Change over time in cultural values among Mexican American adolescents

• In Event: Acculturation and Cultural Values

Abstract

In the United States, individuals who had immigrated from another country represent approximately 13% of the population with individuals from Mexico representing the largest foreign born group (Trevelyan et al., 2016). Unfortunately, it is common for Latinx youth to report experiences of discrimination (Park et al., 2020). Among youth who identify as Mexican-American, endorsing traditional cultural values has tended to protect against the stress associated with experiences of discrimination. However, with limited exceptions (Schroeder et al., 2019), few studies have examined change over time in adolescent endorsement of traditional cultural values. Because adolescence is associated with physical growth and psychological changes in cognition, identity, and peer relationships, it is possible that adolescents may also be changing in their endorsement of their personal and cultural values. Such changes in adolescence could create stress between adolescents and their parents. Participants in our sample were 192 Mexican American youth who were in the 7th grade when we first interviewed them (M age = 12.88, SD = .47, 48% male) and who were interviewed again when they were in the 10th grade. Forty-five percent of the adolescents interviewed were living with their mother and a stepfather when they were interviewed while 55% were living with their mother and father. At both time points, the adolescents completed the Mexican American Cultural Values Scale (Knight et al., 2010), a survey of values that are common to Mexican American families (i.e., support of family, obligations to family, use of family as a referent, respect for family, religiosity, traditional gender roles) as well as mainstream values common in the United Stated (i.e., competitiveness, independence). We conducted a multivariate repeated measures analysis of variance to explore change over time, and we included the child’s gender and family structure as between subjects factors. Results indicated a significant multivariate within subjects effect for time (F = 4.19, p < .001) and a significant between subjects effect for adolescent gender (F = 2.82, p = .006). We found no evidence for interaction effects nor differences based on whether the adolescents lived with a stepfather. When we further explored the univariate tests, we found that only one value – competition – increased over time while endorsement of the remaining values tended to remain stable. Additionally, we found that males were more likely than the females in the sample to endorse more traditional gender roles. To the best of our knowledge, our study was the first to explore change in cultural values over time within a sample of Mexican American youth. The fact that we observed stability in cultural values over time is notable given the many changes of adolescence and concerns about intergenerational conflict.

Authors

• Jeff Cookston, San Francisco State University
  Presenting Author

• Izabel Pisikyan
  Non-Presenting Author

• Shainamel Pilapil, San Francisco State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katherine Vavuris
  Non-Presenting Author