Mother-Child Communication Quality During Language Brokering

Abstract

One hundred dyads of low-income, Spanish-speaking mothers and their bilingual children (age = 12-18; M = 14.12, SD = 1.89) who have language brokered for the mother (i.e., culturally or linguistically mediated between the mother and English speakers) were surveyed. Multiple goals theory posits that mothers and children who do not recognize and attend to instrumental, relational, and identity interaction goals during language brokering have lower communication quality and thus experience negative repercussions. Four instruments were developed and validated for situationally relevant brokering interaction goals (BIG) of children (BIG-C), mothers (BIG-M), child perception of mother goals (BIG-CM), and mother perception of child goals (BIG-MC). Each measure included a subset of goals (e.g., BIG-C included five goals: respect mother, respect English speaker, alter messages, act American, and act Latino/a). Mothers and children pursued multiple, conflicting goals, but inaccurately perceived each other’s goals. These measures provide brokering communication quality assessments and identify potential mother-child misunderstandings.