Collaborative Research: Stress, Academic Outcomes, and Health Outcomes among Language Brokers

在许多人讲第二语言的美国社区，儿童经常为英语有限的父母担任翻译和中介。这样，这些儿童就成了成年人的“语言经纪人”。然而，伴随这些责任而来的认知和社会挑战给这些儿童带来了巨大的负担，带来了独特的心理需求和压力。拟议中的研究将调查如何在这个角色的结果，青少年语言经纪人的成本和效益。使用一个全面的测量策略，包括调查，日常评估和生理措施，该项目将侧重于潜在的机制，以揭示一个独特的压力源如何有助于学术和健康成果，青少年发展从初中到高中的过渡。鉴于美国有大量父母英语水平有限的家庭，该项目产生的见解有望使社会广泛受益。该项目还培训传统上在科学领域代表性不足的本科生和研究生，并培训能够以产生最大影响的方式使用研究成果的教育工作者。调查人员将研究语言经纪人的主观和客观经验的多个方面，并将确定语言经纪经验的概况（或模式）。该项目的一个重要方面将是努力建立这些配置文件如何随着发展时间的变化。这些档案将包括有关主观经验的信息，如效能感、益处和负面情绪，以及这些经验对亲子关系和青少年学业、健康和心理社会结果的影响。研究人员还将通过皮质醇测量的心理压力与语言中介经验联系起来，以了解这些经验的日常，急性和慢性影响。将测试语言中介发生的各个地方和不同类型的翻译项目的每日报告与每日皮质醇唤醒反应和昼夜皮质醇斜率的联系。青少年的急性皮质醇反应性和恢复将测试作为语言中介经验的功能的差异反应。例如，研究人员将测试那些对语言中介更有效的青少年的急性皮质醇反应是否更陡峭，恢复更快，而那些对语言中介更消极的青少年的急性皮质醇反应是否不那么陡峭，恢复更慢。最后，研究人员将确定青少年的个人属性（例如，弹性感），语言中介上下文（例如，在公共与私人环境中翻译或翻译更复杂与更简单的文档），以及文化因素（例如，家庭意识）可能会改变语言中介对个人结果的影响。这个项目将阐明语言中介对英语有限的父母的孩子的适应产生积极和消极影响的方式。

In US communities where many people speak a second language, children often serve as translators and intermediaries for their English-limited parents. In this way, these children serve as "language brokers" for adults. However, the cognitive and social challenges accompanying these responsibilities place substantial burdens on these children, imposing distinctive psychological demands and stresses. The proposed research will investigate how serving in this role results in costs and benefits to adolescent language brokers. Using a comprehensive measurement strategy involving surveys, daily assessments, and physiological measures, this project will focus on underlying mechanisms to reveal how a unique stressor contributes to academic and health outcomes as adolescents develop during the transition from middle school to high school. Given the large numbers of families in the US with English-limited parents, the insights generated by this project can be expected to benefit broad swaths of society. The project also trains undergraduate and graduate students who have been traditionally under-represented in the sciences, and trains educators who will be able to use the research results in ways that will yield the greatest impact. The investigators will examine multiple aspects of the subjective and objective experiences of language brokers, and will identify profiles (or patterns) of language-brokering experiences. An important aspect of the project will be the effort to establish how these profiles change over developmental time. These profiles will include information about subjective experiences such as sense of efficacy, benefits, and negative feelings, and the impact of these experiences on parent-child relationships and adolescents' academic, health, and psychosocial outcomes. The investigators will also link psychological stress, as measured by cortisol, to language brokering experiences, in order to understand the daily, acute, and chronic effects of these experiences. Daily reports of the various places where language brokering occurred and different types of items translated will be tested for links to daily cortisol awakening response and diurnal cortisol slopes. Adolescents' acute cortisol reactivity and recovery will be tested for differential responses as a function of language brokering experiences. For example, the investigators will test whether acute cortisol reactivity is steeper and recovery faster for those adolescents who feel more efficacious about language brokering, whereas acute cortisol reactivity is less steep and recovery slower for those adolescents who feel more negative about language brokering. Finally, the investigators will determine how adolescents' personal attributes (e.g., sense of resilience), language brokering context (e.g., translating in public versus private contexts or translating more complex versus simpler documents), and cultural factors (e.g., a sense of familism) may alter the effects of language brokering on individuals' outcomes. This project will shed light on the ways in which language brokering positively and negatively influences adjustment among children of English-limited parents.