Home Activities of Mexican American Children: Structuring Early Socialization and Cognitive Engagement

The question of how home activities advance the early social and cognitive development of Latino children receives growing attention from psychologists and social scientists. Some scholars and practitioners, focused on promoting "school readiness," frame the problem as weak parenting, sign...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cultural diversity & ethnic minority psychology 2015-04, Vol.21 (2), p.181-190
Main Authors: Bridges, Margaret, Cohen, Shana R., Scott, Lyn, Fuller, Bruce, Anguiano, Rebecca, Mangual Figueroa, Ariana, Livas-Dlott, Alejandra
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acculturation
Adaptation, Psychological
Child Development - physiology
Child, Preschool
Cognition - physiology
Cognitive Development
Family Characteristics - ethnology
Female
Home Environment
Human
Humans
Involvement
Male
Mexican Americans
Mexican Americans - psychology
Mothers - psychology
Parenting - psychology
Schools
Social Behavior
Social Environment
Socialization
Socioeconomic Factors
United States
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The question of how home activities advance the early social and cognitive development of Latino children receives growing attention from psychologists and social scientists. Some scholars and practitioners, focused on promoting "school readiness," frame the problem as weak parenting, signaled by insufficient rich language or academic skills. Other theorists, rooted in ecocultural theory, argue that early socialization and cognitive engagement are culturally situated within routine home activities. These activity structures vary and change over time as families acculturate, adapting to local social ecologies. Little is known empirically about the activity structures within Latino homes, including how young children participate. We detail the social architecture and cognitive engagement pertaining to 6 prevalent home activities in which 24 Mexican American 4-year-olds were engaged over 14 months. We then report how children participate in these 6 activities, and their potential relevance to the cognitive skills gap seen at school entry. We found that children's activities reproduced heritage language, symbols, and knowledge less often than suggested in prior literature; children's typical level of cognitive engagement varied greatly among tasks; and the distribution of time spent in activities is associated with the mother's school attainment and home language.
ISSN:1099-9809
1939-0106
DOI:10.1037/a0037927