Poster #38 - Marital Conflict and Latino/a Preschoolers’ Academic Skills: The Protective Role of Familism

• In Event: Poster Session 16

Abstract

Marital conflict negatively contributes to children’s academic skills by compromising parenting behavior qualities (Cummings & Davies, 2014; Taylor et al., 2012). Culturally based family values may mitigate these negative effects (Garcia Coll and colleagues, 1996). Li-Grining (2012) developed a framework for how culturally based familism values (i.e., family interdependence, solidarity, and obligation) can protect Latino/a children from adversity, such as marital conflict, by: a) reducing the extent to which marital conflict affects parenting behaviors and/or; b) enhancing the extent to which affectionate parenting behaviors support children’s well-being. This idea stems from research suggesting that familism strengthens the link between mothers’ supportive parenting and Latino/a preschoolers’ socioemotional adjustment (Gamble & Modry-Mandell, 2008). In this study, we examined the extent to which familism protects Latino/a children’s vocabulary and literacy skills from the negative consequences of marital conflict. Specifically, we investigated the association between marital conflict and Latino/a preschoolers’ English vocabulary and letter-word skills, whether maternal warmth mediated that association, and whether the mediated association varied by familism levels.

Participants were 108 Latino/a children (Mage = 52.71 months, SD = 4.41; 57% boys) and their mothers from 10 Head Start classrooms in the southwest. The data were gathered in the fall and spring semesters of one academic year. In the fall, mothers completed the O’Leary-Porter Scale (Porter & O’Leary, 1980) assessing marital conflict (α=.73), the warm parenting subscale from the Parent Perception Inventory (Hazzard et al., 1983; α=.73), and the familism values subscale from the Mexican American Cultural Values Scale (Knight et al., 2010; α=.79). In the spring, children completed the Picture Vocabulary and Letter-Word Identification tests of the Woodcock-Johnson, 3rd ed. (Woodcock et al., 2000; α≥.81).

Figure 1 depicts our conceptual model. Consistent with Li-Grining’s (2012) framework, it tests two possibilities: that familism protects children by weakening the negative association between marital conflict and maternal warmth and by strengthening the positive association between maternal warmth and children’s English vocabulary and letter-word skills. After controlling for English and Spanish usage at home and children’s fall nonverbal cognitive abilities (measured by the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test; Naglieri, 2003), we found that familism moderated the association between maternal warmth and children’s vocabulary and letter-word skills, but not the association between marital conflict and maternal warmth (see Figure 2). Simple slope tests revealed that the negative contribution of marital conflict to children’s vocabulary and letter-word skills via maternal warmth was significant (β = -.13, S.E. = .04, p = .003) for families with low familism levels (1 SD below the mean), but not for those with high familism levels (1 SD above the mean; β = .01, S.E. = .04, p = .739). Thus, familism appeared to protect children from the adverse contributions of marital conflict by enhancing the extent to which maternal warmth fostered children’s English vocabulary and letter-word skills. The discussion will highlight the idea that mothers’ expressions of warmth may be especially meaningful in high familism households by providing children with greater emotional support, even in the context of adversity (Li-Grining, 2012).

Authors

• Francisco Palermo, University of Missouri - Columbia
  Presenting Author

• Rahmet Akpolat, University of Missouri - Columbia

• Matthew Ogan, University of Missouri - Columbia

• Kale Monk, University of Missouri

• Sarah Killoren, University of Missouri - Columbia

• Rachel Thibodeau-Nielsen, University of Missouri - Columbia