What is the process in which culture is passed from generation to generation through language and socialization?

Modernisation
A process of dynamic social change resulting from the diffusion and adoption of the characteristics of apparently more advanced societies by other societies that are apparently less advanced. It involves social transformation whereby the society becomes technologically advanced and updates cultural life.
Syllabus p.55

Sustainability
The required development to meet current human needs, whether economic, social or environmental, without jeopardising the needs of future generations or the health of the planet for all species depending on it for their existence. Sustainability implies deliberate, responsible and proactive decision-making from the local to the global level about a more equitable distribution of resources and the minimisation of negative impacts of humans on the planet.
​Syllabus p.59

Tradition
​The body of cultural practices and beliefs that are passed down from generation to generation, often by word of mouth and behavioural modelling, that are integral to the socialisation process and that represent stability and continuity of the society or culture.
Syllabus p.59

Empowerment
A social process that gives power or authority to people at a micro level, to groups at a meso level, and to institutions at a macro level, allowing them to think, behave, take action, control and make decisions. 
​Syllabus p.53

Westernisation
A social process where the values, customs and practices of Western industrial capitalism are adopted to form the basis of cultural change. 
​Syllabus p.59

Students develop knowledge and understanding of social and cultural continuity and change by examining:• the nature of continuity and change:− change is a complex process− ‘evolutionary’ change− ‘transformative’ change

− resistance to change

Students will study in detail a country in order to:

• determine the nature of traditional society and culture
• analyse the nature of power and authority
• examine the impact of continuity and change upon the lives of individuals and groups in the micro, meso and macro levels of society.

• beliefs, values and lifestyles
• education
• family life and population changes
• gender roles and the status of men and women
• the legal system and political processes.

• Is all change necessarily progress?
• Which groups benefit from change? Which do not?
• How has access to technologies impacted on the rate and direction of change?

• conflict
• evolutionary
• functionalist
• interactionist. 

• predict the importance of technologies to the country studied.

• Culture of Vietnam (Vietnam Embassy in London)
• Vietnamese Culture 

Functionalism and Vietnam (Jodi Arrow - SCA)

The current three-generation (N = 204 families), three-year longitudinal study examined the intergenerational transmission of cultural socialization among Mexican-origin young mothers and their own mothers (i.e., children’s grandmothers) and, in turn, whether young mothers’ cultural socialization informed their children’s developmental competencies (i.e., interactive play with peers, receptive language, and internalizing and externalizing problem behavior) a year later. Results indicated that mediation was significant, such that grandmother-mother cultural socialization when children were 3 years old informed greater mother-child cultural socialization when children were 4 years old, which, in turn, informed children’s greater receptive language and interactive play with peers when children were 5 years old. Findings highlight the importance of intergenerational cultural socialization on young children’s developmental competencies.

Keywords: cultural/ethnic/racial/ethnic-racial socialization, interactive play with peers, intergenerational cultural transmission, internalizing/externalizing problem behavior, Mexican/Latino/Hispanic, receptive language

Caregivers engage in numerous socialization processes to promote their children’s developmental competencies. One such normative process among families of color is ethnic-racial socialization, referring to caregivers’ efforts to engage and expose children to information that helps them learn about their culture, ethnicity, and race (Hughes et al., 2006). Ethnic-racial socialization has been conceptualized as involving numerous components (e.g., cultural socialization, preparation for bias, promotion of mistrust, egalitarianism and silence about ethnicity; Hughes et al., 2006). Cultural socialization has been found to be the most prevalent type of socialization among parents with young children (Hughes et al., 2008), which involves exposure and discussion pertaining to children’s heritage, customs, and history (e.g., taking children to cultural holidays/events, reading books in which others who share children’s cultural group are represented, and/or discussing ancestors or prominent cultural figures).

