These findings support other recent research based on different data that revealed weak literacy practices, but warm and healthy mothering practices, inside Mexican American homes. Those findings were released in September by the Society for Research in Child Development in a report co-authored by Fuller and sociology professor Claudia Galindo of the University of Maryland.
The newest results also corroborate earlier empirical indications that most Mexican American parents nurture socially agile children – whether judged by their parents or teachers – despite being raised in impoverished households and independent of weak literacy traditions in the home.
“But until now, we have not had such a large national sample of Mexican American children and parents to pin down this claim,” Guerrero said.
Thirty-seven percent of Mexican American families in the sample lived below the federal poverty line, compared with 10 percent of white families. Just 12 percent of all Mexican American households reported earning more than $50,000 per year in 2003 or 2004, compared with 57 percent of white households.
Spanish was the dominant home language in three-fifths of Mexican American families, and 54 percent of the mothers were natives of Mexico.
The UC Berkeley-UCLA study was funded by the Spencer Foundation and UC Berkeley’s Institute of Human Development. Research dissemination work is being funded by the McCormick Foundation.
RELATED INFORMATION
• To read this news release in Spanish, click here.
• Children of Latino and Asian immigrants at times show more healthy social behavior and stronger engagement in school than later-generation offspring, according to the 2011 book “The Immigrant Paradox in Children and Adolescents.”
• Mexican American mothers report strong prenatal practices and display warm interactions with infants and toddlers, robust births surpass those of middle-class whites, according to a paper co-authored by Fuller in the journal Pediatrics.
• A New York Times story reported that Latino infants lagged behind their white peers in language and cognitive skills while showing no discernible intelligence differences.