In addition to RES content, or the frequency with which parents communicate different types of RES messages, RES competency is important to study because of its potential associations with important youth outcomes. The body of work on RES competency is small but quickly growing. For instance, Anderson et al. (2021) found that in a variablecentered study that higher levels of RES competence, as measured by greater confidence and skills and lower stress, mitigated the harmful link between parental discrimination, parental racial worries, and child psychosocial outcomes in Black families. Stated differently, parents who faced discrimination experienced more worries about them and their children experiencing discrimination, and these parental worries were associated with worse mental health in their children; however, this relation between parental worries and youth's functioning was weaker for those high in RES competency (Anderson et al. 2021). Parental RES competency, therefore, may be important not only in its relations to the communication of RES content, but it may also have the ability to disrupt intergenerational pathways by which parents' discrimination experiences and worries about racial issues are associated with mental health symptomatology in their children. This is consistent with the RECAST model (Anderson and Stevenson 2019), which asserts that RES content communicated after a stressful racial encounter has the potential to mitigate the negative impacts of this encounter on youth outcomes *if* parents have adequate levels of RES competency (high confidence, high skills, moderate to low stress) in socializing their children in response to this negative encounter. Exposure to numerous examples of racial-ethnic inequality is ever-present in 21st century U.S. society. Therefore, a greater understanding now of RES competency and RES content may ultimately help us intervene to disrupt some of the negative cascading and intergenerational impacts of discrimination.

#### 1.3.3. A Person-Centered Approach to RES Competency

Only one study thus far has applied person-centered analyses—which again have the potential to advance our understanding of RES competency and RES content and advance equity, social justice, and research on populations of color (Neblett et al. 2016) in the context of RES content and competency. In this sole, highly informative study, Jones et al. (2021) used a person-centered approach to determine the patterns of RES content and competence in a sample of Black caregivers and what parental factors were

associated with these patterns. Three profiles were identified: competent parents who provided frequent and multifaceted RES messages (*Multifaceted* and *More Competent*), moderately competent parents who were less engaged in RES content delivery (*Unengaged* and *Moderately Competent*), and stressed parents who delivered negative RES content messages (NLCS; *Less Competent* and *Stressed*). Multifaceted and More Competent parents were more likely to be older and have older children relative to Less Competent and Stressed parents, likely building competence with delivery of RES messages with time. Their Black identity was also seen more positively and as more central to their overall identity relative to Less Competent and Stressed parents. In terms of discrimination, Unengaged and Moderately Competent parents reported less racial discrimination relative to Less Competent and Stressed parents, suggesting that fewer discriminatory experiences may surprisingly be an impetus for the delivery of more negative RES messages that disparage one's own group. These studies highlight that whether parents feel confident or stressed about delivering RES messages, this competence links to the types of RES messages they deliver. These patterns are also informed by demographic and racial processes, including parents' own racial identity and experiences of discrimination. This work, moreover, may be helpful in understanding RES content and competency in other populations of color in the United States (e.g., Asian American and Latinx).

#### 1.3.4. The Need to Study RES Content and Competency across Diverse Populations

Asian American and Latinx parents must also contend with how to support their children in navigating the racial landscape of the United States, yet little work has examined RES content in these populations, with even less work examining preparation for bias or egalitarian messages (Priest et al. 2014; see Juang et al. 2017 for a review of RES in Asian families and Ayón et al. 2020 for a review in Latinx families). Further, RES competency in Asian American and Latinx parents has yet to be explored. A set of studies by Kiang et al. (2017, 2021) with Asian American and Latinx parents has examined a construct akin to RES confidence, which they term cultural parenting self-efficacy, defined as the belief that parents can teach their children the knowledge and values associated with their group as well as instill cultural pride. Consistent with Anderson et al.'s (2020) study with Black parents, cultural parenting self-efficacy was linked to general parenting self-efficacy for Latinx parents and greater parental involvement for both Asian American and Latinx parents (Kiang et al. 2017; Kiang et al. 2021). In contrast to the results by Jones et al. (2021), some aspects of cultural parenting self-efficacy were lower for Latinx parents with older children, especially efficacy around delivering messages about maintaining bicultural ties.

Taken together, it is clear that parental competence in delivering RES messages is evident across communities of color in the U.S. and is associated with other aspects of parenting as well. Yet, less is known about how RES competence, RES content, and sociodemographic factors are related across racial and ethnic groups. Understanding patterns of RES content and competency will be critical in the continued evolution of research on RES, particularly because RES competency is a phenomenon that is relevant and may operate more fairly across families of all groups (see Jones et al. 2021). Further, as the third wave of RES researchers work to support parents' RES practices and competency through direct intervention with varying racial and ethnic groups (e.g., Anderson et al. 2018; Stein et al. 2021), understanding the correlates of patterns of RES competency and content will be key in calibrating and optimizing interventions to support parental RES competency and content.

#### **2. Current Study**

In the current study, we sought a more comprehensive understanding of RES content *and* competency within and across racial-ethnic groups by conducting a latent profile analysis of RES competency and content in Black, Latinx, and Asian American parents. To provide a description of the types of parents in each profile, we examined whether RES competency and content profiles differ based on numerous parent and child sociodemographic characteristics. Finally, we also examined other factors that have been posited as impacting RES content delivery, such as parental exposure to racial discrimination and three dimensions of critical consciousness: understanding of social inequality (reflection), motivation to correct social inequities (motivation), and behaviors directed at dismantling unequal social systems (action). The impact of many of these factors on RES competency has not yet been thoroughly examined.

We hypothesized that we would observe profiles of socialization competency and content similar to Jones et al.'s (2021) study in a sample of Black parents (i.e., a high competence multifaceted profile, a moderately competent profile, and a low competence high stress profile). However, because this constitutes the first study to examine patterns of socialization competency and content in Latinx and Asian American parents, we made no a priori hypotheses regarding differences between profiles on sociodemographic factors, discrimination, and critical consciousness dimensions.

#### **3. Method**

#### *3.1. Participants*

Participants were 585 parents (*M*age = 44.46, *SD* = 9.14, 59.70% mothers) with children between the ages of 10 and 18 (*M*age = 14.30, *SD* = 2.49, 50.3% female). In terms of racialethnic characteristics, parents were relatively equally distributed between Black (*n* = 203), Asian American (*n* = 194), and Latinx (*n* = 188) groups. A majority of parents were married or cohabitating with a partner (76.7%). The median household income of our sample was between USD 75,000 and 99,000 (the modal family, or 19.5% of our sample, earned between USD 50,000 and 75,000) and the modal level of parental education was a 4-year college degree. A majority (63.4%) of parents were born in the United States. We observed racialethnic differences in household income, where Asian American families earned more than Latinx families (*p* < 0.001), who then in turn earned more than Black families (*p* = 0.002). Black and Latinx families did not differ in parental education but did each report less education than Asian American parents (*p* < 0.001). Foreign-born parents, on average, earned more and had achieved higher education than U.S.-born parents (*p* < 0.001).

#### *3.2. Procedure*

Participants for the current study were recruited directly through Qualtrics Research Panels for a larger study on parental racial and ethnic socialization practices during the COVID-19 pandemic. To be eligible, parents had to self-identify as Black, Latinx, Asian American, or White and have a child between the ages of 10 and 18. Parents were still eligible for the study if they had additional children within or outside of our target age range; however, parents completed survey questions in reference to their oldest child between ages 10 and 18. This child was subsequently described as the 'reference child'. After being recruited into the study, parents provided informed consent and proceeded to complete an online Qualtrics survey assessing dimensions of RES competency. All study procedures were approved by the Institutional Review Board. Due to the unique aspects of RES in multiracial families who have parents of different racial groups (see Atkin and Yoo 2019), and White families (see Umaña-Taylor and Hill 2020) who hold privilege over people of color, these families were excluded from analysis for this study. This study was not pre-registered and data and syntax for this study are not publicly available.

#### *3.3. Measures*

#### 3.3.1. Profile Indicators

#### RES Competency

Socialization competency was assessed using a version of the Racial Socialization Competency Scale (Anderson et al. 2020) adapted and validated for use across racialethnic groups (Jones et al. 2021). This measure assesses four domains: racial socialization confidence (29 items), skills (29 items), general stress (22 items), and call-to-action stress (7 items). Participants were presented with sample items such as 'share my emotions about

my experiences of negative racial encounters' and 'teach my child to share their feelings about the history of racism and slavery' and indicate their belief in their ability to deliver this message (confidence), how prepared they are to deliver this message (skill), and how stressed they would be delivering this message (stress). Greater detail on the measurement creation, validation, and invariance testing process can be found in Jones et al. (2021).

To summarize one notable adaptation from Anderson et al.'s (2020) scale to facilitate its use across racial/ethnic groups, the 5-point Likert scale used across all subscales was changed to a 4-point Likert scale for RES confidence and RES skills. This change was made because certain racial/ethnic groups did not use response options 1 and 2 when responding to RES confidence and skills items; to facilitate measurement validation and invariance testing (see Jones et al. 2021), response options 1 ('not at all' for confidence and 'very unprepared' for skills) and 2 ('unlikely' for confidence and 'unprepared' for skills) were recoded and combined. This resulted in a four-point RES confidence subscale with confidence response options: 'not at all/unlikely' (1), 'maybe/maybe not' (2), 'I think I can' (3), and 'absolutely' (4). The four response options for RES skills were: 'very unprepared/unprepared' (1), 'in the middle' (2), 'prepared' (3), and 'very prepared' (4).

For the stress subscales, collapsing response categories was not necessary (see Jones et al. 2021), resulting in the same five-point Likert scale outlined in Anderson et al. (2020) with response options: 'very unstressed' (1), 'unstressed' (2), 'in the middle' (3), 'stressed' (4), and 'very stressed' (5). Greater values indicated greater perceived confidence, skills, general stress, and call to action stress. In our sample, reliabilities were 0.97 for confidence, 0.98 for skills, 0.97 for general stress, and 0.93 for call-to-action stress.

#### RES Content Frequency

He frequency with which parents delivered different types of RES messages was assessed using subscales from Hughes (2003) parental socialization measure, and well as Juang et al.'s (2016) Asian American Parental Racial-Ethnic Socialization Scale. The Hughes measure was used to assess the frequency of: pride socialization (5 items; e.g., 'encouraged your child to read books concerning the history or traditions of your ethnicity/race'), preparation for bias (6 items; 'told your child that people might try to limit him or her because of their ethnicity/race'), and promotion of mistrust (2 items; 'Done or said things to keep your child from trusting students from other ethnic/racial groups').

For pride, preparation for bias, and promotion of mistrust, parents indicated the frequency with which they delivered each message on a five-point Likert scale from 'never' (1) to 'six or more times' (5), while, for the cultural pluralism, promotion of equality, and minimization of race subscales, frequency was assessed on a five-point Likert scale from 'never' (1) to 'very often' (5). In our sample, reliabilities were 0.88 for pride socialization, 0.87 for preparation for bias socialization, 0.89 for cultural pluralism, 0.84 for promotion of equality, 0.75 for promotion of mistrust, and 0.88 for minimization of race socialization.

#### 3.3.2. Variables Tested for Profile Differences

Parent and Youth Sociodemographics

Parental income, education, age, biological sex, immigrant status, and race (dummy codes for Latinx and Asian parents with Black parents as the reference group), as well as child age and biological sex, were used as correlates of profile membership.

#### Parental Critical Consciousness Dimensions

Critical reflection (4 items), motivation (4 items), and action (5 items) were assessed using the Short Critical Consciousness Scale (Diemer et al. 2020). Participants indicated their agreement with reflection (e.g., 'certain racial or ethnic groups have fewer chances to

get ahead') and motivation items (e.g., 'it is my responsibility to get involved and make things better for society') on a six-point Likert scale from 'strongly disagree' (1) to 'strongly agree' (6). For critical action items, participants indicated how frequently they participated in various activities (e.g., 'participated in a civil rights group or organization') over the past year on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 'never did this' (1) to 'at least once a week' (5). Cronbach's alphas in the measurement validation sample, a diverse sample of adolescents, were 0.93, 0.80, and 0.82 for reflection, motivation, and action, respectively (Diemer et al. 2020). In our sample of Black, Latinx, and Asian American parents, reliabilities were 0.89, 0.84, and 0.95, respectively.