During early childhood (approximately 2 to 6 years of age), a key developmental task is advancing cognitive skills, which enables children’s increased processing of information about ethnicity-race, and attempts to make sense of their social-cultural worlds (Quintana, 1998; Van Ausdale & Feagin, 2001). Caregivers play an important role in shaping children’s understanding about ethnicity-race via their cultural socialization efforts (Hughes et al., 2006). Among a nationally representative U.S. sample, 46% of Latino parents reported that someone in their family talked with their kindergarten child about their ethnic-racial heritage several times a month or more (Lesane-Brown, Brown, Tanner-Smith, & Bruce, 2010). Further, parents of color report that cultural socialization during early childhood is important for children’s readiness for school (Anderson, Jackson, Jones, Kennedy, Wells, & Chung, 2015). Thus, early childhood is a particularly important developmental period to understand factors that shape cultural socialization practices, and the role it plays in children’s developmental competencies. Understanding how these factors relate to improved developmental competencies is particularly important to examine among populations who are at increased risk for poorer adjustment, such as families in which an adolescent pregnancy has occurred (Hofferth & Reid, 2002)

Although cultural socialization is an important process among Latino families with young children, limited research has focused on the predictors and outcomes of cultural socialization during early childhood. The purpose of the present longitudinal study was to examine (a) whether grandmothers’ (i.e., young children’s grandmothers) reports of their cultural socialization of their young adult daughters who became pregnant as adolescents (i.e., children’s mothers) predicted young mothers’ reports of their own cultural socialization efforts with their child a year later, and (b) whether mothers’ cultural socialization predicted children’s developmental competencies (i.e., greater interactive play with peers and receptive language, and less internalizing and externalizing problem behavior), one year later.

Research on the intergenerational transmission of processes has focused on a broad array of topics, such as gender roles in housework (Cordero-Coma & Esping-Andersen, 2018), work values (Cemalcilar, Secinti, & Sumer, 2018), life satisfaction (Dobewall et al., 2018), trauma (Zerach, Levin, Aloni, & Solomon, 2017), and academic self-concept (Mortimer, Zhang, Wu, Hussemann, & Johnson, 2017). Theory regarding the intergenerational transmission of culture, specifically, holds that cultural ideas, beliefs, and practices are passed from one generation to the next (see Schönpflug, 2009 for a review). Prior work in the intergenerational transmission of culture has focused on language (Velázquez, 2014) and family meal practices (e.g., Trofholz et al., 2018); however, no studies have focused on how cultural socialization practices between grandmothers and mothers inform subsequent cultural socialization practices between mothers and children. Further, apart from few notable three-generation studies (e.g., Mortimer et al., 2017), prior work has focused on two generations and assessed similarities and/or differences between parents and children or assessed parents’ retrospective accounts of what they experienced from their childhood, and their reports of processes they are engaging in with their own children (e.g., Cemalcilar et al., 2018; Velázquez, 2014). The present study builds on this prior work by longitudinally testing cultural socialization practices across three generations.

Not only is it important to understand the intergenerational transmission of cultural socialization, but it is also critical to test subsequent effects on children’s developmental outcomes. The integrative model for the study of developmental competencies in minority children (García Coll et al., 1996) is a useful framework for understanding these relations. García Coll et al. (1996) proposed that minority children’s developmental competencies are shaped by social position variables (e.g., race, ethnicity) that inform distal contexts (e.g., schools, neighborhoods) and more immediate contexts (e.g., family). The model proposes that within the family context, caregivers engage in cultural socialization that directly informs children’s developmental competencies. Extant theory regarding how cultural socialization impacts developmental competencies is underdeveloped. However, Caughy, O’Campo, Randolph, and Nickerson (2002) suggested that when caregivers engage in interactive cultural socialization processes with children, it provides an opportunity for dialogue, cognitive stimulation, and engagement that promote children’s improved development. Cultural socialization processes, specifically, as opposed to other more general socialization processes, may be linked with children’s developmental competencies in early childhood given that this is a time during which children are making sense of the racialized world surrounding them, and beginning to form their own understanding of ethnicity/race and their ethnic-racial identity (Quintana, 1994; Serrano-Villar & Calzada, 2016). Thus, it is possible that not only is there an intergenerational transmission of cultural socialization, but mothers’ cultural socialization with young children helps them make sense of the information they are processing about race, ethnicity, and culture during this developmental period. Cultural socialization behaviors are expected to inform key developmental competencies that reflect social-emotional and interpersonal well-being, which are important as children transition to kindergarten, including greater communication and interactive play with peers and fewer internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors.

