Purposeful parenting by Mexican-heritage mothers: Advancing school readiness through social-emotional competence.

Abstract

We investigate how Mexican-heritage mothers' socialization beliefs and strategies contribute to their preschool children's school readiness. While Latinx children typically start kindergarten with strong social competencies, they also start with less strong early literacy and math skills, in comparison with their non-Latinx peers. We propose that-paralleling Lareau's (2003) theory of "concerted cultivation," whereby White, middle-class parents purportedly display great intentionality in nurturing the academic and extracurricular skills of their children-Mexican-heritage mothers purposefully cultivate their children's social-emotional skills. Using structured interviews and home observations over a 14-month period, we follow 23 Mexican-heritage mothers and their 24 preschool children. Drawing on ecocultural theory, Mexican-heritage mothers engage their preschool children in a concerted fashion to develop their social-emotional competence. Specifically, they: (a) articulate the role of children's social-emotional skills vis-à-vis academic skills related to school readiness; (b) delineate the character of their children's social-emotional skills; and (c) promote social-emotional skills through intention-filled parenting practices relevant to their cultural contexts. Understanding parents' "concerted cultivation" in differing cultural contexts may facilitate teachers' use of practices that better align with families' home practices and more effectively support the learning of Latinx children across academic domains. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).