Implications of Residential Neighborhoods and Mothers’ Activity Spaces for Socialization of Latinx Adolescents

• In Event: Objective and Subjective Approaches to Examining Neighborhood Environments for Youth Development

Abstract

Parents’ extra-familial contexts influence adolescent socialization (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). Ethnic-racial compositions of these contexts may be particularly salient for Latinxs (García Coll et al., 1996). Integration, or spatial proximity to non-Latinx Whites, is a common policy goal to achieve racial equality (Patillo, 2014). Yet higher exposure to Whites (and lower exposure to Latinxs) can be associated with increased racial discrimination (White et al., 2014), and declines in ethnic self-concept (White et al., 2018). Comprehensive understanding of the costs or benefits of proximity to Whites necessitates (a) the simultaneous consideration of exposure to Whites alongside other ethnic-racial compositions (e.g., diversity) and (b) the expansion from single contexts (e.g., neighborhoods) to activity spaces, or “all the locations that individuals come into contact with as a result of their routine activities” (Browning & Soller, 2014). We aimed to: (1) characterize the patterns in exposure to Whites and other ethnic-racial groups across Latina mothers’ neighborhoods and activity spaces; and (2) relate these characterizations to culturally-salient aspects of adolescent socialization, including acculturative family distancing, home-school cultural gap, and anti-immigrant family behavioral modifications (Table 1).

METHOD
Data on adolescent socialization (Table 1) were collected from a school-based sample of 547 Latinx adolescents (55% females, 88.1% US-born, Mage=12.80) and, using a planned missing design, 277 maternal caregivers in a Southeastern state. A combination of survey and census data captured ethnic-racial compositions of: three locations of mothers’ routine activities and their residential neighborhoods (Jones & Pebley, 2014). We used latent profile analysis to identify patterns of ethnic-racial compositions across mothers’ activity spaces and neighborhoods (Aim 1). We used BCH weighting regression (Bray & Dziak, 2018) to examine how profiles related to adolescent socialization.

RESULTS & DISCUSSION
Aim 1: A four profile solution provided the best fit to the data: (1) Black neighborhoods/integrated activity spaces (11% of sample), (2) Integrated neighborhoods/White activity spaces (6%), (3) Diverse neighborhoods/integrated activity spaces (37%), (4) White neighborhoods/White activity spaces (46%).

Though mothers’ residential neighborhoods varied from predominantly Black, to diverse, to integrated, to predominantly White; most Latina mothers were accessing broader activity spaces that were integrated (about 50% White) or White (>70% White).

Aim 2 (Figure 1): Acculturative family distancing was lowest for those in Black neighborhoods/integrated activity spaces compared to those living in and/or accessing Whiter spaces. Anti-immigrant behavioral modifications were higher for those in Black neighborhoods/integrated activity spaces and diverse neighborhoods/integrated activity spaces than in Whiter spaces. Home-school cultural gap was lower in integrated neighborhoods/White activity spaces than in diverse neighborhoods/integrated activity spaces.

Though Latinx families living in Black neighborhoods and accessing integrated activity spaces reported the lowest levels of acculturative family distancing, the policing and monitoring of more minoritized spaces (e.g., Black and diverse neighborhoods) may result in greater need for Latinx families to engage in behavioral modifications that protect their children from xenophobia/nativism. Findings juxtapose the benefits of non-White spaces with the dangers of structural racism that simultaneously co-exist within Latina mothers' activity spaces and relate to how they socialize their adolescents.

Authors

• Rebecca M. B. White, Arizona State University
  Presenting Author

• Rajni L. Nair, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Claudia A. Vega, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kathleen M Roche, George Washington University
  Non-Presenting Author