As noted, cultural socialization processes provide children with opportunities for cognitive stimulation and caregiver interaction through meaningful conversations about culture, a topic that garners children’s growing social-emotional awareness and interest during this developmental period (Quintana, 1998), which may improve their behavior. A recent systematic review indicated that cultural socialization was generally related to less internalizing (e.g., anxiety, depression) and externalizing (e.g., aggression, antisocial behavior) problem behavior among African American youth and adults (Reynolds & Gonzales-Backen, 2017). Similarly, among Latino adolescents and adults, cultural socialization was associated with less internalizing and externalizing problem behavior (e.g., Liu & Lau, 2013; Rivas-Drake, 2011). Few studies, however, have focused on children, and no studies to our knowledge have considered the intergenerational transmission of cultural socialization as linked to children’s outcomes.

A small emerging body of work finds similar relations during early childhood. For example, among African American families with children between 3 and 4.5 years of age, parents’ cultural socialization that emphasized racial pride was associated with less internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors (Caughy et al., 2002). Similarly, in one of the only studies that tested cultural socialization relations longitudinally, cultural socialization when Latino and African American children were 2.5 years was associated with fewer behavior problems when children were 3.5 years (Caughy & Owen, 2015).

Receptive language is the ability to understand language (e.g., words, sentences; Reilly, Mckean, Morgan, & Wake, 2015). As noted, cultural socialization practices involve interactive discussions between caregivers and children that provide an opportunity for children to hear new words and develop their own language skills (Caughy et al., 2002). Specifically, many cultural socialization behaviors with children are verbal, such as reading books to them that represent their ethnicity and race and telling stories about their ancestors or others who represented their culture well, which may expose children to a diversity of new, culturally-related words that they may not have heard otherwise. Additionally, as noted, in early childhood as children are trying to make sense of racial differences they observe (e.g., skin tone, hair texture; Quintana, 1994), they may ask parents increasingly more questions, which offer opportunities for interactive exchanges of information and a new and more sophisticated vocabulary during cultural socialization processes, resulting in children’s greater receptive language. Empirical support for this notion has been mixed, warranting further exploration. In one study, caregivers’ cultural socialization at 2.5 years was associated with children’s receptive language one year later (Caughy & Owen, 2015). The only other study to our knowledge that tested this relation did not find support. Specifically, among 4-year-old Latino, African American, and European American children, cultural socialization did not significantly predict receptive language (Barbarin & Jean-Baptiste, 2013).

However, an important difference between the two studies is the measure of cultural socialization. Caughy and Owen (2015) used a multi-item scale (Hughes, 2003; Hughes & Chen, 1997), whereas Barbarin and Jean-Baptiste (2013) used a single-item in a national dataset (U.S. Department of Education, 1998). It is possible that the null findings in the latter study emerged because the one-item question was not sufficient to fully capture the array of parents’ cultural socialization. Given that only two studies have tested this relation, and no studies have included the preceding intergenerational transmission of cultural socialization, more work is sorely needed.

An important aspect of social competence among children is establishing positive play with peers, which involves prosocial interactions, such as comforting and helping others and encouraging others to join play (Fantuzzo, Sekino, & Cohen, 2004). It is possible that as caregivers engage in activities that expose children to others who share their ethnic-racial group (e.g., going to cultural events), it provides an opportunity for children to learn and practice positive interaction skills, which spill over into interactive play with peers. However, no prior studies to our knowledge have tested this association. Given that interactive play with peers is associated with active classroom engagement (Coolahan, Fantuzzo, Mendez, & McDermott, 2000) and higher social skills and academic competence (Hampton & Fantuzzo, 2003), understanding whether caregivers’ cultural socialization is positively associated with children’s interactive play has important implications for children’s positive development.

