Mother–Child Conversations of Latina Immigrant and U.S.-Born Mothers in the United States

Abstract

The present study examined heritage culture influences on the roles of adult and child in the conversations Latina immigrant mothers in the United States have with their young children. Spanish monolingual Latina mothers ( n = 17), Spanish-English bilingual Latina mothers ( n = 30), and English monolingual European American mothers ( n = 22) were recorded in toy play interaction with their 2.5-year-old children; the bilingual Latina mothers were recorded twice, once interacting in Spanish and once in English. Analyses of transcripts of those conversations revealed that the monolingual Spanish-speaking Latina mothers talked more and asked fewer questions of their children and their children talked less compared with the monolingual English-speaking European American mothers and their children, consistent with differences that have been observed between mothers in Latin America and in the United States. The Spanish and English conversations between the bilingual mothers and their children similarly differed in the ratio of adult to child speech, although the Latina mothers’ English conversations still differed from the English conversations of European American mothers. In addition, the ratio of mother to child speech in the immigrant mothers’ Spanish language conversations declined as their years of U.S. residence increased. These findings argue that children of Latina immigrant mothers in the United States are socialized to talk less (and listen more) in conversation with adults compared with children from European American families. These findings also provide new evidence for cultural frames as the mediators of cultural influences on behavior and for language priming of cultural frames.