Ethnocultural variables and attitudes toward cultural socialization of children

Cultural socialization is the transmission of cultural values and norms to one's children. The current study presents a neu scale to assess parental s ocialization attitudes to both the U.S. American culture and the Latino cul ture. The scale is based on a social cognitive model of cultural socializat ion and cultural values of independence and interdependence It was hypothes ized that individuals who have lower acculturation, more recent generation level, and higher Mexican identity would have higher scores on the Latino c ultural socialization scab and lower scores on the U.S. American cultural s ocialization scab. A sample of parents who were college students completed a survey, which included ethnocultural variables and the cultural socializa tion scale (CSS). A MANOVA with criterion variables, U.S. American cultural socialization and Latino cultural socialization, and the following predict or variables: acculturation level, generation level, Mexican identity, Whit e American identity, and socioeconomic status. Results indicate that the sc ale is reliable and partially support the hypotheses that ethnocultural var iables influence attitudes toward cultural socialization of children; thus providing some evidence for construct validity Less acculturated parents em phasize socialization into both the Latino culture and the U.S. culture. In dividuals with high Mexican cultural identity were more likely to agree wit h the Latino socialization items. Further research is needed to investigate the implications for biculturality if parents socialize their children to more than one culture. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.