Cultur Divers Ethnic Minor Psychol
October 2022
Objectives: We investigate how Mexican-heritage mothers' socialization beliefs and strategies contribute to their preschool children's school readiness. While Latinx children typically start kindergarten with strong social competencies, they also start with less strong early literacy and math skills, in comparison with their non-Latinx peers. We propose that-paralleling Lareau's (2003) theory of "concerted cultivation," whereby White, middle-class parents purportedly display great intentionality in nurturing the academic and extracurricular skills of their children-Mexican-heritage mothers purposefully cultivate their children's social-emotional skills.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCultur Divers Ethnic Minor Psychol
April 2015
The question of how home activities advance the early social and cognitive development of Latino children receives growing attention from psychologists and social scientists. Some scholars and practitioners, focused on promoting "school readiness," frame the problem as weak parenting, signaled by insufficient rich language or academic skills. Other theorists, rooted in ecocultural theory, argue that early socialization and cognitive engagement are culturally situated within routine home activities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEarly research on the socialization of Latino children has posited that mothers exercise authoritarian practices, compared with lateral reasoning (authoritative) strategies emphasized by Anglo mothers. This work aimed to categorize fixed types of parenting practices tied to the mother's personality rather than to culturally bounded contexts; it often ignored the emotional warmth or harshness present in compliance attempts and relied on interview questions rather than naturalistic observation. We built from ecocultural theory to observe daily home activities in which Mexican American mothers attempted to correct their young child's behavior or encourage completion of a task (compliance attempt).
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