To address gaps in previous literature on cultural socialization during early childhood, we tested the intergenerational transmission of cultural socialization from grandmothers to mothers and mothers to children, and the association with children’s developmental competencies across three years in an at-risk sample of families in which an adolescent pregnancy occurred. Grounded in the intergenerational transmission of culture theory (Schönpflug, 2009) and the integrative model (García Coll et al., 1996), we hypothesized that grandmothers’ cultural socialization of mothers when children were 3 years, would predict mothers’ greater cultural socialization of children at 4 years and, in turn, predict children’s developmental competencies (i.e., fewer internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors, greater receptive language, and greater interactive play with peers) at 5 years. Further, as a more rigorous test of hypotheses, we controlled for prior levels of children’s developmental outcomes at 4 years. Additionally, given variability in cultural socialization based on child and caregiver characteristics (see Hughes et al., 2006), family income, grandmothers’ nativity, mothers’ nativity, mothers’ age, and children’s gender were included as controls.

Data were from the last three waves of a six-wave longitudinal study of 204 Mexican-origin families that included young mothers who entered parenthood during adolescence, their mother figures, and their children (Author citation). The current study was limited to data collected in the last three waves of the study because mothers’ cultural socialization was assessed for the first time at W5; therefore, we included W4 through W6 to assess longitudinal, hypothesized relations. Pregnant adolescents were recruited from community agencies, health centers, and high schools in a Southwestern metropolitan area. To participate in the study, participants had to be of Mexican descent, 15 to 18 years of age, in their third trimester of pregnancy, not legally married, and have a mother figure who was also willing to participate.

Data were collected beginning in 2007 via face-to-face interviews in participants’ preferred language with mothers and grandmothers when adolescents were in their third trimester of pregnancy (Wave 1; W1), when children were 10 months of age, and every year afterwards until children were 5 years. Child observations were conducted annually with children beginning at W2. Participants received $40 at W4, $50 at W5, and $60 at W6 for participating. All procedures were approved by the Human Subjects Review Board at Arizona State University for the project titled “Supporting Mexican-origin Adolescent Mothers and their Infants” (protocol #0605000863).

At W1, adolescent mothers were 16.24 years of age (SD = .99), the majority were attending school (58%), and U.S. born (64%). Grandmothers were 41.75 years of age (SD = 6.93), and the majority were foreign-born (69.6%). Regarding educational attainment at W1, 10% of adolescent mothers completed high school/earned GED. Regarding grandmothers’ highest level of education at W1, 70% did not graduate high school, 17% completed high school or earned a GED, 9% completed some college coursework but did not graduate, and 4% completed a college degree. The median family income in the current study was $22,067. The number of mothers and grandmothers who resided in the same household was 51% at W4, 44% at W5, and 36% at W6. The majority of children in the study were male (58%).

The majority of families participated across all six waves (i.e., 96% at W2, and 88% at W3, W4, W5, and W6). However, data were missing for some families who did not participate by W6. We tested for potential mean level differences in demographic variables at W1 (i.e., mothers’ nativity, mothers’ age, mothers’ school status, grandmothers’ nativity, grandmothers’ age, and grandmothers’ highest level of education) between participants with complete data versus those who did not participate at W6 using independent samples t-tests. Results indicated that there were no significant differences between participants with complete data and participants who did not participate by W6 on these variables at W1 (i.e., when all participants provided data). The percent of data missing on study variables ranged from 0% (mothers’ age, mothers’ nativity, grandmother’s nativity, and child gender) to 27% (child’s W6 receptive language), primarily from not participating in that wave.

All measures were translated from English to Spanish by a native-Spanish speaker and then back-translated from Spanish to English by a second native-Spanish speaker, as recommended by Knight, Roosa, and Umaña-Taylor (2009). Any discrepancies in translations were discussed and resolved by the research team. For items that were not easily translated, we followed the process of decentering in which we revised both English and Spanish items simultaneously until a meaningful equivalence of translation was achieved (Knight et al., 2009). Final translations were reviewed by Mexican-origin individuals to ensure cultural validity (Knight et al., 2009).

