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Cultural Orientations, Daily Activities, and Adjustment in Mexican American Youth

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Abstract

The links between youth’s daily activities and adjustment and the role of cultural practices and values in these links were studied in 469 youth from 237 Mexican American families. In home interviews, data on mothers’, fathers’, and two adolescent-age siblings’ cultural practices (language use, social contacts) and values (for familism, for education achievement) were collected, along with data on youth risky behavior and depressive symptoms. In 7 nightly phone calls, youth reported on their day’s free time activities (i.e., sports, academics, religious activities, television viewing, and hanging out). Analyses revealed that youth who spent more time in unsupervised hanging out reported more depressive symptoms and risky behavior, and those who spent more time in academic activities reported less risky behavior. Results also indicated that more Anglo-oriented youth spent more time in sports, that more Mexican-oriented youth spent more time watching television, that fathers’ familism values were related to youth’s time in religious activities, and that parents’ educational values were linked to youth’s time in academic activities. Some evidence indicated that parents’ cultural practices and values, particularly fathers’, moderated the links between daily activities and youth adjustment.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the participating families as well as the following schools and school districts: Osborn, Mesa, and Gilbert school districts, Willis Junior High School, Supai and Ingleside Middle Schools, and St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Gregory, St. Francis Xavier, St. Mary-Basha, and St. John Bosco Schools. We also thank Ann Crouter, Nancy Gonzales, Roger Millsap, Mark Roosa, Melissa Delgado, Jennifer Kennedy, Devon Hageman, Sarah Killoren, Shawna Thayer, and Lorey Wheeler for their help in conducting this study, and Anna Soli for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. This research was funded by NICHD (R0l-HD39666), Kimberly Updegraff, Principal Investigator and the Cowden Fund to the School of Social and Family Dynamics at ASU.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Development and Family Studies, The Pennsylvania State University, S-211 Henderson, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Susan M. McHale

  2. Family and Human Development, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 872502, Tempe, AZ, 85287-2502, USA

    Kimberly A. Updegraff & Emily Cansler

  3. Center on the Family, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA

    Ji-Yeon Kim

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  1. Susan M. McHale
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  2. Kimberly A. Updegraff
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  3. Ji-Yeon Kim
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Correspondence to Susan M. McHale.

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McHale, S.M., Updegraff, K.A., Kim, JY. et al. Cultural Orientations, Daily Activities, and Adjustment in Mexican American Youth. J Youth Adolescence 38, 627–641 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-008-9321-8

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