Language Brokering and Child Adjustment in Mexican American Families

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，他们在遗产语言和英语之间为他们的移民父母进行翻译，他们的英语有限。虽然近90%的儿童在移民家庭中扮演语言中介的角色，但语言中介经验影响发展成果的方式受到移民学者的关注有限。该项目将对40对墨西哥裔美国母女进行定性访谈。这些家庭将从一项更大规模的语言经纪人研究中选出，并根据孩子在学校GPA和抑郁症状上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，那些表现出消极适应的，以及那些表现出混合适应的。拟议的项目使用案例分析来对待每一个母女对作为一个单一的分析单位，并使用跨案例分析来组织和合并跨案例的共同主题。利用这一方法，该项目将追求三个目标。首先，我们将研究语言中介的感觉如何影响母女关系和青少年适应的质量。我们认为，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、消极或混合的质量相平行。其次，我们将探讨如何感受语言经纪人在公共影响的目标1中派生的主题。由于在以成人为中心的公共空间中进行语言中介被认为比在家中为父母翻译更有压力，我们将单独讨论关于公共语言中介的感受如何与亲子关系和青少年适应的质量相关的问题。第三，我们将探讨如何收敛/分歧的感觉语言经纪母女二人组影响的目标1中派生的主题。我们预计，对语言中介的积极感受的融合将与积极的亲子关系和高水平的青少年适应相吻合。我们还预计，对语言中介的负面情绪的趋同将与亲子关系的负面品质和青少年适应不良相吻合。我们将探讨母亲和女儿之间的分歧，在他们的感情有关的语言经纪人的亲子关系和青少年的适应质量。这个项目可以通过阐明语言中介如何影响亲子关系，更重要的是，儿童在学术和社会情感成果方面的调整，为未来的大规模研究工作提供信息。该项目有可能告知人口科学关于语言中介的差异过程，实践和经验以及对墨西哥儿童调整的潜在影响，墨西哥儿童是美国最大和增长最快的少数群体。 公共卫生相关性：拟议的研究与公共卫生有关，因为它侧重于墨西哥移民子女的发展成果，这是一个贫困率高、教育程度低的高风险人口。它还侧重于青春期早期的发展阶段，这是一个过渡时期，在这一时期，儿童容易出现更多的社会情感问题，从而影响学业成绩。该项目的结果应告知研究人员和干预者如何支持充当父母翻译的青少年，通过确定减轻最具破坏性的影响和提高回报的方法。

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.