Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Language Brokering In Latino Families: Direct Observations Of Brokering Patterns, Parent-Child Interactions, And Relationship Quality, Kee J. E. Straits

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

With the growing percentage of immigrant families in the USA, language transition is a common immigrant experience and can occur rapidly from generation to generation within a family. Child language brokering appears to occur within minority language families as one way of negotiating language and cultural differences; however, the phenomenon of children translating or mediating language interactions for parents has previously been hypothesized to contribute to negative outcomes for children, such as role-reversals and parentification, emotional distancing and lack of communication, increased parent-child conflict, and increased internalizing/externalizing disorders. The current study used direct observations of 60 Spanish-speaking parent-child dyads (30 …