Latine mothers' conceptions of bien educado in U.S. Latine adolescents: Respect, humility, good manners, and consideration for others as Core aspects.

Authors

Alysia M Cruz, Gustavo Carlo

Published in

Journal of research on adolescence : the official journal of the Society for Research on Adolescence. Volume 36. Issue 3. Pages e70227.

Abstract

Developmental theories of ethnocultural socialization (Incorporating the cultural value of respeto into a framework of Latino parenting. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 16(1), 77-86; Traditional and culture-specific parenting of prosociality in U.S. Latino/as. Oxford handbook of parenting and moral development, Oxford University Press.) emphasize the importance of understanding how caregivers instill culturally grounded values adapted to specific cultural and environmental contexts to support positive youth development. Caregivers are deemed to transmit these cultural values to their youth via ethnic heritage practices, customs, rituals, and cultural experiences. Importantly, work based on these models has shown that specific cultural values significantly predict the health and well-being of Latine youth (Cultural values, empathy, and prosocial behavior among U.S. Latino/a youth: A mediation model. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 38(2), 521-540; Familism values and adjustment among Hispanic/Latino individuals: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 147(9), 947-985). Among the cultural values instilled by many Latine parents is bien educado, a concept that emphasizes the importance that youth be well-mannered, display positive social behaviors, and exhibit a strong moral character (Familismo, respeto, and bien educado: Traditional/cultural models and values in Latinos. Critical Cultural Studies of Childhood. Springer). While much of the prior research has focused on cultural values such as familismo and respeto, relatively little is known about the cultural value of bien educado. Indeed, no studies exist on how bien educado is conceptualized and taught by Latine mothers. To address this gap, focus group interviews were conducted to explore how Latine mothers of adolescents define and teach bien educado to their adolescents. Seventeen Latine mothers (M_age = 41.88 years, SD = 6.23) reporting on their adolescents (M_age = 14.97 years, SD = 3.55) participated. On average, mothers had two children and lived in the United States for approximately 21.6 years. The majority were of Mexican origin and predominantly Spanish-speaking (88%). Focus group interviews were conducted in Spanish and English using semi-structured questions designed to explore mothers' definitions, beliefs, and practices related to bien educado. The questions included: "What is your own definition of bien educado?" and "What are some things you do to teach your child to be bien educado?" All focus groups were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and trained; bilingual coders analyzed the transcripts using inductive thematic analysis (Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. SAGE Publications). Mothers conceptualized bien educado as encompassing four main aspects: respect, consideration for others, humility, and being well-mannered. Furthermore, mothers emphasized their intentionality to foster these traits in their youth and viewed the concept as a strength-based approach that contributed positively to their youth's moral development. The findings reveal that bien educado is a multidimensional cultural value construct and a Latine culturally-relevant parenting goal. Specifically, the findings highlight the central elements of bien educado as respect, consideration for others, being well-mannered, and humility. Given the centrality of these four elements in prosocial and moral development (The development and correlates of prosocial moral behaviors. Handbook of moral development. Psychology Press.), the present findings situate bien educado as a Latine-grounded value that can further our understanding of U.S. Latine youth prosocial and moral development. Moreover, the findings demonstrate the need to incorporate this understudied core Latine cultural value into sociocultural- and ecological-grounded parental socialization models and future research in U.S. Latine youth.

PMID:
42405416
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 06 Jul 2026.

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