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起着至关重要的作用，特别是在语言经纪人的角色上，这需要他们为英语有限的移民父母在传统语言和英语之间进行翻译。尽管移民家庭中近90%的儿童扮演着语言中介的角色，但移民学者对语言中介经历影响发展结果的方式关注有限。拟议的项目将对40对墨西哥裔美国母女进行定性访谈。这些家庭将从一个更大的语言经纪人研究中挑选出来，并根据孩子在学校GPA和抑郁症状上的高低分为三个理论意义组：表现出积极适应的家庭，表现出消极适应的家庭，以及表现出混合适应的家庭。建议的项目使用案例分析来将每个母女对视为单个分析单元，并使用跨案例分析来组织和合并跨案例的公共主题。使用这种方法，该项目将追求三个目标。首先，我们将研究语言中介的感受如何影响母女关系的质量和青春期的适应。我们期望对语言中介的积极、消极或混合的感觉将平行于亲子关系和青少年适应的积极、消极或混合的质量。其次，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。由于在以成人为中心的公共场所做语言中介被认为比在家里为父母做翻译更有压力，我们将单独讨论公共场所做语言中介的感受与亲子关系质量和青少年适应之间的关系。第三，我们将探讨母女对语言中介的情感趋同/分歧如何影响目标1中衍生的主题。我们期望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青少年适应相吻合。我们也预期，对语言中介的负面情绪的趋同将与对亲子关系的负面品质和青少年不良适应相吻合。我们将探讨母亲和女儿对语言中介的感受差异是否与亲子关系质量和青少年适应有关。这个项目可以通过阐明语言中介如何影响亲子关系，更重要的是，如何影响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。这个项目有可能让人口科学了解语言中介的不同过程、实践和经验，以及对墨西哥儿童（美国最大、增长最快的少数群体）适应的潜在影响

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.