Latina mothers' cultural orientation and child self-esteem: The mediating role of cultural socialization.

Abstract

This longitudinal investigation evaluated parental cultural socialization practices as a central mechanism by which parents' cultural values influence developmental outcomes in ethnic-racial minority children. Drawing on a sample of 129 Latina mothers and their children (48.1% daughters and 51.9% sons), path analyses evaluated hypothesized individual and interactive contributions of mothers' Latina heritage and American mainstream cultural orientations to changes in children's self-esteem via overt and covert cultural socialization practices. Mothers reported on their cultural orientation and socialization practices when their children were ages 5 and 8, respectively. Children reported their self-esteem at ages 8 and 10. Controlling for family socioeconomic status, mothers' nativity status, and prior child self-esteem, path analyses revealed a significant indirect effect from mothers' heritage orientation to increased child self-esteem via overt cultural socialization practices. Interestingly, a multigroup analysis by gender showed that mothers' heritage orientation was positively related to overt and covert cultural socialization practices toward both daughters and sons, but the indirect paths to child self-esteem through cultural socialization did not attain significance for daughters. Moreover, among sons, the indirect path through overt cultural socialization predicted increased self-esteem, whereas the indirect path through covert cultural socialization predicted decreased self-esteem. These findings show that cultural socialization is a salient process by which parental cultural orientation influences children's self-esteem while highlighting the specificity of these effects across overt and covert expressions of cultural socialization and child gender. Efforts to promote positive self-esteem among Latinx children should encourage parental cultural socialization practices, such as teaching, reading, and/or performing activities that celebrate the Latinx culture.