The Parent-Child Acculturation Gap, Parental Monitoring, and Substance Use Among Mexican Heritage Adolescents in Mexican Neighborhoods of the Southwest US

Introduction:  Eighth grade Latino adolescents report higher use rates of alcohol and other drugs relative to their White non-Hispanic counterparts (Johnston et al., 2008).  Given the large proportion of Latinos who are recent immigrants, it is important to consider the moderating effects of acculturation in understanding Latino adolescent substance use.  Analyses from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health study showed that first-generation Mexican and other Latino immigrant adolescents reported lower alcohol use rates (6.3%) as compared to second generation (11.6%) or third (7.5%) generation Latino youth (Hussey et al., 2007).  In turn, a particular, understudied aspect of acculturation that may increase the risks for problem behaviors among Latino adolescents is the parent-child acculturation gap (Birman, 2006; Szapocznik & Kurtines, 1993).  We report the results of a study of Mexican and Mexican American parent-adolescent dyads in which we assess the effects this parent-child acculturation gap has as a predictor of the child's substance use behaviors. 

Methods: Levels of acculturation were assessed in a sample of 206 Mexican-heritage 7th grade adolescents who attended schools with high proportions of Mexican-heritage youths.  Adolescents’ perceptions of parental monitoring and their lifetime use of various substances were also assessed.  One of their parents also reported on their own level of acculturation.  Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to test the main effect of parent acculturation, the main effect of the acculturation gap, as indicated by the effect of youth acculturation over and above that of parent acculturation, the main effect of parental monitoring, and the interaction of the acculturation gap (regression residual of youth acculturation with parent acculturation partialled out) with parental monitoring.

Results: Higher levels of parental acculturation predicted youths' greater marijuana use rates. Moreover, parental monitoring was negatively correlated with cigarette, marijuana, and inhalant use. There was a significant acculturation gap by parental monitoring interaction for marijuana use.  When there was a greater acculturation gap, youths’ perceptions of their parent’s involvement in the youths’ lives were not predictive of the youths’ drug use, in contrast to the negative correlation between parental monitoring and marijuana use for families with the smallest acculturation gaps. 

Conclusions:  The present findings support the idea that the acculturation gap increases the risk for problem behaviors in Mexican American adolescents by undermining family processes.  Interventions targeting family processes to reduce substance use in Mexican American adolescents need to take into account these acculturation gap effects.