Grandmothers’ cultural socialization of mothers

The Family Ethnic Socialization Measure (FESM; Umaña-Taylor, 2001; Umaña-Taylor, Yazedjian, & Bámaca-Gomez, 2004) was used to assess grandmothers’ W4 cultural socialization of mothers within the past year. The 12-item measure (e.g., “I teach her about her ethnic/cultural background.”) was scored on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from (1) Not at all to (5) Very much. A mean score was calculated, and higher scores indicated higher cultural socialization efforts with mothers. Cronbach’s alpha was .93.

Mothers’ cultural socialization of children

The Cultural Socialization Behaviors Measure (CSBM; Derlan, Umaña-Taylor, Toomey, Jahromi, & Updegraff, 2016) was used to assess mothers’ cultural socialization behaviors with young children at W5. The 12-item measure includes behaviors in which caregivers engage in the past year with young children (e.g., buying toys and reading books that represent their culture). Items in the measure are worded in a manner that enables generalization to all ethnic/racial groups, but group-specific examples can be added to items in parentheses when used with ethnoracially homogenous samples. In the current study, items were revised to include examples relevant to Mexican culture, such as “I involve my child in activities that are specific to our ethnic/cultural group (e.g., playing traditional games like “Lotería,” cooking traditional foods like “tamales”)” and “I tell my child about the history of our ancestors (e.g., when they came to the U.S., what their life was like in Mexico).” The items were scored on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from (1) Not at all to (5) Very much. A mean score was calculated, and higher scores indicated higher cultural socialization efforts with children. Cronbach’s alpha was .90.

Child externalizing and internalizing problem behavior

The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000) was used to assess mothers’ perceptions of their child’s behavioral adjustment at W6. The 24-item externalizing subscale (e.g., “Is stubborn, in a bad mood, or irritable”) and the 36-item internalizing subscale (e.g., “Has sudden changes in mood or feelings.”) asked mothers how true each statement was of their child, and responses ranged from (0) Not true to (2) Very true or often true. Items were summed separately for each subscale, and higher scores indicated higher externalizing and internalizing problem behavior, respectively. W5 subscales were included as controls. Cronbach’s alphas were .91(W5) and .92(W6) for child externalizing problem behavior, and .88(W5) and .91(W6) for child internalizing problem behavior.

Children’s receptive language

The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT; Dunn & Dunn, 1997) was used to assess children’s receptive vocabulary abilities in English. After the interviewer stated a word, the child was asked to point to the correct picture depicting the word from a group of four pictures. The interviewer began with an item appropriate for the child’s age, and proceeded until the child’s responses met criteria to end the test. Raw scores were converted to age-equivalent scores. W5 scores were included as controls. Higher scores indicated greater receptive language.

Children’s interactive play with peers

The parent version of the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale (PIPPS-P; Fantuzzo, Mendez, & Tighe, 1998) was used to assess mothers’ perceptions of their children’s competence in play with peers at W6. The 10-item interactive play behavior subscale (e.g., “Helps other children.”) was scored on a 4-point Likert scale from (0) Never to (3) Always. A mean score was calculated and higher scores indicated higher interactive play. W5 interactive play was included as a control. Cronbach’s alphas were .81(W5) and .77(W6).

Control variables

In addition to controlling for prior levels of children’s outcomes, we controlled for family income, grandmothers’ nativity, mothers’ nativity, mothers’ age, and children’s gender. Family income was calculated by creating a sum of grandmothers’ income, funds contributed to the household by others (e.g., mothers), and public financial assistance at W1. Nativity (0 = Foreign-born, 1 = U.S.-born) was based on self-report; child gender was coded as 1 = Female, 2 = Male.

