Implications of the Mother-Child Fluency Gap for Maternal School Involvement

Introduction: Parental involvement in education benefits child behavioral and academic outcomes. Hispanic parents have lower levels of involvement in their children’s education compared to non-Hispanic Whites. English language fluency is a primary barrier for Hispanic parent involvement in education, as children often act as language brokers when their English language fluency exceeds that of their parents. However, whether child language brokering positively affects parental involvement has not been studied. This presentation examines and compares maternal school involvement by generational consonance of English fluency (e.g., both mother and child fluent in English, neither fluent in English, and child only fluent in English).

Methods: The data for the current study come from a population-based survey of 7^th grade students (average age of 13 years old) enrolled in an urban public school district in the South Central U.S. The survey was conducted in 2010. The sample for the current study was restricted to the 514 students who reported Hispanic ethnicity and answered questions about language fluency. Measures include students’ fluency in English (self-reported), maternal fluency as reported by the students, and maternal involvement in education, as measured by a five-item scale addressing maternal attitudes and behaviors. Control variables include family structure, economic hardship, and student gender. Post hoc tests examined differences in study variables by generational consonance, and multivariate regression analysis were used to examine the association between generational consonance in English language fluency and maternal school involvement.

Results: Findings revealed that maternal school involvement is highest when both the student and mother are fluent in English, as expected, followed by when neither the mother nor the student are fluent in English, and lowest when the student but not mother is fluent in English. These were unexpected findings that suggest a decrease in parental involvement as the child acculturates and could help explain the decline in positive youth outcomes for 2^nd generation Hispanic youth compared to 1^st generation youth. Helping Hispanic mothers maintain high levels of school involvement as their children acculturate may be a target for prevention efforts.