#### Parental Lifetime Discrimination

Parental lifetime discrimination was assessed using a single item from the Racism Life Experiences Scale (Harrell et al. 1997). When asked "Overall, during your lifetime, how much have you personally experienced racism, racial discrimination, or racial prejudice?" participants responded, 'not at all' (1), 'a little' (2), 'some' (3), 'a lot' (4), or 'extremely' (5). This is one of the most common measures used to assess racial discrimination (Priest et al. 2013).

#### **4. Results**

#### *4.1. Analytic Plan*

All analyses were conducted in Mplus version 8.6. After examining means and correlations among key study variables, we used our measures of RES competency and content as indicators in latent profile analyses using a maximum likelihood estimator robust to non-normality. All profile indicators were standardized prior to evaluating competing models and plotting the final model. All missing data were handled using Full Information Maximum Likelihood and the maximum amount of missing data that we observed was 4 missing observations for promotion of equality out of 585 observations.

In conducting latent profile analyses, we compared the fit indices of models specifying between two and five profiles, relying on a combination of the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), sample-size-adjusted BIC, and two versions of the Lo–Mendel–Rubin likelihood ratio test (LRT). While lower AIC, BIC, and samplesize-adjusted BIC generally indicate better fit, it is recommended to retain the profile solution where the decreases in these indices begin to taper as the number of profiles increases (Muthén 2013). A statistically significant LRT value indicates that the current profile solution fits the data significantly better than a solution with one fewer profile. Although it is not a fit statistic (Muthén 2008) and, as recommended, was not a major factor in determining the optimal profile solution (Muthén 2017), we report model entropy, an indicator of how accurately participants were classified in their respective profiles. Entropy values above 0.80 are considered 'good' (Muthén 2008).

After deciding on the final profile solution and describing the socialization competency and content of parents in these profiles, we used the BCH procedure (Bakk and Vermunt 2016), the gold standard procedure for examining profile differences (Asparouhov and Muthen 2020), to examine whether parents in various profiles differ from parents in other profiles based on a multitude of parental demographics (income, education, age, biological sex, immigrant status, race) and child factors (age and biological sex). This allowed us to gain a much richer understanding of the types of parents in each profile and the characteristics of their children to whom they deliver socialization messages. Finally, we used the BCH procedure to examine whether parents in various profiles differed from those in other profiles with respect to variables proposed to affect RES: critical consciousness (reflection, motivation, and action) and lifetime exposure to racial discrimination.

#### *4.2. Initial Descriptive Statistics*

Means and correlations between all study variables may be seen in Table S1 in the Supplemental Materials. Socialization confidence (*M* = 3.16, *SD* = 0.69) and skills (*M* = 2.80, *SD* = 0.69) were generally negatively related to both forms of socialization-related stress

and positively related to socialization content (*r* = −0.07–0.36). Confidence and skills were not, however, related to promotion of mistrust messages, and skills were negatively associated with minimization of race (*r* = −0.13, *p* = 0.002). While older parents engaged in less minimization of race (*r* = −0.19, *p* < 0.001) and felt less general and call to action stress (*r* = −0.10, *p* = 0.016), parental and child age was largely unrelated to socialization competency and content.

#### *4.3. Identifying Profiles*

Based on the previously identified model fit criteria, a three-profile solution was determined to provide the best fit to the data (see Table 1). While the LRT value for the three-profile solution falls just under the cutoff for statistical significance (*LRT* = 479.19, *p* = 0.049), the decreases in AIC, BIC, and sample-size-adjusted BIC provided converging evidence for a three-profile solution.

**Table 1.** Model fit indices for competing latent profile models (*n* = 585).

Note. Final profile solution is in **bold**. AIC = Akaike Information Criterion. BIC = Bayesian Information Criterion. LRT = Lo-Mendel Rubin Likelihood Ratio Test.

Parents in the largest profile were termed *Less Prepared Stressed Low Frequency* (LPSLF) socializers. The 285 (48.72% of sample) parents in the LPSLF profiles were characterized by low confidence and skills but above average levels of socialization-related stress. In terms of socialization content, LPSLF parents gave all forms of RES with below average frequency except for promotion of mistrust messages, which were near the sample mean, and minimization of race messages, which were slightly above the sample mean.

Parents in the second largest profile were termed *Prepared Low Stress Frequent* (PLSF) socializers. The 204 parents (34.87% of the sample) in the PLSF profile were characterized by high socialization-related confidence and skills and the lowest levels of stress in the entire sample (see Figure 1). In terms of socialization content, these parents gave average to above average levels of positive messages (i.e., pride, pluralism, and equality) and preparation for bias messages, but relatively uncommon mistrust and race minimization messages.

Parents in the smallest profile were termed *Prepared Stressed Frequent* (PSF) socializers. The 96 parents (16.41% of the sample) in the PSF profile were characterized by above average confidence and skills but the highest levels of general and call to action socializationrelated stress. PSF parents administered the most frequent RES of all parents, regardless of the content of the socialization message types. PSF parents were, thus, highest in positive messages and negative messages such as promotion of mistrust and minimizing the importance of race. Unstandardized values by profile may be seen in Table S2.

#### *4.4. Mean-Level Profile Differences*

After identifying and characterizing the socialization competency and content of parents in each of our three profiles, we explored whether profiles differed with respect to a multitude of parent and child sociodemographic factors.

**Figure 1.** Standardized socialization competency and content profiles (*n* = 585).

4.4.1. Parent and Youth Sociodemographics

An examination of profile differences based on characteristics of the parent revealed no differences with respect to income, education level, or biological sex (see Table 2). Parents in the PLSF profile were older than those in both the LPSLF (χ<sup>2</sup> = 5.30, *p* = 0.021, Δ = 2.15 years) and PSF profiles (χ<sup>2</sup> = 7.90, *p* = 0.005, Δ = 3.48 years). The LPSLF profile had the greatest proportion of immigrant parents (45.6%) compared to the other two profiles, meaning that immigrant parents tended to display a pattern of socialization competency and content characterized by high stress surrounding RES and less frequent messages, save for mistrust messages and minimizing race messages. In terms of race, Latinx and Black parents were equally represented across socialization profiles. Asian parents, however, were overrepresented in the LPSLF profile (44.1% of the profile consisted of Asian parents) compared to other profiles. Examining profile differences based on child characteristics, parents in the PLSF profile had a slightly older reference child than LPSLF parents (χ<sup>2</sup> = 4.06, *p* = 0.044, Δ = 0.54 years). Additionally, LPSLF parents had a higher proportion of male reference children (53.9%) than PLSF parents (42.7%; χ<sup>2</sup> = 5.31, *p* = 0.021). Further probing of the intersection between race and immigrant status revealed that the LPSLF group had a higher proportion of Asian American immigrants (29.1%) than PLSF (13.8%; χ<sup>2</sup> = 15.55, *p* < 0.001) and PSF groups (14.4%; χ<sup>2</sup> = 7.86, *p* = 0.005). No differences between profiles were observed with respect to the proportion of Latinx immigrant parents in different profiles.

**Table 2.** Mean-level profile differences.

Note: LPSLF = Less Prepared Stressed Low Frequency. PLSF = Prepared Low Stress Frequent. PSF = Prepared Stressed Frequent.

#### 4.4.2. Parent Critical Consciousness and Discrimination

Finally, we examined how other critical consciousness and racial-ethnic discrimination differed based on socialization competency and content profiles. Relative to other profiles, PSF parents endorsed the highest levels of critical reflection, or understanding of structural inequalities (see Table 2). Relative to other profiles, LPSLF parents endorsed the lowest motivation to correct social inequalities. Finally, we found that PSF parents reported engaging in the most critical action, followed by PLSF parents and then LPSLF parents. With respect to lifetime discrimination exposure, PSF parents also reported the greatest amount of exposure to racial discrimination over their lifetimes compared to parents from the PLSF (χ<sup>2</sup> = 17.29 *p* < 0.001) and LPSLF profiles (χ<sup>2</sup> = 17.38, *p* < 0.001).

#### **5. Discussion**

In this challenging time, 21st century parents of color face complex and evolving challenges revolving around issues of race and racism including the dual COVID-19 and racism pandemics, the changing nature of racism from explicit to implicit (Bonilla-Silva 2021) then arguably back towards explicit, and the technological changes that have made exposure to instances of negative racial encounters on TV and in the media chronic and unavoidable. Given this unique context, it is necessary for the RES literature to mature, working towards a more comprehensive understanding of RES that not only considers the content of messages that parents convey, but also examines parents' RES competence. This study employed latent profile analysis to examine parents of color's patterns of both RES content—or the frequency of the messages parents are delivering to their children about race—and socialization competency, or their perceived confidence, skills, and stress around administering such messages. This study aligns with and extends prior person-centered work focusing on socialization content (e.g., Christophe et al. 2021; Cooper et al. 2015a; Neblett et al. 2009; White-Johnson et al. 2010) that finds evidence for heterogeneity in the constellation of socialization messages that parents administer to youth. Specifically, we found evidence for three groups of socializers of decreasing size. First were LPSLF socializers, who were low in confidence and skills, above the mean in stress, and delivered

a majority of RES content with below average frequency. Second were PLSF socializers, who were highest in confidence and skills, low in stress, and delivered most messages with slightly above average frequency. Third were PSF socializers, who reported high confidence and skills regarding RES, the highest levels of stress, and the most frequent RES content across all RES types.

Although the specific content of RES messages differs slightly across studies, our work aligns with findings from Jones et al. (2021), the sole person-centered examination of competency and content in Black families. These studies both find evidence for profiles differentiated from one another based on differences in socialization content and parents' levels of confidence, skill, and stress around the delivery of RES content. This study, moreover, builds upon the literature by providing the first examination of RES competency and content in Latinx and Asian American parents. Finally, consistent with variable-centered results from Anderson et al. (2020) and profile findings from Jones et al. (2021), we found that parents in different socialization profiles also differ with respect to sociodemographic factors such as parental and child age, race, immigrant status, past racial discrimination experiences, and dimensions of critical consciousness.

#### *5.1. Less Prepared Stressed Low Frequency Socializers*

The most prevalent profile, the LPSLF profile, which consisted of parents who reported engaging in RES socialization in ways that were virtually opposite from the PLSF group (i.e., fewer socialization messages that are considered 'adaptive' in combination with moderate to high levels of mistrust and minimization of race). These parents also reported relatively low confidence and skills, but high stress surrounding the communication of RES content. One explanation for this common but surprising pattern of competency and content is that these parents' low perceived confidence and skills prevented them from speaking up about race-ethnicity and having tough conversations about race and racism in the U.S. Another non-mutually exclusive explanation, however, has to do with the demographic differences observed amongst this profile. Almost half of LPSLF parents were born outside of the U.S., report their race as Asian American or Latinx, and reported on sons.

It is plausible that these non-U.S.-born parents, both Asian American and otherwise, have less familiarity with the complex racial history that exists in the U.S.; this may both hinder their competency and lessen the frequency with which they give RES messaging. Further evidence of this claim lies in the observation that LPSLF parents also reported less critical motivation and action, indicating that they felt less of a pressing need to engage with issues of systemic inequality in the U.S. (e.g., race/ethnicity, gender). It is possible that foreign-born parents in the LPSLF profile feel a general lack of efficacy not only with respect to RES, but also in terms of enacting sociopolitical change, which could then translate into less action (Watts et al. 2011). Alternatively, more direct links could be posited whereby their lack of critical motivation and sociopolitical participation hinders their effective communication of race-related messages, or vice versa.

LPSLF parents also engaged in an above average amount of minimizing the importance or race and ethnicity. This minimization of race may serve various functions. For instance, these predominately Asian (44.1%) and Latinx (29.6%) immigrant parents may be minimizing the importance of race to their children as an attempt to get them to internalize an American identity and associated beliefs that hard work results in success and structural barriers do not exist. This preference towards minimization of race may also be linked to this group of parents' relatively low level of cultural—or pride—socialization. In a person-centered study of immigrant-origin Latinx moms, Christophe et al. (2020) observed that 'assimilated' mothers who had weak ethnic identities, but strong American identities, engaged in less pride socialization of their children. Although these patterns of socialization may not match what is typically regarded as 'adaptive' (see Umaña-Taylor and Hill 2020), it is important to acknowledge that all parents engage in RES with the intention of protecting their children, regardless of the specific content of the RES messaging. We present these results to highlight the patterns of competency and content displayed by largely Asian

American and immigrant parents, not to place a value judgement on or pathologize their RES practices.

