Language Brokering and Child Adjustment in Mexican American Families

墨西哥裔美国家庭的语言中介和儿童适应

• 批准号: 8191991
• 负责人: SU YEONG KIM
• 金额: $ 7.68万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-09-13 至 2014-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8191991
• 关键词: Academic achievement; Accounting; Address; Adolescent; Adult; Affect; American; Attention; Child; Code; Data; Daughter; Development; Dimensions; Educational Status; Emotional; English Language; Family; Feeling; Female; Female Adolescents; Foundations; Funding; Future; Home environment; Household; Immigrant; Immigration; Institution; Interview; Language; Learning; Link; Longitudinal Studies; Measures; Methodology; Mexican; Mexican Americans; Minority Groups; Mothers; Outcome; Parent-Child Relations; Parents; Participant; Performance; Play; Population; Population Sciences; Poverty; Probability; Process; Public Health; Public Policy; Qualitative Research; Recommendation; Research; Research Personnel; Research Project Grants; Role; Sampling; Schools; Science; Testing; Translating; base; depressive symptoms; early adolescence; experience; high risk

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Children play a critical role in the resettlement process of immigrant families, particularly in the role of language broker, which has them translating between the heritage language and English for their immigrant parents, whose English is limited. Although close to 90% of children function in a language brokering role in immigrant families, the ways in which language brokering experiences affect developmental outcomes has received limited attention from immigration scholars. The proposed project will conduct qualitative interviews with forty Mexican American mother-daughter pairs. These families will be selected from a larger study of language brokers and divided into three theoretically meaning groups based on the children's high or low scores on school GPA and depressive symptoms: those showing positive adjustment, those showing negative adjustment, and those showing mixed adjustment. The proposed project uses case analyses to treat each mother-daughter pair as a single unit of analysis, and uses cross-case analysis to organize and merge common themes across cases. Using this methodology, the project will pursue three aims. First, we will examine how feelings about language brokering influence the quality of the mother-daughter relationship and adolescent adjustment. We expect that positive, negative, or mixed feelings about language brokering will parallel the positive, negative, or mixed quality of the parent-child relationship and adolescent adjustment. Second, we will explore how feelings about language brokering in public influence the themes derived in Aim 1. As language brokering in adult-centric public spaces is considered more stressful than translating for a parent at home, we will address separately the issue of how feelings about language brokering in public relate to the quality of the parent-child relationship and adolescent adjustment. Third, we will explore how convergence/divergence in feelings about language brokering in mother-daughter dyads influences the themes derived in Aim 1. We expect that convergence of positive feelings about language brokering will coincide with a positive parent-child relationship and a high level of adolescent adjustment. We also expect that convergence of negative feelings about language brokering will coincide with a negative quality to the parent-child relationship and poor adolescent adjustment. We will explore whether divergence between mothers and daughters in their feelings about language brokering relates to the quality of the parent-child relationship and adolescent adjustment. This project can inform future large-scale research efforts by illuminating how language brokering impacts parent-child relationships, and, more importantly, children's adjustment in terms of both academic and socio-emotional outcomes. This project has the potential to inform population science about the differential processes, practices, and experiences of language brokering and the potential impact on the adjustment of Mexican children, the largest and fastest growing minority group in the U.S. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The proposed study is relevant to public health because it focuses on the developmental outcomes of children of Mexican immigrants, a high risk population with high rates of poverty and low levels of educational attainment. It also focuses on the developmental period of early adolescence, a period of transition in which children are susceptible to increases in socio-emotional problems that can compromise school performance. The results of this project should inform researchers and interventionists regarding ways in which to support adolescents who function as translators for their parents, by identifying ways to mitigate the most damaging effects and enhance the payoffs.

描述（由申请人提供）：儿童在移民家庭的重新安置过程中发挥着至关重要的作用，特别是在语言经纪人的角色中，他们需要为英语水平有限的移民父母在传统语言和英语之间进行翻译。尽管近 90% 的儿童在移民家庭中扮演着语言中介的角色，但语言中介经历影响发展结果的方式受到移民学者的关注有限。拟议的项目将对四十对墨西哥裔美国母女进行定性访谈。这些家庭将从更大规模的语言经纪人研究中选出，并根据孩子在学校 GPA 的高低和抑郁症状分为三个理论上有意义的组：表现出积极调整的、表现出消极调整的和表现出混合调整的。拟议的项目使用案例分析将每对母女视为一个分析单元，并使用跨案例分析来组织和合并跨案例的共同主题。利用这种方法，该项目将实现三个目标。首先，我们将研究语言中介的感受如何影响母女关系的质量和青少年的适应。我们预计，关于语言中介的积极、消极或混合的感觉将与亲子关系和青少年适应的积极、消极或混合的感觉平行。其次，我们将探讨公共语言中介的感受如何影响目标 1 中衍生的主题。由于在以成人为中心的公共场所中的语言中介被认为比在家中为父母翻译压力更大，因此我们将单独讨论感受如何影响目标 1 中的主题。公共语言中介关系到亲子关系的质量和青少年的适应。第三，我们将探讨母女二人中对语言中介的感受的趋同/分歧如何影响目标 1 中衍生的主题。我们预计，对语言中介的积极感受的趋同将与积极的亲子关系和高水平的关系相一致。青春期的调整。我们还预计，对语言中介的负面情绪的收敛将与亲子关系的负面质量和青少年适应不良同时发生。我们将探讨母女之间对语言中介的感受差异是否与亲子关系的质量和青少年适应有关。该项目可以通过阐明语言中介如何影响亲子关系，以及更重要的是，儿童在学业和社会情感结果方面的调整，为未来的大规模研究工作提供信息。该项目有可能为人口科学提供有关语言中介的差异过程、实践和经验的信息，以及对墨西哥儿童（美国最大且增长最快的少数群体）适应的潜在影响。 公共卫生相关性：拟议的研究与公共卫生相关，因为它重点关注墨西哥移民儿童的发展结果，这是一个贫困率高、教育程度低的高风险人群。它还关注青春期早期的发展时期，在这个过渡时期，儿童容易受到社会情感问题的增加，从而影响学校表现。该项目的结果应告知研究人员和干预主义者如何通过确定减轻最具破坏性影响和提高回报的方法来支持充当父母翻译的青少年。