“Your Family is Always With You”: Perceptions of Parental Relationships Among Hispanic/Latinx Young Adults Pursuing STEM Careers

INTRODUCTION

While Hispanic/Latinx¹ individuals comprise 16% of the U.S. population, they comprise only 8% o6f the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce (National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, 2019). Scholars have identified myriad factors contributing to this pattern of underrepresentation, which include poor or limited experiences in STEM classrooms (Weis et al., 2015), discouraging experiences with STEM mentors (Frederick et al., 2021; Mendez et al., 2022), and a chilly climate for members of racial/ethnic minority groups in STEM fields (McGee, 2016; Mendez et al., 2022). Given the centrality of family to the cultural values and practices of Hispanic/Latinx communities, a pattern known as “familismo,” parental relationships are likely to be a uniquely important factor shaping the STEM career pathways of Hispanic/Latinx young adults. Yet, this factor remains underexplored in STEM research.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relational supports and constraints that Hispanic/Latinx college students in STEM majors experienced with their parents as they moved through college and transitioned into their first year of graduate school or full-time employment. We conducted two rounds of interviews with 18 Hispanic/Latinx young adults who were part of an undergraduate STEM program at a Hispanic-majority university. We explore three themes, which emerged from our interviews. First, we identify the ways participants felt emotionally supported by their parents in their educational and career pursuits. Second, we examine the sources of tensions these students experienced between the demands of home and their STEM fields, or what Vasquez-Salgado and colleagues (2015) have termed “home–school value conflicts.” Finally, we explore conversational dynamics between students and their parents, focusing on a form of dissonance we term “conversational constraints.”

BACKGROUND

Familismo (or familism) is a value system that prioritizes the family unit over the individual, along with emphasizing strong attachments and interdependence with both nuclear and extended family members (Sy and Romero, 2008; Espinoza, 2010; Ovink, 2014; Rodriguez et al., 2021). Though not exclusive to Hispanic/Latinx communities (see Lor, 2019), familismo is consistently found to be a distinct feature of Hispanic/Latinx cultures. Familismo has been conceptualized as operating at three levels: 1) attitudinal, 2) behavioral, and 3) structural (Desmond and Lopez Turley, 2009). At the “attitudinal” level, familismo shapes value systems so that family needs are prioritized over the individual. At the “behavioral” level, people make decisions influenced by familistic values, such as choosing to remain at home during college (Desmond and Lopez Turley, 2009). And at the “structural” level, broader patterns are created by familismo, such as the pattern that Hispanic/Latinx families tend to live in larger family networks within smaller geographic spaces compared with whites (Ovink, 2014).

Family has been identified as a “community of practice” that can influence students’ motivation and persistence in the STEM pipeline (Archer et al., 2012; Burt et al., 2019), yet we know very little about how family dynamics matter in shaping the science trajectories of Hispanic/Latinx young people. The current study focuses on exploring how values related to familismo matter in shaping the science trajectories for Hispanic/Latinx young people. We examine three themes related to parental relationships, which emerged as significant in participant interviews: 1) emotional support, 2) home–school value conflicts, and 3) conversational constraints.

Emotional Support

Emotional support has not been thoroughly researched or well defined in the higher education literature, but researchers have used this term to encompass actions such as parental encouragement, instilling positive values toward education, and validating students’ struggles (Roksa and Kinsley, 2019; Roksa et al., 2021). Early research focused on the ways Hispanic/Latinx parents without college degrees were unable to provide financial support and nuanced guidance to their college-going children (Roksa and Kinsley, 2019; Roksa et al., 2021). As a corrective to the deficiency-focused approaches embedded in this earlier literature, Yosso (2005) called for the recognition of the immense contributions of Hispanic/Latinx parents and other family members to their children’s educational successes.