Additionally, the LPSLF group, which consisted of mostly Asian and Latinx parents, may have experienced different forms of discrimination than Black parents in the sample, who tended to belong to the other profiles. For instance, Asian and Latinx parents relative to Black parents are more likely to experience foreigner objectification (Armenta et al. 2013), such as being told to 'go back where you came from' and be subjected to the perpetual foreigner stereotype, where Asian Americans (and Latinxs) are considered forever foreign and, thus, never 'truly American' (Lee et al. 2009). Finally, the increased anti-Asian racism resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic (Cheng et al. 2021) also likely played a role in Asian participants' reports of discrimination. All these forms of discrimination have unique meaning among members of these groups and may, realistically, impact parents' RES competency—including their stress surrounding RES—and the content of their RES. For instance, unsuccessful attempts by parents to combat and cope with foreigner objectification and the perpetual foreigner stereotype may erode one's confidence in their ability to teach one's children to expect and cope with discrimination (i.e., preparation for bias socialization). Parents may choose to minimize the importance of race in these situations as a way of not having to communicate their own painful discrimination experiences to their kids. Finally, if foreigner objectification and these stereotypes are internalized, they may lead to a sense of internalized racism that impedes one's confidence and perceived skills in administering RES content, particularly pride messages, to their children.

#### *5.2. Prepared Low Stress Frequent Socializers*

The second most common profile, the PLSF profile, was characterized by parents who tended to frequently transmit RES messages that have been shown as 'adaptive' in prior work (e.g., pride socialization, preparation for bias, pluralism, equality; Umaña-Taylor and Hill 2020) while placing less emphasis on more 'negative' forms of RES such as promotion of mistrust and minimization of race. Parents in the PLSF profile also reported relatively high confidence and skills in delivering RES messages as well as relatively low stress. These parents might be seen as conveying realistic messages about race, ethnicity, and discrimination, while also providing ways for their children to effectively cope with experiences of racism. In agreement with prior variable-centered work (Anderson et al. 2020), parents in this profile were distinguishable from their counterparts in other profiles in being older in age, suggesting that greater competency could be related to more lived experiences. Children of parents in this profile were also older than the children of LP-SLF parents, indicating that with greater development and racial identity, the provision of accurate and realistic RES messages corresponds with parents' sense of competency. However, this is in contrast with the general parenting literature depicting that general parental self-efficacy decreases as children move from early to middle adolescence (Glatz and Buchanan 2015). While the specific content of RES may change as a function of child age, parents of older children likely have more years of experience delivering RES, which may be associated with increased levels of RES competency. Additionally, our sample spans from early through to late adolescence, limiting our ability to extend Glatz and Buchanan's (2015) findings to parents in our sample with children in late adolescence. Having racially and ethnically specific theories about parenting (e.g., RECAST; Anderson and Stevenson 2019) is crucial to understanding why general phenomena may not replicate with culturally specific stressors such as discrimination and coping strategies such as RES. Children of participants in this profile were also less likely to be sons, which is consistent with prior work showing that RES content communicated to sons and daughters is different and that even emphasis within the same type of message may differ between sons and daughters (Priest et al. 2014). Notably, parents in the PLSF profile also tended to report higher levels of critical action compared to those in the LPSLF profile, which suggests that some degree of confidence in discussing race-related issues might be needed to support critical action to redress social inequities.

#### *5.3. Prepared Stressed Frequent Socializers*

A third and smallest profile, the PSF profile, included parents who were most distinct from the other groups due to their high levels of stress in engaging in RES. In contrast to parents in the LPSLF profile, PSF parents indicated feeling confident and skilled in their approach of frequent RES transmission; however, they were highly stressed when doing so. It is possible that high levels of lifetime discrimination, also reported by this group, contribute to these higher levels of stress. Yet, at the same time, these parents appear highly motivated to transmit balanced socialization messages to their children, as they reported high frequencies of messages across the board. PSF parents also reported the highest levels of both critical reflection and critical action, which further suggests that they are deeply steeped in race-related issues. These parents appear to have the greatest investment in wanting to socialize their children and socialize them well but are stressed about the delivery of RES messages because they believe that doing a poor job may lead to their children not being able to effectively navigate unequal social systems and effectively respond to discrimination. This pattern of high engagement in race and racism, reflected through lived experiences of discrimination, awareness of and action against societal inequities, and frequency of RES, is somewhat consistent with prior work documenting ideologies of resistance among younger samples (Rivas-Drake and Mooney 2009). Similarly, these parents may be like those observed in Marchand et al. (2019) whose critical understanding of systemic inequalities helps them explain to their children the factors motivating police killings of unarmed Black boys. An understanding of systemic inequalities and the greater risk that their children are under (e.g., death at the hands of law enforcement) may render the process of RES delivery highly stressful in spite of parents' preparedness (confidence and skills), result in high levels of parental critical action to attempt to redress inequalities and lower the risk their children are exposed to and drive the delivery of many different types of RES in an attempt to best protect their children.

#### *5.4. Limitations and Future Research*

Despite its contribution, this study is not without its limitations. Firstly, the crosssectional design of this study prevented us from examining the development of RES competency and content as well as how these factors change over time. Parents' confidence, skills, and stress around RES may change systematically as parents gain experience delivering messages, but it may also vary based on factors shown to impact socialization content such as the age of the child, parents' and children's racialized experiences, and sociopolitical occurrences (Hughes et al. 2006). Future longitudinal work should examine the predictors, correlates, and outcomes of parents' patterns of RES competency and content, particularly through a cross-lagged analytical approach. Secondly, our study found differences in profile membership with respect to race/ethnicity and immigration status. Since parents of different groups and countries of origin may display different patterns of RES competency and content, future work with large sample sizes and high statistical power may consider examining these patterns and the mechanisms behind these patterns (1) within individual groups or (2) separately by race/ethnicity and immigration status. Creating profiles separately by race/ethnicity or collecting a sample of parents from a single racial/ethnic group may allow for a more nuanced understanding of RES content and competency in each group—for instance, a new and previously unobserved profile could be identified that may not show up when analyzing members of multiple groups together in the same model.

Thirdly, the use of self-report to measure critical consciousness and RES competency is a limitation in that we are measuring parents' beliefs in their preparedness for delivering RES content competently. We did not measure or observe how well or competently parents behaved in their delivery of RES to their children. Elsewhere, this conceptual difference is discussed as ways that RES research reflects legacy versus literacy methodological approaches (Anderson and Stevenson 2019; Stevenson 2014). Despite no observational measurement of RES behavioral competency, this study illuminates the complexity of RES competency via RECAST Theory, which offers multiple avenues to improve the quality of RES content delivery in future intervention work. Fourth, the present study does not assess the degree to which aspects of parents' ethnic-racial identities impact their patterns of RES competency and content. Ethnic-racial identity, a multidimensional construct broadly referring to the meaning and importance of race/ethnicity in one's sense of self (Umaña-Taylor et al. 2014), has clear linkages to how frequently parents communicate the meaning and importance of race/ethnicity to their children through RES (Hughes et al. 2016a). These links have been documented in variable-centered (see Hughes et al. 2016b for brief review) and person-centered research (e.g., Cooper et al. 2015b; White-Johnson et al. 2010). Future studies should work to examine how different dimensions of parents' ethnic-racial identities (e.g., centrality, private regard, public regard, etc.) relate to their patterns of RES content and competency.

Finally, the current study has focused on patterns of RES content and competency. RES is conceptualized as a factor that may help provide resilience by buffering against the negative effects of racism and discrimination. However, RES and other factors that engender resilience against racism do not explicitly prevent racism from occurring in the first place. As the field continues to dig into the ways RES competency and content are associated with positive outcomes and resilience, future work is also needed on ways to reduce the incidence of racism at the interpersonal, communal, and systemic level. Finally, our results on 21st century parents of color's RES competency and content are inextricably intertwined with the context of the COVID-19 global pandemic. These data were collected in the fall of 2020, a time where schools across the U.S. were largely virtual, parents were spending far greater amounts of time in the home with youth due to safety regulations, and the news was rife with stories of police killings and racial unrest in the leadup to the 2020 U.S. presidential election. While this context was, in many ways, ideal for studying RES patterns and their associations with discrimination and critical consciousness, the extent to which these findings will hold in a post-pandemic U.S. remain to be seen. Future work should continue to examine patterns of RES competency and content—as well as their correlates—during the pandemic and post pandemic to examine the degrees to which patterns are consistent across time and are not due to a cohort effect associated with socializing children of color in the middle of a COVID pandemic and racism endemic (Anderson et al. 2021).

#### *5.5. Implications for Parenting in the 21st Century*

Despite its limitations, this study has important implications for our understanding and support of parenting in the 21st century. For instance, this study was the first, to our knowledge, to find associations between parental critical consciousness dimensions and parental RES (content and competency). Understanding (and potentially facilitating) critical consciousness in parents of color has implications for their delivery of RES content and their feelings and cognitions surrounding RES (i.e., competency). The communication of RES content, in turn, has been shown to have implications for youths' critical consciousness and sociopolitical beliefs (Anyiwo et al. 2018; Mathews et al. 2019). Additionally, more discrimination is associated with membership in the PSF profile, which promotes both traditionally positive and negative messages. As such, it is important to understand not only how discrimination impacts the messages provided to youth, but the ways in which we may be able to assist parents in reframing their experiences to be more beneficial for youth well-being (e.g., Anderson et al. 2018).

Across profiles, understanding what patterns of socialization competency and content exist, as well as understanding what types of parents display which types of patterns, are important steps in helping parents feel efficacious in their ability to socialize their children and supporting parents to socialize their children in ways that contribute towards positive adaptation and well-being. Interventions which consider RES practices (e.g., BPSS; Coard et al. 2007; PLAAY: Stevenson 2002) and competency in particular (e.g., EMBRace; Anderson et al. 2018) can work to support parents of varying ethnic and racial groups in

frequently engaging in competent practices that help support child psychosocial growth. For instance, families with LPSLF may particularly benefit from increasing parents' confidence and skills around delivery of RES; this increase in competence may facilitate greater delivery of RES messages, which have been shown to have positive effects on children's psychosocial functioning and development (Umaña-Taylor and Hill 2020). Additionally, PSF parents may benefit from interventions that help them process the frequent racial discrimination experiences they have suffered during their lives and help—if not reduce the stress surrounding the delivery of RES messages—improve their *management* of RESrelated stress. Increasing parents' ability to manage RES-related stress and working through one's past discrimination experiences may be helpful in ultimately reducing the frequency of generally less helpful RES messages, such as frequent administration of promotion of mistrust messages. Our person-centered approach suggests that interventions might be most effective if tailored to parents' specific needs or backgrounds. Ultimately, and regardless of parents' profile membership, policies which focus on mental health and child wellness at large may consider how to integrate these findings to promote psychoeducation and programming around discrimination reduction, family-based coping strategies, and balanced delivery of RES messages.

#### **6. Conclusions**

Parenting in the 21st century involves navigating myriad novel challenges and challenges that parents have been faced with throughout time. One unique challenge for parents of color is socializing their children around the meaning and importance of race/ethnicity, teaching them the sobering reality that they will face interpersonal and systemic racism, and instilling in them coping skills to effectively manage racism and discrimination. It has become more widely understood that researchers should not only be examining the content of RES messages, but also examining how these messages co-occur with parents' perceived competence around RES. To address this, our study examined patterns of RES competency and content in a sample of Black, Latinx, and Asian parents, finding evidence for three unique profiles. We observed many differences between profiles in sociodemographic factors such as race, age, and nativity status, and observed that parents' lifetime exposure to discrimination has implications for their current pattern of perceived RES competence and socialization content. Finally, one's pattern of competence and content was also concurrently associated with parents' understanding of societal inequities, as well as their motivation and actions aimed at reducing these inequities. This study provides a much-needed snapshot of RES competency and content in the 21st century, detailing what parents are saying, how they feel about what they are saying, and the factors and experiences associated with parents' patterns of RES competency and content.