The hypothesized model was tested using Mplus version 8.0 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2017) with path analysis (see Table 1 for descriptive statistics). To handle missing data, we used full information maximum likelihood (Arbuckle, 1996). Three primary fit indices were used to examine overall model fit: the comparative fit index (CFI), the root-mean-square-error of approximation (RMSEA), and the standardized root-mean-square residual (SRMR). Model fit was considered to be good if the CFI was greater than or equal to .95, and the RMSEA and SRMR were less than or equal to .05 (Hu & Bentler, 1999).

Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations among Controls and Study Variables (N = 204).

The hypothesized model demonstrated good fit: χ2 (df = 16) = 23.23, p = .11; CFI = .99; RMSEA = .05 90% C.I. [.00, .09]; SRMR = .04 (see Figure 1). Results indicated that grandmothers’ cultural socialization of mothers was positively associated with mothers’ cultural socialization of children and, in turn, positively associated with children’s receptive language and interactive play with peers, but not significantly associated with children’s internalizing and externalizing problem behavior. There were no significant direct effects between grandmothers’ cultural socialization of mothers and children’s developmental competences.

Mediation model of associations between grandmothers’ cultural socialization of mothers at Wave 4 (W4), mothers’ cultural socialization of children at W5, and children’s developmental competencies at W6.

Note. Grey lines indicate control variables and paths and black lines indicate hypothesized variables and paths. Solid lines indicate significant paths. Dashed lines indicate non-significant paths. Five controls (i.e., family income, grandmother nativity, mother nativity, mother age, and child gender) were included predicting mothers’ W5 cultural socialization of children and predicting all W6 developmental competencies, but are not shown here for ease of illustration. Given that coefficients are standardized, coefficients of .20, .50, and .80 correspond to small, medium, and large effect sizes, respectively (Cohen, 1988). * p < .05. *** p < .001.

Regarding controls, as depicted in Figure 1, all previous waves of each outcome variable were significant. Additionally, although we included demographic controls (i.e., family income, grandmother nativity, mother nativity, mother age, and child gender) predicting mothers’ cultural socialization of children and children’s developmental competencies, only 5 control paths were significant: family income negatively predicted mother’s cultural socialization of children (b = −.19, p = .02) and children’s externalizing problem behavior (b = −.13, p = .04); child gender (i.e., being male) positively predicted children’s externalizing problem behavior (b = .16, p = .01); mothers’ age positively predicted children’s receptive language (b = .15, p = .03); and grandmothers’ nativity (i.e., being U.S.-born) positively predicted children’s interactive play with peers (b = .15, p = .04).

To formally test mediation, the bias-corrected bootstrap method (with 2000 bootstrapped samples) was utilized to compute confidence intervals for significant mediational pathways. In this approach, mediation is significant if the confidence intervals do not contain zero (Fritz & MacKinnon, 2007). Findings indicated that the association between W4 grandmothers’ cultural socialization of mothers and W6 children’s receptive language was significantly mediated by W5 mothers’ cultural socialization of children (standardized 95% confidence interval for the mediated effect = .002, .096). Additionally, the association between W4 grandmothers’ cultural socialization of mothers and W6 children’s interactive play with peers was significantly mediated by W5 mothers’ cultural socialization of children (standardized 95% confidence interval for the mediated effect = .001, .086).

The current study examined the intergenerational transmission of cultural socialization from grandmother to mother to child, and the longitudinal impact on children’s developmental competencies. Guided by the intergenerational transmission of culture theory (Schönpflug, 2009) and the integrative model (García Coll et al., 1996), findings partially supported hypotheses. As expected, grandmothers’ cultural socialization of mothers predicted mothers’ cultural socialization of children one year later. Further, mothers’ cultural socialization of children predicted children’s receptive language and more interactive play with peers, but not internalizing or externalizing problem behavior, one year later. Below, we elaborate on study findings, underscoring areas for future research.

Descriptive statistics demonstrated that grandmothers and mothers reported moderate to high levels of cultural socialization practices when children were 3 and 4 years old. These findings provide support for Schönpflug’s (2009) intergenerational transmission of culture framework by illustrating the early socialization behaviors of Latino families. In particular, the current study extends the scant research on three generation families by demonstrating that cultural socialization practices between Mexican-origin grandmothers and mothers directly inform cultural socialization practices between mothers and children over a 2-year period.