Aspirational capital is a key form of emotional support that Hispanic/Latinx parents share with their children (Langenkamp, 2019). Often having made great sacrifices themselves, these parents frequently emphasize the importance of capitalizing on the educational opportunities available to their children in the U.S. (Langenkamp, 2019). Hispanic/Latinx parents are also found to rely on “consejos,” advice, and stories rooted in family histories of hardship, to motivate their children to succeed academically (Sánchez et al., 2005; Auerbach, 2007). Families frequently express a collective pride in the educational accomplishments of younger members of the family (Ovink, 2014). Taken together, these practices generate aspirational capital, a strong source of motivation, for Hispanic/Latinx students (Sánchez et al., 2005; Yosso, 2005).

The emotional support Hispanic/Latinx young adults receive from their parents is found to generate positive educational outcomes, including protecting students against the negative mental-health outcomes associated with stress from workload demands and racial discrimination that students experience while in college and graduate school (Espinoza, 2010; Roksa et al., 2020). Specific to STEM, Hispanic/Latinx young adults frequently cite the emotional support from their nuclear and extended family as a positive force keeping them on their STEM career paths (Denton et al., 2020; Rodriguez et al., 2021). In fact, emotional support from family can serve as STEM-specific aspirational capital, motivating young people to persist in STEM for the benefit of the entire family (Rodriguez et al., 2021). Those students who have family members in science careers are found to benefit from the role modeling, knowledge, and advice of their family members (Mein et al., 2020; Rodriguez et al., 2021). Emotional support from family can also serve as a protective factor in the face of difficult workloads and hostile climates within STEM undergraduate and graduate programs (Carlone and Johnson, 2007; Rodriguez et al., 2021).

Home–School Value Conflicts

Notwithstanding the immense emotional support Hispanic/Latinx young adults often receive from their parents, these young adults also frequently experience tensions between the demands of higher education and the family obligations generated within the context of familismo (Ovink, 2014). Vasquez-Salgado and colleagues (2015) term these tensions “home–school value conflicts” or “home–school cultural value mismatch”. The collectivistic orientation central to familismo has been found to conflict with dominant logics within higher education, which reward an individualistic focus on achievement and presume young adults are free from family obligations (Espinoza, 2010; Vasquez-Salgado et al., 2015; Luedke, 2017; Lopez et al., 2019). For example, while cultural beliefs in white middle-class communities emphasize college as a time for children to leave the family and establish their independence, both Hispanic/Latinx parents and children have a preference for children to remain near home for college and even graduate school (Desmond and Lopez Turley, 2009; Espinoza, 2010; Ramirez, 2013). Other forms of home–school value conflicts include expectations of spending time with family and caring for family through financial and care contributions, which can compete with the demands of higher education (Espinoza, 2010; Ovink, 2014; Vasquez-Salgado et al., 2018; Rodriguez et al., 2021). These tensions appear to be particularly pronounced for Latinas (Ovink, 2014).

Home–school value conflicts, including competing demands of family and school responsibilities, are likely to be amplified for high-achieving Hispanic/Latinx young adults in highly competitive STEM fields (Espinoza, 2010; Rodriguez et al., 2021). In addition to managing the competing demands of home and career-related responsibilities (Espinoza, 2010; Rodriguez et al., 2021), these young adults frequently report a dissonance between the norms of care and reciprocity that characterize their family and home community and the hypercompetitive cultures that they navigate within their STEM classes and labs (Carlone and Johnson, 2007; Lopez et al., 2019). In prior studies, students have reported feeling alienated by the formal, transactional-focused interactions that characterize many of their relationships with STEM professors (Carlone and Johnson, 2007; Lopez et al., 2019). Vasquez-Salgado and colleagues (2021) found that home–school cultural value mismatch is more pronounced for first-generation college students, compared with those students whose parents have a college degree; however, more evidence is needed to understand how home–school value conflicts may shift relative to social class position.

Conversational Constraints

Finally, we explore conversational dynamics between Hispanic/Latinx young adults in the STEM pipeline and their parents. To provide insights into potential conversational dynamics, we draw from the literature on the experiences of first-generation college students. While care should be taken not to conflate racial/ethnic identity with social class, a high proportion of Hispanic/Latinx college students are first-generation college students and come from low-income backgrounds (Excelencia in Education, 2019). Thus, research on the conversational dynamics of first-generation college students and their parents can provide useful insights.