**Supplementary Materials:** The following are available online at https://www.mdpi.com/article/ 10.3390/socsci11020088/s1, Table S1: Means and Correlations Among all Study Variables, Table S2: Unstandardized Means by Profile.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, N.K.C., G.L.S., N.C.J. and N.A.; methodology, N.K.C.; formal analysis, N.K.C.; writing—original draft preparation, N.K.C., G.L.S., L.K., N.C.J., H.C.S. and R.E.A.; writing—review and editing, N.K.C., G.L.S., L.K., N.C.J., S.C.T.J., H.C.S., N.A. and R.E.A. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board of The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (protocol code 20-0361 on 07/06/2020).

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

**Data Availability Statement:** Data from this study were not made available for public use.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **Notes**

<sup>1</sup> From here on and throughout the paper, when we refer to the content of RES, we are referring to the *frequency* with which parents communicate different types of messages (i.e., messages with different substantive *content*) to their children.

#### **References**

## *Article* **Mother–Child Relationships in U.S. Latinx Families in Middle Childhood: Opportunities and Challenges in the 21st Century**

**Kimberly A. Updegraff, Adriana J. Umaña-Taylor, Daye Son and Karina M. Cahill**

**Abstract:** The 21st century has brought unique opportunities and challenges for parents, and this is particularly true for Latinx families, whose children comprise more than one-fourth of the school-age population in the U.S. today. Taking an ecological and strengths-based approach, the current study examined the role of mothers' cultural assets (familism values, family cohesion) and challenges (economic hardship, ethnic–race-based discrimination) on children's educational adjustment in middle childhood, as well as the indirect role of mother–child warmth and conflict in these associations. The sample included 173 Latinx mothers and their middle childhood offspring (i.e., 5th graders and younger sisters/brothers in the 1st through 4th grade). Mothers participated in home visits and phone interviews and teachers provided ratings of children's educational adjustment (academic and socioemotional competence, aggressive/oppositional behaviors). Findings revealed family cohesion was indirectly linked to children's educational adjustment via mother–child warmth and conflict, particularly for younger siblings. Discussion focuses on the culturally based strengths of Latinx families and highlights potential implications for family-based prevention in middle childhood.

**Keywords:** culture; Hispanic; Latino/a/x; middle childhood; mothers/mother–child relations

### **1. Introduction**

The 21st century has been characterized by significant growth in ethnic–racial minoritized groups in the U.S. population (Krogstad 2019), with Latinxs representing the largest ethnic–racial minoritized group (Krogstad and Noe-Bustamante 2021) and accounting for more than half of the population growth since the turn of the century (Flores 2017). Further, the significant growth of ethnic–racial minoritized groups alongside more modest growth in the White population means that the U.S. is projected to transition to a 'majority-minority' nation during the 21st century, with half or more of the population identifying as members of ethnic–racial minoritized groups (Colby and Ortman 2015). This transition has already occurred among U.S. children: 50% are from ethnic–racial minoritized backgrounds (Child Trends 2018). In the K-12 school system, 27% of students are Latinx (National Center for Education Statistics 2021), and Latinxs are expected to be one-third of the U.S. workforce by 2060 (Toossi 2016). Thus, research that examines the experiences of Latinx parents, including both the opportunities and challenges they face in raising their children, is critical in shaping prevention programs that are relevant to this substantial segment of U.S. families.

A universally important task for U.S. parents today is supporting their children's educational adjustment (Van Hook and Glick 2020), broadly defined to include academic, socioemotional, and behavioral functioning in the school setting (Magnuson et al. 2016). The benefits of children's successful adjustment in educational settings are well-documented and far reaching: children with higher academic achievement and better socioemotional and behavioral functioning in middle childhood are more likely to complete high school (Magnuson et al. 2016; Rabiner et al. 2016), which has positive implications for postsecondary education and future employment and earnings (National Center for Education

**Citation:** Kimberly A. Updegraff, Adriana J. Umaña-Taylor, Daye Son and Karina M. Cahill. 2021. Mother–Child Relationships in U.S. Latinx Families in Middle Childhood: Opportunities and Challenges in the 21st Century. *Social Sciences* 11: 8. https://doi.org/10.3390/ socsci11010008

Academic Editors: Christy Buchanan and Terese Glatz

Received: 31 October 2021 Accepted: 20 December 2021 Published: 24 December 2021

**Publisher's Note:** MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

Statistics 2021), as well as for physical and mental health (Lee et al. 2016; Krueger et al. 2019). In Latinx families, parents' values and aspirations can play a significant role in their children's educational success (Fuligni and Fuligni 2007; Stepler 2016). In particular, strong family-oriented values and behaviors in Latinx culture have been identified as potential cultural assets that may engender family supports for children's education and underlie children's effort and motivation to succeed in school (Cahill et al.; Stein et al. 2014).

In addition to culturally informed strengths, however, Latinx parents can also face challenges, some of which are unique to their sociocultural backgrounds and circumstances (Leidy et al. 2010). For instance, the seminal work by Lareau (2011) notes that supporting children educationally requires navigating institutions designed for middle class (primarily White) families, and that this poses greater challenges for families with fewer resources and from ethnic–racial minoritized groups. Latinx children are disproportionately likely to attend economically disadvantaged schools (Hussar et al. 2020) and to live in poverty (Shrider et al. 2021). Among parents who have immigrated to the U.S., additional stressors come from the cultural adaptation process, language barriers, and limited experience with the U.S. educational system (Suarez-Orozco et al. 2010); challenges also emerge from being the target of racism and discrimination (Ayón and Garcia 2019; García Coll and Szalacha 2004). A particularly notable challenge of the 21st century has been anti-immigrant sentiments and policies targeting Latinx populations (Leidy et al. 2010; Roche et al. 2018; Torres et al. 2018). These challenges and stressors may contribute to educational disparities among U.S. Latinx individuals, including higher rates of school dropout and lower rates of college enrollment and bachelor's degree attainment, relative to Black, White, and Asian American individuals (American Psychological Association 2012; Krogstad 2016).

A long-standing deficit-oriented approach to the study of ethnic-racial minoritized youth has impeded the field's understanding of Latinx families (Perez-Brena et al. 2018), although the introduction of the integrative model of minority youth development (García Coll et al. 1996) brought culture to the forefront of developmental science and called for scholars to move beyond a focus on youth maladjustment and to recognize culturally based strengths. This perspective led to important changes and notably more strengths-based framing of research on ethnic–racial minoritized youth. In an important parallel, however, the literature on parenting among ethnic–racial minoritized families has been characterized by a similar deficit-oriented perspective, with research focused almost exclusively on parenting during adolescence, a developmental period noted for increases in problem behaviors (Rescorla et al. 2016; Wheeler et al. 2017) and declines in school engagement (Benner and Graham 2009). In contrast, little research has examined the role of Latinx parenting in *middle childhood* (for a notable exception, see Domenech Rodriguez et al. 2009).

Middle childhood is a time when children begin formal schooling, have increased opportunities for social interactions outside the home, make substantial gains in educational skills, learn to comply with teachers' expectations, and form relationships with peers (Collins and Madsen 2019; Votruba-Drzal 2006). Parents' role in supporting their children's educational adjustment in middle childhood has the potential to provide a critical foundation for future success, but the specific cultural and parenting mechanisms that are linked to Latinx children's educational adjustment in middle childhood are not well-understood. To address these gaps, this study drew on culturally informed perspectives (García Coll et al. 1996; Calzada et al. 2012; Stein et al. 2014) to examine the role of Latinx mothers' cultural assets (i.e., familism values, family cohesion) and challenges (i.e., ethnic-racial discrimination, economic hardship) in their children's educational adjustment via mother–child relationship qualities (i.e., warmth, conflict) in middle childhood. This study has the potential to broaden the field's understanding of how parenting is embedded within the cultural and ecological context of the 21st century, and may inform prevention programming *prior* to adolescence and the onset of significant adjustment difficulties for some youth.

#### *1.1. Culturally Informed Assets and Latinx Children's Educational Adjustment*

Beginning with cultural assets, we considered mothers' *familism values*, defined as their endorsement of values regarding family as a source of support, obligation, and referent (Knight et al. 2010), and *family cohesion* (i.e., family as a source of shared activities, interests, and connections; Olson et al. 1982). A central feature of culturally informed models of parenting is the role of parents' cultural values in shaping their parenting goals and practices and defining desired outcomes for their children (Calzada et al. 2012; Harwood et al. 2002). More specifically, Stein et al.'s (2014) cultural developmental model outlines how familistic attitudes and behaviors manifest in parenting/parent–youth relationships and children's adjustment from early childhood through adolescence. In middle childhood, familism is hypothesized to be reflected in positive parent–youth relationships, such as warm and responsive parenting and low levels of conflict (Stein et al. 2014), as parents' strong familism values may promote relationship behaviors that are consistent with their cultural ideal of close and harmonious family relationships (Campos et al. 2008). Supporting these associations, a recent meta-analysis revealed significant associations between familism values and higher levels of family support/warmth and lower levels of family conflict/negativity among Latinx individuals (Cahill et al.).

Stein et al. (2014) also posits that familism in middle childhood manifests in caregivers' socialization messages emphasizing that children's behavioral compliance and academic success reflects positively on the family. Thus, as children receive and internalize messages emphasizing familism, they may be motivated to do better in school. Indeed, meta-analytic findings provide support for positive associations between familism values and youth's more positive educational and behavioral outcomes, with the majority of this work focusing on adolescent and young adult samples (Cahill et al.). Developmentally, children ages 7–11 are coming to understand the importance of their behavior as reflecting on the family, including in contexts outside the home (e.g., with teachers and peers), and beginning the process of internalizing these values (Stein et al. 2014). Supporting these theoretical notions, Morcillo et al. (2011) found that parental familism values were associated with lower rates of antisocial behavior among Puerto Rican children (ages 5 to 9), and family processes partially mediated these associations, particularly in middle childhood (relative to adolescence). These authors proposed that parents' familism may be especially critical in middle childhood because children have not fully internalized their values (Morcillo et al. 2011). Although the behavioral aspects of familism have received less empirical attention, a study of recent Latinx immigrants (Leidy et al. 2010) revealed that parentreported family cohesion was associated with more positive socioemotional competencies among children in late childhood/early adolescence (i.e., 9–12-year-olds). Despite the theoretical significance of familism in middle childhood, existing reviews underscore a dearth of studies with this developmental age group (Cahill et al.; Stein et al. 2014). Guided by Stein et al.'s (2014) model, we test the direct associations of mothers' familism values and family cohesion (as a proxy for familistic behaviors) with children's educational adjustment, as well as potential indirect associations via mother–child warmth and conflict.

#### *1.2. Contextually Informed Risk Factors and Latinx Children's Educational Adjustment*

The integrative model (García Coll et al. 1996) also draws attention to contextual characteristics that may be sources of risk, including social position factors (e.g., socioeconomic status) and mechanisms of oppression (e.g., segregation, discrimination). In this study, we considered mothers' perceptions of economic hardship and discrimination as factors that may undermine children's educational adjustment in middle childhood. The family stress model posits that economic hardship impacts youth adjustment via negative effects on parent and family functioning (Conger et al. 1994), and empirical support extends to Latinx families in early childhood (e.g., Derlan et al. 2019) and adolescence (e.g., Delgado et al. 2013; White et al. 2015). Although originally focused on economic strain, the family stress model has been expanded to include parents' culturally based stressors (Conger et al. 2012). In a study of recent immigrant families of predominantly Cuban and Mexican

descent, parents' culturally based stressors predicted youth's depression, aggression, and self-esteem via youth's reports of family functioning in late adolescence (Lorenzo-Blanco et al. 2012). We extend this research to examine mothers' experiences of economic hardship and ethnic–racial based discrimination as predictors of children's educational adjustment and indirect associations via mother–youth warmth and conflict in middle childhood.

