School Matters in the Mexican-American Home: Socializing Children to Education

Abstract

This study describes family interaction, depicting home socialization around education issues in six families in a California community. Departing from the deficit hypothesis applied to Mexican-American families, I assert that the strengths of the family, as portrayed in the tradition of social science theory, have important relevance to education. A close-range examination of the home interactional environment revealed three significant components leading to an understanding of the strengths of the family. These components were physical resources, emotional climate, and interpersonal interactions. Physical resources available to the parents extended beyond space, time, and disciplinary boundaries in the home. The parents’ social linkages outside the home served to facilitate an exchange of information about children’s schooling issues. Parents provided children with the emotional support that encouraged them to value education. The common thread with all parents was that they cared about their children’s education. However, the ways in which they exercised their roles varied, especially in reference to parent-child interactions involving homework, which were directly related to parents’ cultural knowledge about school.