Familism and Academic Outcomes Among Latinx Adolescents in the US Midwest

• In Event: Family and Cultural Pathways to Socioemotional and Academic Well-Being in Latinx Adolescents

Abstract

School attachment and academic aspirations have implications for school attainment (May & Witherspoon, 2019). In rural and new immigrant destination communities, many Latinx youth experience limited access to education but highly value education for future economic opportunities to contribute to their families (Stein et al., 2016). Given its significance for students’ future academic prospects, we investigated how familism, encompassing attitudes and behaviors prioritize family interdependence and support (Stein et al., 2016), and parenting warmth, made up of expressions of care and encouragement toward the child (Domenech Rodríguez, Donovick, & Crowley, 2009) and low harshness (Martin, Conger, & Robins, 2019), relate to school attachment and academic aspirations in adolescence. Latinx adolescents with strong familism values might interpret parental harshness as a form of caring (Halgunseth, Ispa, & Rudy, 2006). Conversely, adolescents with high familism and low parental warmth might maintain high levels of school attachment and academic aspirations. That is, familism would be promotive especially for those with lower parental warmth levels.

Guided by theory emphasizing the role of adapting cultural systems in development (García Coll et al., 1996; White, Nair, & Bradley, 2018) and prior cross-sectional research (e.g., Bi et al., 2020; Esparza & Sánchez, 2008; Rivas-Drake & Marchand, 2016), we hypothesized that youth’s familism would be positively related to academic outcomes across time among Latinx youth from the Midwest. We also hypothesized that the association between youth’s familism and academic outcomes would be strongest at low parental warmth levels. We hypothesized that mothers would have a stronger positive role in youth’s academic adjustment compared to fathers (Esparza & Sánchez, 2008).

In the present study (N = 123; Mage = 11.53 years; 56.9% girls), Midwestern Latinx adolescents reported their academic aspirations (αs = .76-.86) and school attachment at Waves 1 and 2 (αs = .84-.89; Hernández et al., 2016), familism values at Wave 1 (α = .88; Knight et al., 2010), and maternal and father warmth (based on the Behavioral Affect Rating Scale, αs = .78-.88; Conger & Conger, 2002), which were all estimated as latent variables (CFI = .94, TLI = .93, RMSEA = .06). Covariates included rural (vs urban), two-parent household (vs single), parental education, grade (fifth vs sixth), and sex. Based on regression models tested in Mplus, adolescent familism predicted school attachment (b = .20, p < .05) and academic aspirations (b = .27, p < .01), controlling for parental warmth, prior school attachment and academic aspiration levels, and covariates. Maternal, but not paternal, warmth predicted higher school attachment (b = .30, p < .01) and academic aspirations (b = .20, p = .09). Only maternal warmth moderated the positive associations between familism and both school attachment (b = -.23, p < .05) and academic aspirations (b = -.38, p < .05); the associations were present at low maternal warmth levels (Figures 1 & 2). Findings suggest that strength-based prevention approaches could highlight parents’ roles in their children’s education, and how parenting is linked to youth’s familism and development.

Authors

• Maciel M. Hernández, University of California - Davis
  Presenting Author

• Zoe Ellen Taylor, Purdue University, West Lafayette
  Non-Presenting Author

• Blake L. Jones, Brigham Young University
  Non-Presenting Author