#### *1.3. The Role of Mother–Child Relationship Quality*

Warmth and conflict are universal dimensions of parent–youth relationships across a broad range of ethnic, racial, and cultural contexts (Li and Warner 2015; Steinberg 2001), with higher levels of warmth and lower levels of conflict generally being associated with more positive adaptation and fewer adjustment problems (Khaleque 2013; Weymouth et al. 2016). In Latinx culture, where there is a strong emphasis on family-oriented values and practices, parent–youth relationships characterized by high warmth and low conflict may be particularly important for children's adjustment given their alignment with cultural ideals for close and harmonious family relationships (Campos et al. 2008). Research on the role of parent–youth conflict in Latinx families, although largely based on adolescent samples, suggests particularly negative implications for youth adjustment (Li and Warner 2015; Kuhlberg et al. 2010; Pasch et al. 2006). Examining four Latinx subgroups (Mexican, Cuban, Nicaraguan, Colombian), Li and Warner (2015) found that higher parent–youth conflict was consistently associated with lower ratings of self-esteem among children of immigrants. In another study of Mexican American adolescents, conflict with mothers and fathers was associated with a wide range of internalizing (depression, anxiety) and externalizing (anger, substance use, school misconduct) outcomes (e.g., Pasch et al. 2006). Extending this work to middle childhood, we tested whether mother–child warmth was associated with higher socioemotional and academic competence and lower aggressive/oppositional behavior (Santesteban-Echarri et al. 2017; Taylor et al. 2015); we also tested whether conflict was linked to less optimal educational adjustment.

#### *1.4. Moderating Role of Child Gender and Birth Order*

Latinx families are characterized by a strong emphasis on gender-differentiated roles and socialization (Umaña-Taylor and Updegraff 2013), which may mean that associations among parents' cultural assets/challenges, parent–child relationship qualities, and children's adjustment vary by child gender. Research on youth gender as a moderator of the links among cultural values and practices, parenting, and youth adjustment provide some evidence of stronger associations for girls relative to boys, based on the notion that females are socialized with a stronger emphasis on family roles and relationships in this cultural context (Lorenzo-Blanco et al. 2012; Morcillo et al. 2011; Updegraff et al. 2005). However, this work largely focuses on families with adolescents, and little is known about potential gender differences in middle childhood among Latinx immigrant families (Schroeder and Bámaca-Colbert 2019). Thus, we explored the possibility of gender moderation in middle childhood, expecting that if differences emerged, the associations may be stronger for parents of female versus male children.

A unique strength of our study was the focus on *two* children in each family, as research has documented that children in the same family may experience relationships with their parents differently (e.g., Daniels and Plomin 1985; McHale et al. 2003). Birth order differences in parenting, and their implications for youth adjustment, may emerge for different reasons, including because children are in different developmental periods or because what parents learn from one child has implications for their parenting of the next child (Whiteman et al. 2003). Spillover in family dynamics are another possibility, such as when the older child's transition to adolescence is linked to increases in parent– child conflict for them and their younger siblings (Shanahan et al. 2007a). There has been attention to within-family differences in parenting, including warmth and conflict, in middle childhood in European American families (Shanahan et al. 2007a, 2007b). Fewer studies have examined parenting of multiple children in Latinx families, with notable

exceptions focused on families with adolescents (McHale et al. 2005; Padilla et al. 2016). In this study, we explore whether birth order moderates the direct and indirect associations among parents' cultural assets and challenges, parent–child relationship quality, and children's educational adjustment.

#### *1.5. The Current Study*

The overarching goal of this study was to examine the links among Latinx parents' culturally informed assets (familism values, family cohesion) and challenges (economic hardship, experiences of discrimination), universal characteristics of parent–child relationships (warmth, conflict), and children's educational adjustment in middle childhood. Using concurrent reports of parents' cultural assets, challenges, and parent–child relationship qualities, as well as teachers' ratings of children's academic and socioemotional competencies and aggressive/oppositional behaviors, we tested direct associations from parents' cultural assets and challenges to children's educational adjustment; we also tested indirect associations via mother–child warmth and conflict. We expected these associations may be stronger for mothers with female, relative to male, children based on gender-differentiated roles in Latinx families (Schroeder and Bámaca-Colbert 2019; Updegraff et al. 2014). We also explored moderation by birth order (i.e., within-family differences). Finally, we controlled for the child's age to account for the age span of children across middle childhood (i.e., 6 to 11 years of age), and for mothers' immigrant status, given anti-immigrant sentiments and policies, particularly in the local context of the present study (Santos et al. 2018; Toomey et al. 2014).

#### **2. Method**

#### *2.1. Participants*

Participants were 173 Latinx mothers who participated in the baseline phase of a larger clinical trial (NCT 03706014) testing the efficacy of a family-based, sibling-focused prevention program. Eligibility for participation in the clinical trial included having a 5th grader and younger sibling (1st–4th grade) of Latinx origin who lived together for at least three years, attended the same elementary school, and did not have significant disabilities that would prevent participation; children also needed a primary caregiver who spoke English or Spanish and was willing to participate. For 97% of children, the primary caregiver was their biological mother.

To recruit families, letters and recruitment flyers in Spanish and English were distributed to parents/caregivers of Latinx 5th graders who had a sibling in 1st through 4th grade in the same school. All ten participating schools had a Title I designation, and the percentage of students eligible for free/reduced lunch ranged from 78% to 93% across schools. A total of 396 letters were sent, and follow-up calls to assess eligibility and interest in participation were conducted by bilingual staff with 356 families (40 families could not be reached). Of the 356 families, 259 were eligible (73%), 49 refused the screening to determine eligibility (14%), and 48 were ineligible (13%). Of the 259 eligible families, 215 families (83%) provided baseline data, including 185 mothers. Given the goals of the present study, the analytic sample was limited to Latinx mothers (*n* = 173; 93.5% of mothers), and 12 non-Latinx mothers were excluded. In one family, two sibling pairs participated; thus, background characteristics are reported for 173 mothers and their 348 participating children (i.e., 174 fifth graders and 174 younger siblings).

These mothers averaged 36.5 years of age (*SD* = 6.65) and were predominantly of Mexican (90.2%), Guatemalan (3.5%), or Salvadoran origin (2.3%), with the remaining mothers being of another Latinx subgroup (<1%). In terms of racial identification, mothers indicated they were White (37.7%), American Indian/Alaskan Native (2.4%), multiracial (2.4%), or other (57.5%). Most mothers who selected "other" for race specified a panethnic (i.e., Latino/a, Hispanic) or ethnic (e.g., Mexican) label. A majority of mothers (74.6%) were born outside of the U.S and preferred Spanish for their interview language (71.7%). In terms of education level, slightly over half of the mothers did not have a high school degree (55.5% of mothers), and a smaller percentage had a high school degree or GED (31.8% of mothers), with the remainder having some post-high-school education or a college degree. Among participating mothers, 74.6% were married or living with a partner. For those who reported income (89%), median household income was \$31,127 (SD = \$19,308; range = \$1500–\$133,000) for an average of 6.1 household members (*SD* = 1.82; range = 3 to 16). A high percentage of families (97.7%) accessed at least one form of public assistance, with the most common being free/reduced price meals at school (92.4%), health insurance (82.1%), and nutritional assistance programs (49.7%). Fifth graders averaged 10.63 years of age (*SD* = 0.41) and younger siblings averaged 8.24 years of age (*SD* = 1.06). Children were identified by mothers as female (50.3%) or male (49.7%).

#### *2.2. Procedure*

Data were collected via home visits and phone interviews with mothers, and selfadministered surveys were completed by teachers. First, each family was visited at home by two project staff (at least one bilingual) to describe the project and complete informed consent/assent and a family background questionnaire. All materials were read aloud to mothers and their answers were recorded on paper surveys. These visits averaged one hour, and families received a \$20 honorarium. Following the home visit (2 to 4 weeks), mothers participated in a phone interview in their preferred language lasting an average of 60 min. All questions were read to mothers and their responses were recorded on paper surveys. Each parent received a \$35 honorarium for participating in the phone interview. Mothers provided consent for teachers to complete ratings about each participating child. Teachers received \$10 for each student packet they completed. All procedures were approved by the Human Subjects Review Boards at Arizona State University and The Pennsylvania State University [Title: Innovative Family Prevention with Latinos; protocol #00006528 and STUDY00010473, respectively] and the Research and Evaluation Board of the participating school district.

#### *2.3. Measures*

All items were forward translated to Spanish by one person, back translated to English by a second person, and reviewed by a third person. Discrepancies were discussed with the team and resolved following a process of decentering, in which the goal was meaningful, rather than literal, translation (Knight et al. 2009).

#### 2.3.1. Familism Values

Mothers completed the 16-item familism subscale of the Mexican American Cultural Values Scale (Knight et al. 2010). The measure assesses three aspects of familism (i.e., support/closeness, obligations, and family as referent), and items are averaged for an overall mean score. Each item is rated on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 (*Strongly Disagree*) to 4 (*Strongly agree*), with a sample item being "Children should always do things to make their parents happy." Cronbach's alpha was 0.84.

#### 2.3.2. Family Cohesion

Mothers completed the cohesion subscale (16 items) of the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales II (FACES II; Olson et al. 1982); psychometric properties have been established in prior work with Latinx samples (Roosa et al. 1996). The subscale measures family connectedness, with sample items including "Family members like to spend their free time with each other" and "Family members share interests and hobbies with each other." Each item is rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (*Almost never or never*) to 5 (*Almost always or always*) and items are summed for a scale score. Cronbach's alpha was 0.79.

#### 2.3.3. Ethnic–Racial Discrimination

Mothers' experiences of discrimination were assessed with the Everyday Discrimination Scale (EDS), originally developed by Williams et al. (1997) for African American

women, using the 9-item adapted version based on Reeve et al. (2011) and Williams et al. (2008). The dimensionality and construct validity of EDS has been empirically supported with the Latinx subsample of the National Latino and Asian Study (Molina et al. 2013). A sample item is "You are treated with less respect than other people are because you are Hispanic/Latino." Each item is rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (*Almost every day*) to 5 (*Never*). Items were reverse coded so that higher scores indicated more frequent experiences of discrimination (α = 0.92).

#### 2.3.4. Perceived Economic Hardship

Mothers rated their perceptions of economic hardship using a 6-item scale (Howe et al. 1995; Kessler et al. 1988). Mothers were asked how often they experienced each item in the past three months, including having to "Miss payments on your bills," "Not go to see the doctor or dentist because of cost," and "Reduce spending on household expenses such as food and clothing." Each item was rated on a scale of 1 (*Not at all*) to 4 (*A lot*), and items were averaged for a total score (α = 0.74).

#### 2.3.5. Mother–Child Relationship Quality

Mothers completed the parent version of the warmth subscale of the Children's Report of Parental Behavior Inventory (CRPBI; Schwarz et al. 1985), which includes eight items assessing mothers' warm and supportive behaviors toward their child (e.g., "I understand [child's name]'s problems and worries."). The cross-ethnic and language equivalence (English to Spanish) of this measure has been established with Latinx populations (Knight et al. 1994). Mothers rated items on a 5-point scale (1 = *Almost Never* to 5 = *Almost Always*) at separate points in the interview for 5th graders and younger siblings (counterbalanced), which were averaged for the scale score. Cronbach's alphas were 0.81 and 0.78 for mothers' warmth with 5th graders and younger siblings, respectively.

Mothers also rated the frequency of conflict in nine domains with each child (i.e., 5th graders, younger siblings) on a 6-point scale ranging from 1 = *Not at all* to 6 = *Several times a day*. Items were originally based on a measure by Smetana (1988) and adapted for Latinx families (Updegraff et al. 2009). Domains of conflict included homework/schoolwork, respect for parents, getting along with sisters/brothers, doing chores, electronics, bedtime and curfew, friends, and the importance of family. Items were rated at separate points in the interview for 5th graders and younger siblings (counterbalanced) and averaged to create a mother–child conflict score with each child. Cronbach's alphas were 0.86 and 0.85 for mothers' ratings with 5th graders and younger siblings, respectively.

