Language Brokering and Child Adjustment in Mexican American Families

说明(由申请人提供)：儿童在移民家庭的重新安置过程中发挥着关键作用，特别是在语言经纪人的角色中，这让他们在传统语言和移民父母的英语之间进行翻译，因为移民父母的英语水平有限。尽管近90%的儿童在移民家庭中扮演着语言中介的角色，但移民学者对语言中介经历如何影响发展结果的关注有限。拟议的项目将对40对墨西哥裔美国母女进行定性访谈。这些家庭将从更大的语言经纪人研究中挑选出来，并根据孩子在学校GPA和抑郁症状的高分或低分分为三个理论上有意义的组：那些表现出积极适应的家庭，那些表现出消极适应的家庭，以及那些表现出混合适应的家庭。拟议的项目使用案例分析将每对母女视为一个单一的分析单元，并使用跨案例分析来组织和合并跨案例的共同主题。使用这种方法，该项目将追求三个目标。首先，我们将考察对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，对语言中介的积极、消极或混合的感觉将与亲子关系和青少年适应的积极、消极或混合的性质相似。第二，我们将探讨公众对语言中介的感受如何影响目标1中衍生的主题。由于以成人为中心的公共场所的语言中介被认为比父母在家翻译更有压力，我们将单独讨论公开语言中介的感受如何与亲子关系质量和青少年适应有关的问题。第三，我们将探索母女二人组中关于语言中介的情感的趋同/分歧如何影响目标1中衍生的主题。我们预计，对语言中介的积极情绪的趋同将与积极的亲子关系和高度的青少年适应水平相一致。我们还预计，对语言中介的负面情绪的汇聚将与亲子关系的负面质量和青少年适应能力差的情况相吻合。我们将探讨母亲和女儿在语言中介的感受上的差异是否与亲子关系的质量和青少年的适应有关。这个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绪结果方面的适应，为未来的大规模研究工作提供信息。这个项目有可能让人口科学了解语言中介的不同过程、做法和经验，以及对墨西哥儿童适应的潜在影响，墨西哥儿童是美国规模最大、增长最快的少数群体。

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.