Family contextual influences on bicultural competence development among U.S. Mexican-origin youths

This study investigated how parents' value-based enculturation and acculturation processes (i.e., Mexican American and mainstream American values trajectories across their youths' development from late childhood to middle adolescence) related to their youths' behavioral, affective, and cognitive components of bicultural competence in late adolescence. Our sample included 749 U.S. Mexican-origin youths (30% Mexico-born; 49% female), and their parents, followed for 7 years (M_age = 10.44 to 17.38 years). Linear latent growth analyses revealed that both parental enculturation and acculturation processes have important implications for U.S. Mexican-origin adolescents' bicultural competence. This work highlights parental promoting and inhibiting influences on the development of bicultural competence, a normative developmental competency among ethnic-racial minority and immigrant adolescents.