Linguistic Acculturation and Emotional Well-Being in U.S. Schools

Abstract

The relationship between language use and emotional well-being at school/work, compared to other contexts in which adolescents spend time, has not been studied extensively. An analysis of data from the 1993–1997 Sloan Study of Youth and Social Development employing the experience sampling method showed that language preference moderated the effect of context on the subjective emotional experiences of Latino(a) youths. Participants whose primary language is Spanish experienced lower emotional well-being in school/work time than with family, as opposed to those whose second language preference is English in the same contexts. Results highlight the need to better understand the complex process of language use and raise questions about improving the incorporation of Spanish-dominant students.

KEYWORDS:

• Language use
• schools
• Latino(a)s
• well-being
• experience sampling method

Notes

The author acknowledges the dissertation committee who helped guide completion of a doctoral dissertation on which this article is based.

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