Ethnocultural Variables and Attitudes toward Cultural Socialization of Children

Cultural socialization is the transmission of cultural values and norms to one’s children. The current study presents a new scale to assess parental socialization attitudes to both the U.S. American culture and the Latino culture. The scale is based on a social cognitive model of cultural socialization and cultural values of independence and interdependence. It was hypothesized that individuals who have lower acculturation, more recent generation level, and higher Mexican identity would have higher scores on the Latino cultural socialization scale and lower scores on the U.S. American cultural socialization scale. A sample of parents who were college students completed a survey, which included ethnocultural variables and the cultural socialization scale (CSS). A MANOVA with criterion variables, U.S. American cultural socialization and Latino cultural socialization, and the following predictor variables: acculturation level, generation level, Mexican identity, White American identity, and socioeconomic status. Results indicate that the scale is reliable and partially support the hypotheses that ethnocultural variables influence attitudes toward cultural socialization A R T I C L E