#### 2.3.6. Children's Educational Adjustment

Teachers rated children's academic and social competencies (Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group 1999) and aggressive/oppositional behaviors (Werthamer-Larsson et al. 1991) in the school setting. The academic competence subscale included five items assessing behaviors such as reading grade-level materials, solving grade-level math problems, and turning in homework. The socioemotional competence subscale included 12 items reflecting prosocial behaviors (e.g., "This child shows empathy and compassion for others' feelings") and emotion regulation ("This child recognizes and labels his/her feelings and those of others appropriately"). The aggressive/oppositional behaviors subscale (7 items) included behaviors such as breaking things on purpose, yelling at others, and knowingly breaking the rules. Teachers were instructed to rate the target child relative to other students in the same grade level on all three subscales ranging from 1 (*Almost Never*) to 5 (*Very Often*). Items were averaged to create mean scores for academic competence (αs = 0.90 for 5th graders and 0.92 for younger siblings), socioemotional competence (αs = 0.76 for 5th graders and 0.72 for younger siblings), and aggressive/oppositional behavior subscales (αs = 0.93 for 5th graders and 0.95 for younger siblings).

#### *2.4. Covariates*

Mothers reported on their nativity status (0 = U.S.-born; 1 = born outside the U.S.) and children's gender (0 = male; 1 = female). Children's age was calculated based on their date of birth and the home visit date. Birth order was coded as 0 = 5th grader (older sibling) and 1 = younger sibling.

#### **3. Results**

#### *3.1. Preliminary Analyses*

Means, standard deviations, and bivariate correlations are shown in Table 1. Examination of mean scores indicated that, on average, Latinx mothers reported moderately high levels of familism values and family cohesion, falling above the midpoint on both scales; their experiences of economic hardship were slightly below the midpoint, and experiences of discrimination were relatively low (i.e., 1.5 on a 5-point scale). In terms of the parent– child relationship, warmth was well above the midpoint and conflict was slightly below the midpoint. Teachers' ratings of children's academic competencies revealed that children were between "sometimes" and "often" able to perform at grade level, achieve academic goals, and turn in homework, and that they demonstrated moderately high levels of socioemotional competencies and relatively low levels of aggressive/oppositional behaviors. Bivariate correlations were generally in expected directions and small to medium in size based on Cohen (1992), with values of 0.20, 0.50 and 0.80 indicating small, medium, and large correlations, respectively. Among mothers' cultural assets and challenges, familism values and cohesion were positively correlated as were discrimination and economic hardship, with both being small in magnitude. Links between mothers' assets/stressors and mother–child warmth and conflict were in expected directions, with cultural assets being associated with more warmth and stressors being associated with more conflict. Among the three indicators of children's educational adjustment, correlations were medium in size, ranging from 0.43 to 0.65. Paired *t*-tests revealed a significant birth order difference in mother–child warmth, *t* (173) = 2.34, *p* = 0.02, with mothers reporting more warmth with younger compared to older siblings (see Table 1 for means), but there were no mean differences between older and younger siblings for mother–child conflict or educational adjustment outcomes.

**Table 1.** Bivariate Correlations, Means, and Standard Deviations for Study Variables.

Note. Correlations are above the diagonal for younger siblings and below for older siblings. Fam = Familism, Coh = Cohesion, Disc = Discrimination, Econ = Economic hardship, Warm = Mother-child warmth, Conf = Motherchild conflict, Acad = Academic competence, Socio = Socioemotional competence, Agg = Aggressive/Oppositional Behaviors, Gen = Child gender, Age = Child age, Nat = Mother nativity; Mother nativity is coded as 0 = *U.S.-born* and 1 = *born outside the U.S*.; children's gender coded as 0 = *male* and 1 = *female*. *M* = Mean, *SD* = Standard Deviation. \* *p* < 0.05, \*\* *p <* 0.01, \*\*\* *p <* 0.001.

#### *3.2. Associations among Mothers' Cultural Assets and Challenges, Parent–Child Relationships, and Children's Educational Adjustment*

Path analytic models were conducted in Mplus (version 8.6; Muthén and Muthén 1998–2018) to test direct effects of Latinx mothers' familism values, family cohesion, economic hardship, and discrimination on children's academic competence, socioemotional competence, and aggressive/oppositional behaviors, as well as the indirect effects via mother–child warmth and conflict. Covariates included mother nativity, birth order, child gender, and child age. Two parallel models were tested, one for mothers' reports of warmth and a second for their reports of conflict. Missing data ranged from 0% to 9% across study variables and were estimated via full information maximum likelihood. To adjust for the nonindependence of observations due to the nestedness of siblings within families, we used the TYPE = COMPLEX command (Muthén and Muthén 1998–2018). Statistical significance of indirect effects was estimated using 1000 bootstrap resamples and examination of confidence intervals (MacKinnon et al. 2004). Moderation by child gender and birth order were examined using multiple group analysis. Specifically, child gender was removed as a covariate and the model with freely estimated paths across boys and girls was compared against a fully constrained model with all regression paths set to be equal across groups. When constraining all structural paths to be equal across groups did not yield a significant decrease in model fit based on the Satorra–Bentler adjusted chi-squared difference test, the constrained model was retained for parsimony (Satorra and Bentler 2001). When constraining all paths produced a significant decrease in the model fit, each parameter estimate was compared using the MODEL CONSTRAINT command to identify paths that significantly differed across groups to achieve a final partially constrained model. The process was repeated to test sibling birth order moderation. Unstandardized coefficients are reported in the text and standardized coefficients are shown in Table 2 and Figures 1 and 2.

**Figure 1.** Mothers' Cultural Assets and Challenges and Children's Educational Adjustment via Mother–Child Warmth. Note. Standardized parameters are reported. Covariances, residual correlations, and covariates are not shown in the figure for parsimony. Solid lines represent significant direct effects. Bolded lines represent significant indirect paths. Dashed lines represent nonsignificant paths. \* *p* < 0.05, \*\* *p* < 0.01, \*\*\* *p* < 0.001.

**Table 2.** Results for the associations between mothers' cultural assets and challenges and children's educational adjustment via mother–child warmth and conflict.

Note. Estimates that differed by sibling birth order are reported in the order of older/younger sibling. \* *p* < 0.05, \*\* *p* < 0.01, \*\*\* *p* < 0.001.

**Figure 2.** Mothers' Cultural Assets and Challenges and Children's Educational Adjustment via Mother–Child Conflict. Note. Standardized parameters are reported. For paths that differed by sibling birth order, parameters are reported for each group separated by the slash symbol (older sibling/younger sibling). Covariances, residual correlations, and covariates are not shown in the figure for parsimony. Solid lines represent significant direct effects. Bolded lines represent significant indirect paths. Dashed lines represent nonsignificant paths. \* *p* < 0.05, \*\* *p* < 0.01, \*\*\* *p* < 0.001.

For the model including mother–child *warmth*, comparisons of the fully unconstrained and constrained models by child gender and birth order revealed no changes in model fit, Δχ<sup>2</sup> (19) = 9.82, *p* = 0.957 for child gender, and Δχ<sup>2</sup> (19) = 26.98, *p* = 0.105 for sibling order, suggesting that the structural paths did not differ for girls versus boys and older versus younger siblings. As shown in Figure 1, family cohesion was positively related to academic competence (*b* = 0.30, *p* = 0.012), mothers' experiences of discrimination were positively associated with child socioemotional competence (*b* = 0.09, *p* = 0.014), and familism and perceived economic hardship were not significantly associated with children's adjustment. There was one significant indirect effect in this model: family cohesion was associated with socioemotional competence via mother–child warmth (*ab* = 0.052, 95% CI = [0.021, 0.096]). Significant covariates included child gender predicting academic competence (*b* = 0.30, *p* = 0.008), socioemotional competence (*b* = 0.24, *p* < 0.001), and aggressive/oppositional behaviors (*b* = −0.43, *p* < 0.001), such that girls reported higher academic and socioemotional competencies than boys, and boys reported higher aggressive/oppositional behaviors than girls. Mother nativity predicted academic competence (*b* = 0.48, *p* = 0.002), socioemotional competence (*b* = 0.17, *p* = 0.012), and aggression (*b* = −0.20, *p* = 0.029), such that teachers reported higher academic and socioemotional competencies and lower aggressive/oppositional behaviors for children of mothers born outside the U.S. Child age was not a significant covariate of any of the three adjustment outcomes.

For the second model including mother–child *conflict*, there were no differences between the fully unconstrained and constrained models by child gender, Δχ<sup>2</sup> (19) = 23.72, *p* = 0.207, but significant differences were found for sibling birth order, Δχ<sup>2</sup> (19) = 38.87, *p* = 0.005. Testing specific paths revealed the following birth order differences: family cohesion to child socioemotional competence, mothers' discrimination to aggressive/oppositional behavior, and mother–child conflict to socioemotional competence and aggressive/ oppositional behavior. Thus, these paths and their corresponding indirect effects were allowed to vary

for older versus younger siblings, while all other structural paths were constrained to be equal (see Figure 2). Family cohesion was positively associated with children's socioemotional competence for older siblings (*b* = 0.17, *p* = 0.027), but no significant association emerged for younger siblings (*b* = −0.08, *p* = 0.166). Mothers' reports of discrimination were associated with children's socioemotional competence for both older and younger siblings (*b* = 0.12, *p* < 0.001). Mothers' discrimination also was negatively associated with aggressive/oppositional behaviors for younger siblings (*b* = −0.21, *p* = 0.011), but no significant association emerged for older siblings (*b* = −0.003, *p* = 0.972). Mothers' familism and economic hardship did not significantly predict children's educational adjustment, but economic hardship was positively related to mother–child conflict (*b* = 0.26, *p* = 0.024).

Turning to indirect effects, mother–child conflict had significant indirect effects on the relations between family cohesion and children's academic competence (*ab* = 0.075, 95% CI = [0.019, 0.158]) for both older and younger siblings. In addition, the indirect effect of mother–child conflict was significant for family cohesion and aggressive/oppositional behaviors (*ab* = −0.09, 95% CI = [−0.184, −0.027]) and family cohesion and socioemotional competence (*ab* = 0.049, 95% CI = [0.014, 0.094]) for younger siblings, but not for older siblings (*ab* = −0.038, *p* = 0.119 for aggressive/oppositional behaviors and *ab* = 0.016, *p* = 0.233 for socioemotional adjustment). In terms of covariates, child gender was a significant predictor of socioemotional competence (*b* = 0.22, *p* = 0.002) and aggressive/oppositional behaviors (*b* = −0.32, *p* < 0.001); mother nativity predicted academic competence (*b* = 0.47, *p* = 0.01), such that children with mothers born outside of the U.S. had higher academic competence relative to those with U.S.-born mothers. Child age was not a significant covariate.

#### **4. Discussion**

The 21st century has brought unprecedented change in the ethnic–racial composition of the U.S. (Krogstad 2019), highlighting the importance of examining the opportunities and challenges parents face, particularly parents from ethnic–racial minoritized groups who have been historically underrepresented in research and prevention science. Our focus was on one such group, Latinx families, whose children comprise more than 25% of the K-12 school population (Child Trends 2018). This study contributes new knowledge about the associations among mothers' culturally based assets and challenges, universally salient features of the mother–child relationship (i.e., warmth, conflict), and children's educational adjustment based on a sample of predominantly immigrant Latinx families. Our focus on middle childhood addresses a significant gap, as most research on Latinx families has examined parenting dynamics in *adolescence*. Indeed, middle childhood is a time when prevention efforts, particularly supports for parents (e.g., Parra Cardona et al. 2012), may be critical in shaping children's educational adjustment and, subsequently, their long-term educational and economic opportunities (National Center for Education Statistics 2021).

