Ethnic-racial socialization in Latino families: The influence of mothers’ socialization practices on adolescent private regard, familism, and perceived ethnic-racial discrimination

Objectives: Cultural value endorsement and ethnic–racial identity promote Latino/a adolescent positive adaptation and mitigate the negative impacts of perceived ethnic–racial discrimination. This study explored the intergenerational process of how adolescents develop these cultural characteristics in concert with their experiences of discrimination, focusing on the role of youth-reported maternal ethnic–racial socialization processes. Method: Participants included 175 Latino/a adolescent–mother dyads recruited from the 7th and 8th grades in an understudied emerging immigrant destination. We tested the effects of maternal cultural characteristics (i.e., familism, private regard, and perceived discrimination) on the same adolescent outcomes through youth-reported maternal ethnic–racial socialization practices (i.e., cultural socialization, preparation for bias, promotion of mistrust, and familism socialization, a novel construct introduced in this study). Results: Three significant indirect pathways were identified. Higher maternal private regard was associated with both higher youth familism and higher youth private regard through greater youth-reported familism socialization, and higher maternal private regard was associated with more perceived youth discrimination through greater youth-reported preparation for bias. Conclusion: Our results highlight maternal private regard as particularly important for understanding how youth perceptions of socialization processes encourage the development of adolescent cultural characteristics and the benefit of using specific assessment tools, such as a familism socialization measure, to identify how ethnic–racial socialization processes serve as intergenerational links. Directions for future research and implications for intervention are discussed