An important research direction will be to determine the contexts under which cultural socialization occurs and how various contexts shape this process. Two important areas for future research will be to identity which specific cultural attributes mothers select for transmission (e.g., language vs. traditions) and what contributes to the sharing of these specific attributes, such as the sociopolitical climate. As research has noted, parents strategically select cultural attributes for transmission based on their understanding of perceived social norms (e.g., benefits, expectations) and personal orientation (e.g., goals, experiences; Tam, 2015). It is possible that some cultural aspects were viewed with higher regard than others, and thus more likely to be transmitted across generations. Furthermore, research has indicated that a hostile sociopolitical climate, such as anti-immigrant policies and discriminatory sentiments and actions directed toward the broader Latinx community have adverse effects on parents’ and children’s health and well-being (Vesely, Bravo, & Guzzardo, 2019; Williams & Medlock, 2017). The racial encounter coping appraisal and socialization theory (i.e., RECAST; Anderson & Stevenson, 2019) highlights how in response to discriminatory racial encounters, parents engage in cultural socialization with their children to help them recognize negative racially based situations, increase their self-efficacy in handling racial stress, and promote healing. Overall, more work is needed to understand the contextual influences surrounding intergenerational transmissions of cultural socialization to inform families’ cultural socialization processes and interventions that promote cultural socialization across generations.

Study findings extend prior work, whereby caregivers’ cultural socialization practices longitudinally informed African American children’s receptive language (Caughy & Owen, 2015), with an understudied at-risk sample. In line with theory and study hypotheses, children’s capacities for language development may be facilitated by culturally informed experiences with caregivers (e.g., reading written works, singing songs) that expose children to diverse and/or challenging words (Caughy et al., 2002). It is possible that caregivers’ cultural socialization practices may be more likely to facilitate literary practices and academic preparation. Because certain cultural attributes (e.g., language use, reading materials) may be more salient to language receptivity, future work should investigate which socialized cultural attributes directly advance children’s language skills, and whether this is consistent across development.

Next, findings indicated that grandmothers’ cultural socialization of mothers informed children’s interactive play with peers via mothers’ cultural socialization of children, suggesting that perhaps children who receive more information from mothers regarding cultural norms and behaviors may have more opportunities for modeling positive interaction skills, which may be why they score higher on interactive play with peers. It is also possible that children develop more positive play behavior skills when exposed to children of their same ethnic-racial group, such as through traditional cultural events or festivals. The ethnicity and race of children’s peers was not collected, which could have played a role in interactive play. Children in the current study were predominantly raised in a region where their ethnic-racial group is a numeric majority; thus, it is possible that a majority of peers shared their ethnicity or race. Therefore, cultural socialization that helped children learn about being Mexican may have facilitated interactive play with peers because the majority of peers were Mexican. Future work should examine study notions in diverse contexts.

Finally, inconsistent with prior work (i.e., Caughy et al., 2002; Caughy & Owen, 2015), mothers’ cultural socialization was not associated with children’s internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors. These null findings may be attributed to the context in which children in the current study were socialized. For instance, young mothers are often supported by others in their caregiving responsibilities (Pittman & Coley, 2011). It is possible that they also receive assistance from others who engage in cultural socialization efforts with their children, and these individuals’ cultural socialization efforts may be more impactful on children’s externalizing problems behaviors in this context. Given prior work that found a relation between cultural socialization and children’s externalizing problem behaviors was not focused on mothers who entered parenthood during adolescence, this could be responsible for our discrepant findings. It is possible that children’s grandmothers or grandfathers actively engage in cultural socialization. Given that we did not assess how others socialized children besides mothers, we were unable to test this notion. The limited work in this area suggests that examining multiple individuals’ cultural socialization efforts and effects on young children’s behavior is an important area for future research.

