Young Latinx children: At the intersections of race and socioeconomic status

Third Grade Achievement Predictors in Urban Poverty Settings: End of Kindergarten Behavioral and Performance Indicators

“…Minority status and SES are often confounded in studies that compared child outcomes between racial and SES groups. It is often difficult to parse out differences in children's academic performance due to race from those differences due to SES (Cabrera et al, 2019;Lubienski, 2002), since children in lower SES groups are overwhelmingly of minority status. Nevertheless, both SES and minority status significantly influence academic achievement.…”

Mexican‐Origin Adolescent Mothers’ Economic Contexts, Educational Re‐Engagement, and Their Children’s School Readiness

“…In turn, when Latinx adolescent mothers re‐engage in their education after the birth of their child, this educational re‐engagement and attainment may support children’s school readiness by allowing adolescent mothers to accrue greater resources, reduce economic stress, and inform their parenting practices in ways that promote their children’s school readiness (Contreras et al, 2002). As such, not only are the consequences of family economic context apparent in the educational outcomes of Latinx adolescent mothers, but through these direct and indirect pathways, the family economic context shapes their access to resources and experiences of stress that inform their children’s academic readiness through the preschool years (Cabrera, Hennigar, Yumiseva‐Lackenbacher, & Galindo, 2019). In other words, the family economic context initiates a developmental cascade of direct and indirect consequences (Masten & Cicchetti, 2010), which links socioeconomic status, family interaction processes, and child development cumulatively across generations.…”

“…Not only are the first years of adolescent motherhood a critical period in shaping adolescent mothers’ economic and educational trajectories (Oxford, Lee, & Lohr, 2010) but it is also a time when many families experience new economic challenges and learn to navigate parenting. Moreover, this period co‐occurs during critical developmental periods for adolescents and their children, during which time young mothers are establishing patterns of interactions with their infants that serve as the basis for the cognitive, linguistic, and social‐emotional experiences that children need for positive development, particularly in the context of adversity (Blair & Raver, 2012; Cabrera et al, 2019). As such, we examine how the family economic context shapes adolescent mothers’ educational re‐engagement and attainment during the first 5 years of motherhood (Barr & Simons, 2012; Black, Polidano, & Tseng, 2012; Hurst, Kelly, & Princiotta, 2004; McDermott, Anderson, & Zaff, 2018) and, in turn, their children’s academic and social‐emotional outcomes at age 5 (Mollborn & Dennis, 2012; Tang, Davis‐Kean, Chen, & Sexton, 2016).…”

“…These lower levels of educational attainment are negatively associated with health, employment, and financial outcomes throughout the life course (e.g., McDermott, Donlan, & Zaff, 2019). Among Mexican‐origin adolescents, these outcomes may be exacerbated by the economic and social challenges they face, including language barriers, discrimination, school segregation, and low‐wage work that contribute to their disproportionately high rates of poverty compared to other ethnic‐racial groups (Cabrera et al, 2019; Edwards, 2019). Given that mothers’ educational attainment may confer economic, health, and social benefits to themselves, their children, and society (e.g., McDermott, 2018; Tang et al, 2016), understanding Mexican‐origin adolescent mothers’ re‐engagement and degree attainment and how it is shaped by and informs the intergenerational transmission of economic and educational inequality is important.…”

“…Self‐regulation refers to the ability to modulate one’s mental and behavioral responses, and includes subcomponents such as executive function (i.e., cognitive or mental forms of self‐regulation that involve flexible, goal‐directed thinking) and delay of gratification (i.e., the capacity to regulate one’s behaviors to wait for a desirable outcome; Blair & Diamond, 2008). Prior research has shown that the social‐emotional skills of Latinx children are similar to those of their peers from other ethnic‐racial groups; however, there are notable disparities in their pre‐academic capacities, with maternal education consistently related to Latinx children’s cognitive development (see Cabrera et al, 2019 for a review). Furthermore, research has shown that across ethnic‐racial groups the children of adolescent mothers may be at particular risk for developmental delays in social‐emotional and cognitive development, leading to inadequate school readiness (e.g., Mollborn & Dennis, 2012; Tang et al, 2016).…”