become absent fathers, and women whose fathers were absent when they were children were more likely to have children with absent partners. Indirect pathways between fathers' absence in 2 generations through aggression, education, and substance abuse were illustrated for women. These findings add to the literature suggesting that fathers' absence during childhood has intergenerational effects.     

Style and Language Use among Youth of the New Immigration: Formations of Race,Ethnicity, Gender,and Class in Everyday Practice

In this article I consider “style” as a linguistic and cultural concept that can demonstrate how identities performed through language use are linked to topics of central concern in studies of immigrant youth, including racial and ethnic formation, generational cohorts, acculturation, assimilation, and gender. I draw on anthropological and sociolinguistic approaches to style not generally considered in migration studies and present ethnographic data of two cliques of Desi (South Asian American) teens in a Northern California high school. I argue that analyses of youth style can substantially complicate assimilation frameworks by highlighting the ways in which young peoples' linguistic practices may not fit neatly into commonly used analytical categories of “immigrant” and “American.” Focusing on how political economy and local histories inform power and difference that shape migration experiences for youth, the article moves beyond routinely examined areas of heritage language retention and loss to analyze the significance of youth performances of heritage languages as well as English.