The current study has multiple noteworthy strengths. First, this is the only study to our knowledge to examine the intergenerational transmission of cultural socialization and links to developmental competencies during early childhood among Mexican-origin families. Findings indicated that cultural socialization practices were intergenerationally and longitudinally (across 3 years) associated with children’s receptive language and interactive play with peers, which suggests that cultural socialization promotes positive development among young children. Furthermore, supporting robustness of findings, we controlled for key demographics and previous waves of children’s developmental competencies, and reduced shared-reporter bias by utilizing assessments from three reporters.

Despite these strengths, we were unable to assess the intergenerational transmission of culture among other individuals, such as grandfathers and fathers. Given that cultural socialization has been found to vary between caregivers (e.g., Knight et al., 2011), future work should examine the intergenerational transmission of cultural socialization among other family members. Furthermore, it is possible that mothers and grandmothers worked together to socialize children, however we were unable to assess this possibility given that grandmothers’ cultural socialization of their grandchild was not assessed. An important future research direction will be to test whether there are differences in how cultural socialization informs children’s outcomes based on whether the socialization occurs from mothers, grandmothers, or the combined efforts of mothers and grandmothers and other caregivers.

On a related note, given that the majority of mothers and grandmothers did not live together during the last waves of data collection, our findings regarding intergenerational transmission processes may not be generalizable to families in which multiple generations are residing in the same household. For example, if a mother disagrees with cultural socialization practices she experienced, and wants to adopt different strategies with her own child, it may be more difficult to change this if the mother resides in the same home with the grandmother. Future research is warranted that tests potential differences and similarities in the intergenerational transmission of cultural socialization among multigeneration families who vary based on coresidency status. Additionally, given our modest sample size, we were unable to determine whether study findings would vary based on children’s characteristics. For instance, although we controlled for gender, prior work suggests that gender may play a role in cultural socialization processes (e.g., Smith et al., 2016). More research with larger samples is needed. Our study also focused on a sample of young mothers who became pregnant as adolescents, and thus, future research should test whether findings generalize beyond this demographic.

Finally, in the current study we used different measures that captured grandmothers’ cultural socialization strategies with their young adult daughters (i.e., the Family Ethnic Socialization Measure; Umaña-Taylor, 2001), and mothers’ cultural socialization with their 4-year-old children (i.e., the Cultural Socialization Behaviors Measure; Derlan et al., 2016). The latter includes questions relevant to socializing young children specifically, such as buying toys and reading books that represent one’s culture. However, in the extant literature it is unclear how cultural socialization strategies change across development. For example, we do not know when strategies such as buying toys for children that represent their ethnic/racial background become less common and other strategies, such as having conversations about cultural history and values, become more prominent in the lives of families. An important future research direction will be to longitudinally assess families beginning in childhood and through adolescence to examine how and when caregivers’ cultural socialization strategies change across developmental periods.

Despite noted limitations, the current study extends the literature on the intergenerational transmission of cultural socialization and developmental competencies among Mexican-origin children during early childhood. Findings illustrate the indirect role of grandmothers’ cultural socialization on children’s language skills and interactive play with peers via mothers’ socialization practices. These results underscore the role of intergenerational cultural socialization as a salient contributor to children’s positive development as they transition to formal schooling, a critical developmental period.

This research was supported by grants from the Department of Health and Human Services (APRPA006011; PI: Umaña-Taylor), the Fahs Beck Fund for Research and Experimentation of the New York Community Trust (PI: Umaña-Taylor), the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD061376; PI: Umaña-Taylor and 1F31HD085772-01; PI: Chelsea Derlan) and the Challenged Child Project of the School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University. We thank the adolescents and female family members who participated in this study. We also thank Edna Alfaro, Mayra Bámaca, Emily Cansler, Lluliana Flores, Melinda Gonzales-Backen, Elizabeth Harvey, Melissa Herzog, Sarah Killoren, Ethelyn Lara, Esther Ontiveros, Jacqueline Pflieger, Alicia Godinez, and the undergraduate research assistants of the Supporting MAMI project for their contributions to the larger study.

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