Language Brokering, Prosocial Capacities, and Intercultural Communication Apprehension Among Latina Mothers and Their Adolescent Children

Abstract

Past research on language brokering has primarily focused on the positive and negative outcomes that children of immigrant families experience from brokering. Little is known, however, regarding the positive experiences that language brokees—the immigrant family members for whom children broker—garner from participating in this interaction. Utilizing survey data from 120 Latina/o mother–adolescent dyads, we examined whether more frequent participation in brokering was positively related to mothers’ (i.e., brokees) and adolescents’ (i.e., brokers) prosocial capacities. In turn, we considered whether their prosocial capacities were related to feeling less apprehensive interacting with people outside their cultural group (i.e., intercultural communication apprehension). Multigroup path analyses revealed that mothers’ and adolescents’ frequent participation in brokering was positively related to general perspective-taking and empathic concern; however, only empathic concern was negatively related to intercultural communication apprehension. Our findings reveal that brokers and brokees may experience benefits with positive implications for their intercultural interactions.