Cultural Socialization Across Contexts: Family–Peer Congruence and Adolescent Well-Being

Abstract

Racial/ethnic minority youth live at the intersection of diverse cultures, yet little is known about cultural socialization outside families or how cultural socialization in multiple settings conjointly influences adolescent well-being. In a sample of 236 8th graders (51% female; 89% Latinos, 11% African Americans), we examined adolescents’ perceptions of family and peer cultural socialization toward the heritage culture and the mainstream American culture. A variable-centered approach demonstrated that the socioemotional and academic benefits of family cultural socialization were most evident when peer cultural socialization was congruently high. Although family and peer cultural contexts are often assumed to be drastically different, we identified similar proportions of adolescents experiencing congruently high, congruently low, and incongruent cultural socialization from families and peers using a person-centered approach. Although the incongruent group received relatively high levels of cultural socialization in one setting, their well-being was similar to the congruently low group. The findings highlight the importance of considering cultural socialization across multiple developmental settings in understanding racial/ethnic minority youth’s well-being.

Peer cultural socialisation: a resource for minority students’ cultural identity, life satisfaction, and school values

“…In previous research, cultural minority youth identified more strongly with their heritage culture when interacting with same-heritage peers as opposed to differentheritage peers (Kiang and Fuligni 2009). However, cultural socialisation practices by peers and their associations with cultural identity remain understudied (Wang and Benner 2016). Therefore, we individually assessed peer cultural socialisation by a same-heritage friend and a different-heritage friend to account for differences in how their socialisation would relate to cultural identity.…”

“…Recently, the term cultural socialisation has been defined more broadly to include the preservation and transmission of heritage as well as mainstream culture content (Juang et al 2016;Wang, Benner, and Kim 2015). In this study, we investigate two separate dimensions of peer cultural socialisation, namely peer heritage socialisation and peer mainstream socialisation (Wang and Benner 2016), and their unique associations with heritage and mainstream identity.…”

“…Developmental psychologists have shown that parent heritage socialisation is directly associated with a variety of positive psychological and school adjustment outcomes (see Hughes et al 2006, for a review), including achievement, engagement, and school belonging (Gartner, Kiang, and Supple 2014;Wang and Benner 2016;Dimitrova, Johnson, and van de Vijver 2017). More recently, parental mainstream socialisation has also been linked to positive school adjustment of cultural minority youth (Wang and Benner 2016).…”

“…Cultural socialisation may take place as part of formal education, for example in intercultural education or dialogue as part of the curriculum, but also informally through peer networks in schools. Importantly, children spend increasing amounts of time with their peers throughout adolescence (Brown and Larson 2009), and peers become one of the most important socialisation agents for maintaining and learning about culture through cultural socialisation (Wang, Benner, and Kim 2015;Wang and Benner 2016). In addition, the peer context holds high potential to positively influence youth' life satisfaction, achievement, and academic motivation (Lynch, Lerner, and Leventhal 2013;Rogers, Niwa, and Way 2017;Ryan 2000).…”

Parental Cultural Socialization and Adolescent Private Regard: Exploring Mediating Pathways Through Daily Experiences

“…The present study focuses on intragroup contact across everyday situations as an important process that promotes adolescents' positive feelings toward their ethnic/racial groups (Yip et al., ). A nascent body of work suggests that adolescents receive messages about what it means to be a member of their ethnic/racial group from various socialization agents in and outside their families (Hughes, McGill, Ford, & Tubbs, ; Wang & Benner, ), and this process is particularly salient in their interactions with same‐ethnic others (Kiang & Fuligni, ). Indeed, empirical work demonstrates that adolescents with greater intragroup contact are more likely to report an achieved ERI (Phinney, Romero, Nava, & Huang, ) or changes in their ERI status (Yip, Seaton, & Sellers, ).…”