Learning Civic Engagement: Political Socialization in Mexican-Origin Families with Mixed Citizenship Status

The greatest predictor of one’s political attitudes and behavior is the political behavior exhibited by one’s family while growing up. However, we know relatively little about how knowledge, attitudes, and expectations about the political process are transmitted within immigrant families, especially families in which some members are citizens and others are not. With support from the Foundation, Bruce Cain and Irene Bloemraad will research political socialization within mixed-status, Mexican-origin families and its effect on the political incorporation of first- and second-generation family members. They will interview forty-eight families in Oakland and Richmond, California, in which there is a child between the ages of fourteen and eighteen who is a U.S. citizen, and at least one parent who is an undocumented immigrant, a legal non-citizen resident, or a naturalized citizen. Families with parents who are U.S.-born citizens of Mexican descent will serve as a comparison group. They will focus on the perceptions that parents and children have of one another as political and civic actors, the role that gender of the parent may play in shaping the child’s political socialization experiences, as well as family practices that are related to political and community involvement. Results will be reported in conference papers and journal articles, but the primary goal of the project is to lay the groundwork for a large-scale effort involving qualitative and survey research to examine political socialization in a larger group of immigrant-origin families.