Processes that Inform Mexican Children's Ethnic-Racial Identification over Time

Arizona State University-Tempe Campus, Tempe AZ

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Abstract

? DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A key part of positive development for ethnic minority teenagers involves the feelings they have about their ethnicity. Teenagers' feelings about their ethnicity have been associated with many beneficial outcomes, such as greater academic achievement, self-esteem, and satisfaction with life. Importantly, children's feelings and ideas about their ethnicity prepare them for their experiences as teenagers. However, little is known about factors that impact children's feelings and ideas about their ethnicity over time. In addition, because children's early experiences with ethnicity set a foundation for later development, which is linked with beneficial outcomes, it is particularly important to examine processes underlying feelings about ethnicity among children who are at increased risk for negative outcomes, such as children born to Mexican-origin adolescent mothers. The current study will address gaps in the literature by examining processes underlying children's feelings and ideas about their ethnicity among 204 Mexican-origin children and their mothers. Specifically, the study will focus on whether mothers' feelings toward their ethnicity when their children are 3 years of age impact mothers' efforts to teach children about their culture when children are 4 years of age, as well as whether mothers' efforts to teach their children about their culture then inform children's feelings and ideas about their ethnicity when children are 5 years of age. In addition, we will also examine whether this process is different for female verses male children, as well as for mothers who are more recent immigrants to the U.S. verses mothers who have been in the U.S. for longer periods of time. Data for this study will come from a larger, parent study that included home interviews with Mexican- origin teen mothers and their children, an important population given that Mexican-origin adolescent females have higher teen birthrates of all U.S. ethnic groups. Mothers' measures assessed their positive attitudes toward their culture, the centrality of their culture to their ideas about themselves, and their involvemet in their culture when their children were 3 years of age, as well as their efforts with their childen to teach them about their culture when their children were 4 years of age. Child measures assessed their positive attitudes toward their culture, the centrality of their culture to their idas about themselves, and their understanding of their culture when they were 5 years of age. Study goals will be tested with Structural Equation Modeling. The aims of the proposed study are not part of the original aims of the parent grant, but instead represent original ideas based on an interest in children's ethnic-racial identification. A focus on these new aims in the proposed study will help the field move forward by understanding how mothers inform children's feelings and ideas about their ethnicity by kindergarten. If the hypotheses in the proposed study are supported, then findings can be used in interventions that focus on promoting positive outcomes among at-risk adolescent mothers and their children.