Mexican American Sample Research Articles

The relationship between apartment living and fertility for blacks, Mexican-Americans, and other Americans in Racine, Wisconsin

Recently published data from a sample of Bogotá, Colombia public housing residents show that apartment dwellers, but not house dwellers, reduced their fertility in a tight housing market. We propose that the utility-cost theory of fertility accounts for this finding, and, using this theory, we predict that (a) apartment residents will not decrease their fertility in an open housing market and (b) higher fertility will be associated with larger dwellings. Longitudinal data from a sample of Midwest urban blacks, Mexican-Americans, and other Americans support both predictions. The substantive implications are discussed.

Assertiveness of Male Anglo and Mexican-American College Students

Summary The effect of cultural background on reported assertiveness was investigated in two samples of male college students matched on age and education level. The Anglo sample (n = 34) scored significantly higher on a paper/pencil measure than the Mexican-American sample (n = 34) on overall level of assertiveness with significant differences being found for assertiveness with parents, same-sexed peers, and business relations. These lower assertiveness scores were explained in terms of the situationally tied assertive behavior as a function of the needs and cultural experience of Mexican-Americans.

A Canonical Correlation Analysis of Occupational Mobility Among Mexican Americans

Studies of occupational mobility have generally ranked occupations on the basis of their socioeconomic status level or prestige component to measure movement between jobs. Two potential problems may limit the usefulness of that approach for racial and ethnic minority groups: (1) the relationship between occupation and socioeconomic status may not be the same as for the majority group, and (2) minority group members are more likely to be clustered at the low end of both socioeconomic and prestige scales. Canonical correlation analysis requires no prior ranking of occupations, so we use it to investigate intergenerational and career mobility among a sample of Mexican Americans. The findings indicate that mobility among Mexican Americans is about as frequent as among the total population, but that the pattern of movement differs considerably. As a result, the relative status of occupations among Mexican Americans has changed over time and, consequently, socioeconomic status scales developed for the total population do not provide accurate assessments of mobility for Mexican Americans. This discrepancy is less noticeable for career mobility, indicating that among the latest generation of Mexican Americans, mobility patterns are becoming more similar to those in the rest of society.

Comparison of Reported Religious Experience in Caucasian, American Indian, and Two Mexican American Samples

Intense religious experience was investigated in four samples matched on sex, age, social economic status, education, religious membership, and importance of religion. As predicted the American Indian and Mexican American samples ( ns = 18) reported more intense religious experiences than either the Caucasian or acculturated Mexican American samples.

Status Consciousness and Leftism: A Study of Mexican-American Adolescents

Using data collected among Mexican-American adolescents, this paper tests a model positing an effect of ethnic consciousness on system blame, and an effect of system blame on political leftism. For the sample as a whole, results support the model, although the effect of system blame on leftism is weak. Further analysis reveals an interactive relationship such that system blame has a significant effect on leftism among respondents whose father's occupation is not low (nonmarginals), but no effect among respondents whose father's occupation is low (marginals). The interaction is apparently due to a greater relevance of system blame items to nonmarginal respondents. Students of lower-class politics have devoted much attention to the hypothesis asserting an association between class consciousness and political leftism. But such inquiries have been restricted to adult proletarians, to the exclusion of their younger counterparts. Yet, the class consciousness-leftism hypothesis clamors for investigation among pre-adults. Pre-adults know about class differences (Simmons and Rosenberg; Straddling and Zureik; Tudor) and they share their family's lot in life. Moreover, it is plausible to assume that those in the anteroom of adulthood might organize their political perspectives much as, according to theory, adults are likely to organize theirs. The purpose of this paper is to explore the association between class consciousness and leftism in a Mexican-American adolescent sample. Since the subjects are members of a distinct ethnic group, it further attempts to assess the relationship between ethnic consciousness and class consciousness. A major difficulty in pursuing these research interests is the relative scarcity of appropriate settings. With the recent recurrence of Mexican-American militancy, manifested in such developments as the growth of student activism and the United Farm Workers movement, it would seem that suitable settings would abound. But this is not the case for two reasons. First, in many places respondents might be reluctant to express openly their political views for fear of reprisal from the dominant elements in the community. Second, the usual case is that leftist or quasileftist views survive only within a small segment of the target population. In such circumstances, the study of leftism within the broader community would be little more than an idle exercise. Because its political situation did not seem to present these problems, Crystal City, Texas, offered an ideal research site. Crystal City is a small South Texas community with a population of about