UC Santa Barbara

Normative patterns of parent-adolescent in European American families has been established, but little is known what conflict looks like among Mexican-origin families. This study explores the topics Mexican-origin mothers and their adolescents daughter disagree about and how much assertiveness is displayed while discussing the conflict topics. A total of 130 mother-daughter pairs were included in this study. The mothers were either born in Mexico or were first generation born Mexican American between the ages of 28 and 62 years old (M = 38.8). The daughters were between the ages of 13 and 16 years of age (M = 14.3). The majority of the girls were born in the United States (77%) and the remainder were born in Mexico. The dyads were videotaped conversing with one another about things they disagreed about. The videotaped conversations were then coded and analyzed. The results indicate that the pattern of topics of conflict discussed follow similar trends found among European American families with the exception of a couple. The topic of sibling relationships was a prevalent topic discussed as an area of contention among mothers and daughters in this study. Additionally, the topic of media use was a novel topic of conflict among this group of participants.