#### *4.1. Culturally Informed Assets, Mother–Child Relationship Quality, and Children's Educational Adjustment*

Guided by culturally and ecologically based models (Calzada et al. 2012; García Coll et al. 1996; Stein et al. 2014), we examined mothers' familism values and family cohesion as potential resources that may be directly associated with children's academic, socioemotional, and behavioral functioning and indirectly linked via mother–child relationship quality. Our findings revealed the expected positive bivariate associations between mothers' familism values and mother–child warmth (Cahill et al.; Stein et al. 2014), but there were no significant direct associations from mothers' familism values to children's educational adjustment. These nonsignificant associations stand in contrast to research with primarily *adolescent* and *young adult* samples, revealing links between familism values and more positive educational outcomes and fewer externalizing symptoms (Cahill et al.). There also was no evidence that mothers' familism values were indirectly related to children's educational adjustment via mother–child warmth and conflict. When accounting for multiple

dimensions of mothers' cultural assets and challenges within a single model, *family cohesion* was directly and indirectly associated with children's educational adjustment. Specifically, family cohesion was related to higher levels of mother–child warmth, which was associated with more positive socioemotional functioning. That this finding was consistent across sibling birth order and child gender suggests the general importance of family cohesion and mother–child warmth for children's socioemotional competencies (i.e., prosocial interactions, emotional regulation strategies) in elementary school, and is consistent with research on recent Latinx immigrant families with slightly older children (i.e., 9 to 12 years of age; (Leidy et al. 2010)). In this sample of predominantly immigrant Latinx mothers who endorsed strong family-oriented values (i.e., almost 4.5 on a 5-point scale), it is possible that family interactions that are consistent with these values, including shared activities, interests, and connectedness among family members, along with warm and supportive relations between mothers and their children, are particularly salient for children's socioemotional functioning (Leidy et al. 2010). Our findings suggest the importance of examining both attitudinal *and* behavioral components of familism across different developmental periods to gain a more complete picture of their implications for family functioning and youth adjustment (Cahill et al.; Stein et al. 2014).

These findings also complement research on Latinx parenting styles in middle childhood (Domenech Rodriguez et al. 2009), which has identified different constellations of parenting behaviors (warmth, demandingness, and autonomy granting). Further, we extend research on the benefits of family cohesion and parental support for Latinx adolescents' adjustment (Bámaca-Colbert et al. 2018) to middle childhood (Leidy et al. 2010) and to children's positive socioemotional functioning in the school setting. Although our findings cannot be generalized to other sociocultural contexts, it is possible that family cohesion and warm and supportive mother–child relationships in middle childhood are resources that benefit all children, regardless of their culturally and contextually based resources and challenges, as they navigate their early years of formal schooling and learn to interact with teachers and classmates.

Turning to the models including mother–child conflict as a potential indirect mechanism, our findings extend research that has predominantly focused on parent–youth conflict in Latinx families during *adolescence* (e.g., Li and Warner 2015; Padilla et al. 2016; Pasch et al. 2006). For both older and younger siblings and female and male children, higher levels of family cohesion were associated with lower levels of mother–child conflict and, in turn, teachers' reports of children's more positive academic functioning, specifically their completion of homework and ability to achieve their academic goals and master grade-level reading and math skills. A home environment characterized by family connectedness and low levels of mother–child conflict may increase the likelihood that Latinx children can focus on school-related tasks and be successful in their academic work. These more harmonious family environments, which align with the cultural values of Latinx families (Campos et al. 2008; Leidy et al. 2010), may provide the foundational skills and motivation for children to be successful at school, highlighting potential sources of strength and resilience for Latinx youth (Cahill et al.; Leidy et al. 2010; Stein et al. 2014). More generally, these findings underscore the importance of the family context in children's successful academic functioning in *middle childhood*, a critical time when they are adapting to a complex educational environment (Collins and Madsen 2019; Votruba-Drzal 2006) that is unfamiliar to the majority of their parents, who have limited experience with U.S. K-12 schools (Suarez-Orozco et al. 2010).

It is notable that the pattern of findings linking family cohesion to mother–child conflict to children's adjustment was significant for *all* three domains of educational adjustment for younger siblings. That is, for younger siblings the indirect effects emerged for socioemotional competence and aggressive/oppositional behaviors in addition to academic competence, suggesting the particular importance of these familial processes for younger children during their early to middle elementary school years (i.e., 1st to 4th grade). A strength of our study was the focus on two children in each family and the consideration of

within-family variation. Although family cohesion was related to less mother–child conflict for both siblings, and mothers reported similar levels of conflict with older and younger siblings, the links from mother–child conflict to children's socioemotional functioning and aggressive/oppositional behaviors were specific to younger siblings. It is possible that mother–child conflict has different implications for the adjustment of older siblings, who are on the verge of adolescence, relative to their younger siblings who are in middle childhood. One possibility is that, for younger siblings, who are in middle childhood and have relatively less autonomy and spend more time with parents than their older siblings (Shanahan et al. 2007a), mother–child conflicts may be more salient for their adjustment. It also may be that mother–child conflicts in middle childhood are more likely to reflect interpersonal difficulties that also manifest in children's interactions at school, including more limited emotion regulation skills and more frequent aggressive/oppositional behaviors. These findings are among the first to examine within-family variation in these processes in middle childhood in Latinx families, and underscore the potential importance of mother– child conflict in middle childhood in this cultural context, particularly for younger children in our sample. Furthermore, our findings suggest the possibility that prevention programs that include strategies for addressing mother–child conflict in middle childhood may be beneficial for Latinx children's functioning in multiple domains at school.

#### *4.2. Culturally Informed Challenges, Mother–Child Relationship Quality, and Children's Educational Adjustment*

In addition to considering the strengths that Latinx mothers bring to their parenting, we also considered two particular challenges that are disproportionately experienced by Latinx families: economic hardship (Shrider et al. 2021) and discrimination (Ayón and Garcia 2019). Our expectations regarding the associations among stressors, parent–youth relationship quality, and children's educational adjustment were informed by the family stress model (Conger et al. 1994) and its extension to culturally based stressors (Conger et al. 2012; Lorenzo-Blanco et al. 2012). Our measure of economic hardship focused on mothers' perceptions of how difficult it was to meet their financial demands, such as paying bills on time, providing essential items such as food and clothing, and covering medical expenses. As our sample was recruited from economically disadvantaged schools, the distribution of household income was limited in range and less likely to provide an indication of whether and how economic circumstances are associated with stress and hardship for families. We found that mothers' perceptions of family economic hardship were positively related to mother–child conflict at the bivariate level and in our multivariate model for both older and younger siblings. However, contrary to the family stress process model and empirical support with Latinx families in early childhood (Derlan et al. 2019) and early adolescence (Delgado et al. 2013; White et al. 2015), we found limited evidence linking mothers' perceptions of economic hardship to children's adjustment via mother–child relationship quality in middle childhood.

Several characteristics of this study may underlie the lack of support for the family stress model. First, mothers' ratings of economic hardship were low to moderate, and all children attended Title I elementary schools where additional financial supports may be widely in place. Most families (almost 98%) also accessed various sources of public assistance (e.g., free/reduced price meals, nutritional assistance, and healthcare). Thus, in the context of these safety nets and mothers' modest reports of hardship (despite fairly low median income in households supporting an average of six individuals), economic hardship may not be a particularly salient challenge for children's educational adjustment. Developmental considerations also may play a role here. As children in middle childhood spend more time in the home setting relative to youth in adolescence (Shanahan et al. 2007b), and in this sample they also spent their school days with children in similar economic circumstances, this younger age group may be less aware of or affected by the economic hardship experienced in their homes. Notably, much of the research on the family stress model with Latinxs focuses on families with adolescents (e.g., Delgado et al. 2013; White

et al. 2015), who may be more cognizant of their families' economic hardships to the extent that they have more opportunities to compare and contrast their situations to those of their peers. Along these lines, Delgado et al. (2013) showed that *adolescents' perceptions* of their families' economic hardship mediated parents' reports of hardship to family functioning and adolescents' adjustment. Thus, one direction of future research may be to assess the degree to which children perceive economic constraints or stressors within the family context and the role of these perceptions in their educational adjustment.

Turning to our second indicator of culturally based stress, mothers' experiences of discrimination, our findings revealed inconsistencies across the bivariate and multivariate analyses. At the bivariate level, mothers' reports of discrimination were associated with greater economic hardship and more mother–child conflict for older and younger siblings, consistent with the premises of the family stress model (Conger et al. 2012; Lorenzo-Blanco et al. 2012). In the multivariate model, discrimination was associated with more positive socioemotional competencies for both older and younger siblings and less aggressive/oppositional behavior for younger siblings. Although mothers who experience more frequent discrimination may engage in socialization strategies (e.g., preparation for bias, cultural socialization; Hagelskamp and Hughes 2014) that have been demonstrated to promote positive adjustment among children (Umaña-Taylor and Hill 2020), replication is essential, as it is also likely that these findings are spurious. Further, we know little about the potential underlying *mechanisms* linking Latinx mothers' experiences of discrimination to their children's adjustment in middle childhood, highlighting an important direction of future work.

#### **5. Limitations and Future Directions**

This study has several limitations that guide future research. Foremost, our study drew on cross-sectional data and future longitudinal work is needed to test for potential direct and indirect mechanisms using multiple time points and accounting for prior levels of children's adjustment. Although our findings highlight important contextual and parenting characteristics that are linked to children's educational adjustment, the direction of the effects cannot be determined. Second, because our study required the participation of a primary caregiver, and the majority were biological mothers, future work should consider how multiple caregivers' cultural assets and challenges are linked to children's adjustment. This should include father figures and other primary caregivers in the lives of Latinx children (e.g., grandparents, aunts and uncles, older siblings; Updegraff and Perez-Brena). Third, we controlled for mothers' nativity as a proxy for their exposure to anti-immigrant experiences. The associations between mothers' nativity and children's educational adjustment suggested, however, that mothers' immigrant status (i.e., being born outside of the U.S.) was related to more positive child adaptation in school, aligning with findings regarding the immigrant paradox (Gonzales et al. 2009). Thus, it will be important to directly measure the extent to which parents have been the target of anti-immigrant actions and policies in future studies, given the salience and frequency of such experiences for Latinx families in the 21st century (Roche et al. 2018; Torres et al. 2018). Fourth, we drew on mothers' reports of parent–child relationship qualities, and the next steps should examine how children perceive these relationships as well as use observational ratings of parent–youth relationships (e.g., Domenech Rodriguez et al. 2009). Finally, our analytic sample of 348 children from 173 families was large for a primary data collection effort, but nevertheless underpowered for a complex model testing moderation by birth order and gender. On one hand, this suggests that the associations that emerged are likely quite robust; on the other hand, more research with larger samples is needed, as some of our null findings could be due to limited power to detect significant associations.

These limitations withstanding, this study has a number of strengths and makes several important contributions to the field. For instance, a feature of our study that strengthens its external validity is its multiple-informant design, in which we gathered data from teachers to assess children's educational adjustment, rather than relying on mothers'

reports; this enables us to rule out common source variance as an explanation for our results. Our study also provided important evidence regarding the promotive function of family cohesion for the educational adjustment of Latinx children. Among the culturally based assets and challenges examined, *family cohesion* was a particularly important familial asset in middle childhood that was associated with more positive mother–child relationship dynamics and, in turn, with more optimal adjustment at school. The pattern of findings was particularly strong for younger siblings, who are early in their years of formal schooling—a time when establishing a foundation for future educational success has far reaching benefits (Magnuson et al. 2016; Rabiner et al. 2016).

More generally, our study underscores the interconnections between family and school experiences and suggests that prevention and intervention programs that focus on these intersecting contexts have the potential to benefit Latinx youth. As one example, Gonzales et al. (2012) demonstrated the efficacy of a school-based, parent–adolescent-focused prevention program (i.e., *Bridges to High School Program/Projecto Puentes a la Secundaria*) designed to increase school engagement and reduce risk behaviors by strengthening parenting, adolescent coping, school engagement, and family cohesion among Mexican-origin families in urban school settings. Investing in programs that build family–school connections and enhance family-based supports *prior* to adolescence (and the onset of significant behavioral difficulties for some youth) may be an important next step in prevention research to capitalize on a developmental period when children spend the majority of their time in family and school settings.

