Abstract
Child culture brokering occurs when immigrant children help their families navigate the new culture and language. The present
study develops a model of the child culture broker role that situates it within the family and community economic and acculturative
contexts of 328 families from the former Soviet Union. Path analysis was utilized to explore the relationships of community
and family economic and cultural contexts with child culture brokering, child emotional distress, and family disagreements.
All children reported some culture brokering for their parents. Less English proficient parents with lower status jobs, and
living in areas with more Russian speaking families tended to utilize their children as brokers more often. Further, community
economic conditions also predicted brokering indirectly, mediated by parent job social status. Brokering was related to child
emotional distress and family disagreements. Further, culture brokering was a mediator of the impact of parent job social
status on both child emotional distress and family disagreements. These results add to our understanding of the culture broker
role and emphasize the utility of approaching research on it from an ecological perspective.
study develops a model of the child culture broker role that situates it within the family and community economic and acculturative
contexts of 328 families from the former Soviet Union. Path analysis was utilized to explore the relationships of community
and family economic and cultural contexts with child culture brokering, child emotional distress, and family disagreements.
All children reported some culture brokering for their parents. Less English proficient parents with lower status jobs, and
living in areas with more Russian speaking families tended to utilize their children as brokers more often. Further, community
economic conditions also predicted brokering indirectly, mediated by parent job social status. Brokering was related to child
emotional distress and family disagreements. Further, culture brokering was a mediator of the impact of parent job social
status on both child emotional distress and family disagreements. These results add to our understanding of the culture broker
role and emphasize the utility of approaching research on it from an ecological perspective.
- Content Type Journal Article
- Category Original Paper
- Pages 1-15
- DOI 10.1007/s10464-012-9488-8
- Authors
- Curtis J. Jones, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1025 W. Johnson St., Madison, WI 53706, USA
- Edison J. Trickett, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
- Dina Birman, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
- Journal American Journal of Community Psychology
- Online ISSN 1573-2770
- Print ISSN 0091-0562