Parenting in place: How Latina mothers' mesosystems shape ethnic-racial socialization

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

7-10-2025

Journal

Cultural diversity & ethnic minority psychology

DOI

10.1037/cdp0000760

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: Ethnic-racial socialization is an important cultural-developmental process in U.S. Latinx families and can be influenced by the ethnic-racial compositions of family members' ecologies, much of which extends beyond their neighborhoods. This study examined the ethnic-racial compositions of mothers' mesosystems, operationalized using activity space methods, which capture the set of locations to which individuals are regularly exposed. For Aim 1, we used a person-centered approach to identify profiles of mothers differentiated by the ethnic-racial composition of the activity spaces they navigate. For Aim 2, we explored how identified mothers' activity space profiles predicted ethnic-racial socialization of their adolescents, including cultural socialization and preparation for bias. METHOD: The sample included Latinx adolescents (N = 547; M = 13.31 years; 55.4% girls; 89.6% U.S. born) and their mothers (n = 271 at Wave 1) participating in the Caminos study in Atlanta, Georgia. The present study analyzed data from Wave 5 (2020) and Wave 6 (2020-2021). RESULTS: We identified four profiles of mothers' activity spaces, and these differentially predicted mothers' ethnic-racial socialization. CONCLUSIONS: Moving beyond the examination of ethnic-racial socialization within singular microsystems (e.g., residential neighborhoods), this study indicates that day-to-day ethnic-racial exposures encountered by Latina mothers may influence how mothers socialize their adolescent children around issues of ethnicity and race. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Department

Prevention and Community Health

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS