Abstract
This study investigated how Chinese and Latina mothers born outside the U.S. socialize their prekindergarten through first-grade children’s math development. Both groups of mothers emphasized the importance of children engaging in math activities and playing an active role in math learning. However, Chinese mothers’ approaches were guided by a detailed plan and set of expectations for their children’s progress. In contrast, Latina mothers stressed the importance of children’s learning and discussed activities that foster it but generally did not express a systematic approach to foster learning. Latino children engaged in math activities significantly more than Chinese children, but many children engaged in such activities only about once a week. Although analyses controlled for mothers’ education, because of the limited overlap in education between the groups, research should examine the extent to which these findings reflect SES differences.
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Notes
- 1.
Mothers could be coded as giving more than one response so the percentages can total to more than 100%.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the many people who assisted with different aspects of the project: Jared Au Yeung, Shelter Bamu, Sumit Bose, Felix Burgos, Alma Chavez, Brittany Cholakian, Vishka Correya, Rebecca Dowling, Gabriela Romero Figueroa, Jacqueline Garoz, Lingxi Gao, Christine Glancey, Penny Gorditza, Yu Hao, Courtney Harper, Hui Chih Huang, Sarah Knopp, Dan Li, Mengting Li, Madelin Martinez, Hinali Patel, Kishan Patel, Alejandro Polania, Samantha Schene, Jazmin Simmons, Rupsha Singh, Alexandria Spaay, Mariana Triantos, Adriana Urquetta, Kaitlin Wilson, and Zuotang Zhang. We also appreciate the funding received from UMBC.
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Sonnenschein, S., Galindo, C., Simons, C.L., Metzger, S.R., Thompson, J.A., Chung, M.F. (2018). How Do Children Learn Mathematics? Chinese and Latina Immigrant Perspectives. In: Chuang, S., Costigan, C. (eds) Parental Roles and Relationships in Immigrant Families. Advances in Immigrant Family Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71399-1_7
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