Mothers’ and Children’s Language Brokering Experiences and Children’s Psychological Adjustment

• In Event: 3-010 - A Critical Examination of Language Brokering: Dimensions, Mechanisms of Influence, and Children's Socioemotional Well-Being

Integrative Statement

Language brokering is a shared experience between parents and children (Corona, Stevens, Halfond, Shaffer, Reid-Quiñones, & Gonzalez, 2012) where children interpret and mediate between their heritage language/culture and English/U.S. culture for their English-limited parents (Morales & Hanson, 2005). How children perceive their own language brokering experiences has been associated with parent-child relationship and children’s psychological adjustment (e.g., Buriel, Love, & De Ment, 2006; Kim, Hou, & Gonzalez, 2017). It is important to note that parents’ language brokering experiences may also affect the young brokers via parent-child relationships, as parent and child each needs to manage their parent-child relationship during the brokering process (Kam & Lazarevic, 2014b). Recognizing the social nature of language brokering, the present study therefore considers both children’s and mother’s perception of language brokering to more meaningfully understand how language brokering may affect children’s psychological adjustment using a Mexican-origin sample.
Participants were 604 Mexican-origin children (54% female, Mage.wave1 = 12.41, SD = .97, N = 483 one year later at Wave 2) and their mothers residing in central Texas. At wave 1, children and mothers self-reported their own experiences of the shared language brokering activities. Measures include three positive dimensions (positive emotion, positive parent-child relationship tied to language brokering, child linguistic benefits/mother’s motivation to learn English) and three negative dimensions (negative emotion, stress, and negative feelings) (Kim, Hou, Shen, & Zhang, 2016). With survey data collected from Wave 1, latent variables of positive brokering experience and negative brokering experiences were created for children and mothers separately. Children also rated how alienated they feel from their parents on a 5-point Likert scale (Armsden & Greenberg, 1987). At Wave 2, children’s depressive symptoms and anxiety were tested and used to create the child psychological maladjustment latent variable as outcome.
As shown in Figure 1, two longitudinal mediation models linking children’s and mothers’ language brokering experiences to children’s psychological adjustment via parent-child alienation were tested to answer the research question. Tests of indirect paths indicate that mothers’ and children’s positive perception of language brokering could decrease children’s psychological maladjustment through parent-child alienation, whereas mothers’ and children’s negative perception of language brokering could increase children’s psychological maladjustment via parent-child alienation (see Table 1).
Our results empirically support the social nature of language brokering, demonstrating that more positive or less negative maternal brokering experiences can improve children’s psychological adjustment by reducing child-perceived parent-child alienation. The findings suggest the importance of considering both mothers’ and children’s experience in determining how language brokering may promote or harm children’s psychological well-being. The findings also suggest that interventions aiming at improving young brokers’ psychological adjustment should promote positive language brokering experiences in both parties involved in the brokering process.

Authors

• Jiaxiu Song, The University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author

• Su Yeong Kim, University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author