#### **6. Conclusions**

In the 21st century, Latinx families account for more than half of the growth in the U.S. population and represent more than one-fourth of the school-age population. One key contribution of our research, and a critical approach to studying Latinx families in the 21st century, is a balanced perspective that recognizes the strengths *and* challenges of Latinx families in the U.S. today. In considering multiple assets and challenges, our work underscored *family cohesion* as a salient cultural factor in middle childhood that is linked to more positive family dynamics and, in turn, more positive adaptation in the school setting. Prevention programs that build on these familial strengths have the potential to support children's successful transition to and adjustment in their early years of formal schooling. A particularly important contribution was our focus on *middle childhood*, a period of parenting that has been relatively neglected in research on Latinx parenting/parent–child relationships. Middle childhood is a potentially ideal time to intervene with efficacious prevention programming, as it could help set children on a more positive trajectory as they enter adolescence and aid in addressing the considerable disparities in high school and postsecondary education for ethnic–racial minoritized and low-income youth. The potentially different pattern of findings that emerged in this middle childhood sample, compared to a body of research on parenting among Latinx adolescents, underscores the importance of ensuring that research on Latinx families spans children's development from early childhood to young adulthood to better understand the unique resources and challenges that characterize each developmental period. Continuing to build a foundation of knowledge on Latinx families will be essential to informing culturally responsive prevention and intervention programming in the 21st century.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, K.A.U. and A.J.U.-T.; methodology, K.A.U. and A.J.U.-T.; formal analysis, D.S. and K.M.C.; writing—original draft preparation, K.A.U., A.J.U.-T., D.S., and K.M.C.; writing—review and editing, K.A.U., A.J.U.-T., D.S., and K.M.C.; visualization, D.S. and K.M.C.; supervision, K.A.U. and A.J.U.-T.; project administration, K.A.U. and A.J.U.-T.; funding acquisition, K.A.U. and A.J.U.-T. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01-HD093649).

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Boards of Arizona State University and the Pennsylvania State University (Title: Innovative Family Prevention with Latinos; protocol #00006528 and STUDY00010473, respectively; 31 August 2018) for studies involving humans.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study and assent was obtained for all children under the age of 18.

**Data Availability Statement:** Contact the corresponding author regarding requests for data.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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## *Article* **Culture and Social Change in Mothers' and Fathers' Individualism, Collectivism and Parenting Attitudes**

### **Jennifer E. Lansford, Susannah Zietz, Suha M. Al-Hassan, Dario Bacchini, Marc H. Bornstein and Lei Chang et al.**

	- **\*** Correspondence<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
**Abstract:** Cultures and families are not static over time but evolve in response to social transformations, such as changing gender roles, urbanization, globalization, and technology uptake. Historically, individualism and collectivism have been widely used heuristics guiding cross-cultural comparisons, yet these orientations may evolve over time, and individuals within cultures and cultures themselves can have both individualist and collectivist orientations. Historical shifts in parents' attitudes also have occurred within families in several cultures. As a way of understanding mothers' and fathers' individualism, collectivism, and parenting attitudes at this point in history, we examined parents in nine countries that varied widely in country-level individualism rankings. Data included mothers' and fathers' reports (*N* = 1338 families) at three time points in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. More variance was accounted for by within-culture than between-culture factors for parents' individualism, collectivism, progressive parenting attitudes, and authoritarian parenting attitudes, which were predicted by a range of sociodemographic factors that were largely similar for mothers and fathers and across cultural groups. Social changes from the 20th to the 21st century may have contributed to some of the similarities between mothers and fathers and across the nine countries.

**Keywords:** authoritarian; collectivism; culture; historical perspective; individualism; international; parenting attitudes; social change

**Citation:** Jennifer E. Lansford, Susannah Zietz, Suha M. Al-Hassan, Dario Bacchini, Marc H. Bornstein and Lei Chang et al. 2021. Culture and Social Change in Mothers' and Fathers' Individualism, Collectivism and Parenting Attitudes. *Social Sciences* 10: 459. https:// doi.org/10.3390/socsci10120459

Academic Editors: Christy Buchanan and Terese Glatz

Received: 13 October 2021 Accepted: 25 November 2021 Published: 30 November 2021

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**Copyright:** © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

#### **1. Introduction**

Historically, the individualist versus collectivist distinction has been one of the main organizing frameworks for understanding cultural differences in family life (Hofstede 1980; Kâgıtçıba¸ ˘ sı 1997; Triandis et al. 1986), and parents in some societies have been considered more "progressive" (in terms of holding democratic attitudes about parent–child relationships and believing that children should have more autonomy in decision making in the family) and less authoritarian than others (e.g., Lansford and Bornstein 2011). However, neither cultures nor families are static over time; instead, cultures and families evolve in response to social transformations, such as changing gender roles, urbanization, globalization, and technology uptake (e.g., Bornstein 2019; Chuang et al. 2018; Lansford et al. 2021). Entire cultural orientations can shift, and changing ecological demands resulting from social transformations can alter parents' attitudes if they perceive that new parenting behaviors, child characteristics, or both will be more adaptive in altered social contexts (e.g., Fung et al. 2017). The present study examines the proportions of variance in individualism, collectivism, parents' progressive attitudes, and parents' authoritarian attitudes accounted for by within-culture versus between-culture factors as well as sociodemographic predictors of individualism, collectivism, parents' progressive attitudes, and parents' authoritarian attitudes, recognizing that these constructs are culturally and historically grounded in ways that may change over time.

#### *1.1. Individualism and Collectivism in Historical Perspective*

Individualism is characterized by self-reliance and separation from ingroups, whereas collectivism is characterized by the subordination of individual goals for the good of the group, interdependence, and family integrity (Triandis et al. 1986). In his now-classic work, Hofstede (1991) explained that "Individualism stands for a society in which the ties between individuals are loose; everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her immediate family only" whereas "collectivism stands for a society in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive ingroups, which throughout people's lifetime continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty" (pp. 260–61). Kâgıtçıba¸ ˘ sı (1997) traced the history of individualism and collectivism in philosophical and religious thought through the first part of the 20th century, but Hofstede (1980) popularized the idea of individualism and collectivism in psychology. The concepts rapidly gained traction in the 1980s and the 1990s, with a third of psychology studies invoking individualism and collectivism to explain cultural differences by 1994 (Hui and Yee 1994). The introduction to Volume 3 of the 2nd edition of *Handbook of Cross-cultural Psychology* noted that, although the 1st edition of the handbook barely mentioned the individualism/collectivism heuristic, the 2nd edition "makes very clear that individualism/collectivism is currently the favorite heuristic of many cross-cultural social psychologists" (Segall and Kâgıtçıba¸ ˘ sı 1997, p. xxvii).

Despite the importance of the individualism/collectivism heuristic, critics have raised a number of questions about these constructs (Voronov and Singer 2002). For example, even in early studies, scholars recognized as a limitation that individualism and collectivism are rarely measured directly but rather assumed based on nationality or ethnicity (Kâgıtçıba¸ ˘ sı 1997). In a comparison of tendencies to give and expectations to receive resources from others in Greece, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Turkey, and the United States, the presumed collectivists did not differ from the presumed individualists (Fijneman et al. 1995). Indeed, even early theorists pointed out that individualism and collectivism are not polar opposites but instead can coexist within a cultural group and even within an individual in different situations or at different times (Kâgıtçıba¸ ˘ sı 1997).

Over time, researchers have increasingly emphasized that cultural groups as a whole as well as individuals within cultures embody both individualism and collectivism. For example, in an analysis of change over time in individualism and collectivism in Japan, although Japanese culture as a whole was found to become more individualistic over

time, individuals continued to embrace many attitudes and behaviors characteristic of collectivism (Ogihara 2017). Some of this shift in perspectives in the literature is likely a function of researchers recognizing complexity that had always existed but had been simplified through dichotomously classifying cultural groups as being predominantly individualist or collectivist (e.g., Wong et al. 2018). Yet some of this shift in perspectives is also likely a function of real societal changes over time related to changing gender roles, urbanization, globalization, technology uptake, and other factors (e.g., Chang et al. 2011; Kâgıtçıba¸ ˘ sı 2002).

In addition to being used as heuristics for understanding cultures in general, individualism and collectivism have been conceptualized as affecting how parents in different cultural groups socialize their children. For example, individualism has been theorized to promote socializing children to be self-reliant and independent, whereas collectivism has been theorized to promote socializing children to be obedient and fulfill their duties to their families (Triandis et al. 1990). Individualism and collectivism may affect parents' attitudes regarding appropriate parenting practices and desired child outcomes (He et al. 2021).

At a cultural level, individualism and collectivism have typically been treated as characterizing populations to different degrees (e.g., Hofstede Insights 2021). Individualism and collectivism may be related to a range of sociodemographic characteristics at both cultural and individual levels. Early works suggested that more individualistic countries have higher gross national products than less individualistic countries (Hofstede 1980; Triandis et al. 1988), but more recent work demonstrates that individualism and collectivism may have complex relations with economic factors, such as redistribution of income and entrepreneurship, at a societal level (Binder 2019). Culture-wide indicators of educational attainment do not have clear relations with individualism or collectivism, as countries that perform among the best in the world on international comparisons, such as with the Program for International Student Assessment (U.S. Department of Education 2020), include some of the most collectivist (e.g., China, Singapore) and most individualist (e.g., Canada, Estonia) countries in the world. There is some evidence that as countries' individualism increases over historical time, the average family size decreases (Ogihara 2018). At an individual level, it is also possible that individualism and collectivism are predicted by a range of sociodemographic characteristics of parents, such as age, education, and income. However, research on individual-level predictors of individualism and collectivism is rare.

#### *1.2. Progressive and Authoritarian Parenting Attitudes in Historical Perspective*

Along with changes in individualism and collectivism at the cultural level, historical shifts in parents' attitudes and behaviors have also occurred within families (Haring et al. 2019). For example, in previous generations, authoritarian attitudes that emphasized parents' power and children's obligation to obey their parents were more common than they are today (Chang et al. 2011; Chen and Chen 2010). Historical shifts in parents' attitudes in a number of countries have de-emphasized authoritarianism and increasingly emphasized supporting children's autonomy (Bray and Dawes 2016). Parents' behaviors likewise have changed. For example, the percentage of parents who report spanking their children (often considered a behavioral manifestation of authoritarianism) has declined steadily over time in a number of countries and has declined more dramatically in countries that have outlawed corporal punishment (Alampay et al. 2021), a number that has increased exponentially since 1979 when Sweden became the first country to outlaw corporal punishment (www.endcorporalpunishment.org, accessed 26 November 2021).

Large-scale social changes are in part responsible for changes in parents' attitudes (Chang et al. 2011). For example, the Internet and social media have dispersed global perspectives that were not part of traditional family discourse in the era before the Internet (Harrelson-Stephens and Callaway 2014). Parenting has been shaped by exposure to different perspectives via technology, as well as through urbanization, globalization, and other social forces that change over time (Bray and Dawes 2016), and these exposures may have contributed to melding of individualist and collectivist orientations as well as a shift away from more authoritarian parenting attitudes.

Parents' attitudes are shaped by a number of sociodemographic factors at both a cultural level and an individual level. For example, at a cultural level, some countries emphasize a democratic approach to parenting that encompasses children's rights in the family and society at large (e.g., Sorbring et al. 2021), whereas other countries emphasize more authoritarian parenting attitudes within the context of hierarchical parent–child relationships (Osman et al. 2021), although these culture-level differences in parenting attitudes may be narrowing over time (Chang et al. 2011). At an individual level, parents who are less educated and have a lower income have more authoritarian attitudes than more educated and higher-income parents (Hoff and Laursen 2019; Wamser-Nanney and Campbell 2020), but studies of these sociodemographic predictors of parents' attitudes have largely been conducted in the United States, Canada, and western Europe, so it is not clear whether they generalize to other populations. Child gender, parent age, and family size may also be related to parents' authoritarian attitudes, although findings have been mixed and if differences are found, they are often small in magnitude. The importance parents place on religion has sometimes been found to be related to more authoritarian parenting attitudes (Horwath and Lees 2010), but this finding has been inconsistent (Petro et al. 2018) and in part depends on religious denomination as some denominations espouse more authoritarian beliefs than others (such as the "spare the rod, spoil the child" view in conservative Christian denominations) (Gershoff et al. 1999).

Parents' own sociodemographic characteristics, in particular age and education, might be related not only to their own attitudes but also to the other parents' attitudes. Family Systems Theory (Bowen 1978) and expansions of the theory that focus more on culture (Erdem and Safi 2018), for example, describe how families operate as entire systems in which characteristics of each member influence each of the other members, as well as their relationships with one another. In addition, through assortative mating, parents with particular sociodemographic characteristics often select into relationships with partners who share those characteristics (Rauscher 2020). Once mothers and fathers have formed a partnership, they also influence each other over time (Bornstein et al. 2011b), which could account for how one parent's age and education might be related not only to their own attitudes but also to the other parent's attitudes.

#### *1.3. Mothers and Fathers in Historical Perspective*