Citation

Updegraff KA, Umaña-Taylor AJ. Fam. Process 2015; 54(2): 205-216.

Affiliation

T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Family Process Institute, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/famp.12135

PMID

25675994

Abstract

Mexican-origin families are a large and rapidly increasing subgroup of the U.S. population, but they remain underrepresented in family scholarship. This paper introduces a special section of four papers on Mexican-origin families designed to contribute to the advancement of research on how cultural, family, and gender socialization processes unfold across key developmental periods and life transitions in this cultural context. Two longitudinal studies of Mexican-origin families provided the data for these four papers: (a) The Juntos Project, an 8-year longitudinal study of mothers, fathers, and adolescent sibling pairs in 246 Mexican-origin families; and (b) The Supporting MAMI Project, a study following 204 adolescent mothers and their mother figures from the third trimester of pregnancy through their young children's 5th birthdays. In this introductory paper, we highlight four themes, including (a) differential acculturation and reciprocal socialization, (b) interdependence in families, (c) the intersection of culture and gender, and (d) methodological issues. We end with suggestions for future research.

Language: en