Pathways to Achievement: How Low-Income Mexican-Origin Parents Promote Their Adolescents Through School

Using an ecocultural framework, we investigated relations between parental academic socialization (PAS) and adolescent motivation and achievement. Two-hundred sixteen Mexican-origin, low-income sixth graders reported on their motivational beliefs and behaviors and on their parents' academic socialization. Results indicated that parents engaged in high levels of all dimensions of PAS: providing an environment for learning, communicating messages about hard work, and communicating messages about school success. Adolescents' determination to persist on schoolwork and educational expectations each partially mediated relations between parental messages about school success and grades. Achieve for family, the motivation to achieve due to feelings of family indebtedness and honor, partially mediated relations between parental messages about school success and determination. Finally, a moderated mediation analysis confirmed that the indirect effect of parental messages about school success on grades through determination differs as a function of maternal warmth. High maternal warmth was associated with stronger relations between PAS and determination.