Sociologists have documented how college-educated parents tend to engage in frequent and nuanced conversations with their college-going children: eliciting details about their children’s work, providing helpful advice, and even intervening on behalf of their children (Lareau, 2011; Hamilton, 2016; Hamilton et al., 2018). By contrast, while first-generation college students frequently report receiving important forms of support from their parents (Roksa and Kinsley, 2019), they often simultaneously report experiencing conversational dissonance, or what we term “conversational constraints” in interaction with their parents (Roksa et al., 2020). Evidence of conversational constraints has appeared in prior research on Hispanic/Latinx young adults in the STEM pipeline (Espinoza, 2010; Rodriguez et al., 2021). For example, some of the first-generation Latinas interviewed by Rodriguez and colleagues (2021) found themselves on the receiving end of discouragement, and even mocking of their passion for science, in conversation with family members. While these conversational dynamics have not been fully articulated and examined in prior research, it is likely that Hispanic/Latinx young adults are uniquely sensitive to these conversational constraints, given the prioritization of family bonds within the context of familismo.

Currently, research findings have not fully illuminated whether patterns of family support, home–school value conflicts, and conversational constraints persist across socioeconomic status. In her study of Mexican-American middle-class adults, Jody Vallejo (2012) found that young Hispanic adults whose families had been in the middle-class for multiple generations expressed values very similar to those of white middle-class Americans. Other studies, however, suggest changes in parenting values and practices in Hispanic communities are more inelastic to differences in socioeconomic status and do not neatly align with dominant understandings of social class differences in parenting (Rangel and Shoji, 2020; Vasquez-Salgado et al., 2021). Desmond and Lopez Turley (2009), for example, found that even Hispanic high-school students with college educated parents were more likely to express a desire to remain at home for college than Black or white high-school students with college educated parents, suggesting familistic values remain durable across social class boundaries. These complex dynamics might be influenced by residential patterns that place Hispanic families in more economically diverse networks (Logan, 2013). Furthermore, parenting values and practices might be more inelastic to social class changes for those living in ethnic enclaves, that is, in geographic spaces with high concentrations of ethnic minority groups who maintain distinct cultural and economic practices compared with the majority culture. Our unique sample of both first-generation and continuing-generation college students enables us to begin to uncover whether patterns of home–school value conflicts and conversational constraints persist, even for young Hispanic/Latinx adults with at least one college-educated parent.

Current Study

Our current study is guided by the following research question: What are Hispanic/Latinx STEM students’ perceptions of their relationships with their parents as they move through college and transitioned into graduate school or full-time employment? We present data focused around the three themes of emotional support, home–school value conflicts, and conversational constraints. Our study is guided by a student-centered approach. That is, our top scholarly priority is to honor the perspectives participants shared with us during their interviews. This commitment calls us to recognize the assets they have gained through their parental relationships, while simultaneously giving space for students to explore the tensions that they have negotiated between home and school in their academic journeys.

METHOD

Data presented are drawn from two rounds of interviews we conducted with 18 Hispanic/Latinx young adults who were participants in a merit-based undergraduate research program designed to improve the retention of underrepresented groups in STEM fields. We henceforth refer to this program as EXCEL. The EXCEL program is housed at a Hispanic-majority university located on the U.S.–Mexico border. While the university administering the EXCEL program is an open-access university serving mostly local residents, EXCEL offers a unique opportunity for high-achieving students to obtain research skills and experiences in competitive STEM disciplines they might not otherwise have received. The EXCEL program provides a full scholarship to participating students throughout their undergraduate coursework, a monthly stipend for conducting research with faculty, and paid summer research internships. EXCEL students are strongly encouraged to accept summer research internships at partnering universities around the country. During the academic year, students are required to participate in workshops designed to build their research and professional skills, as well as to familiarize students with the process of applying for graduate school.

Parents and other family members are also included in EXCEL programming. For example, they are invited to participate in a day-long new-student orientation, in which they attend workshops for parents and family members. EXCEL also offers an annual training designed to assist students and parents in the transition into the summer-research internship, which is often the students’ first time living away from home. During this orientation, parents are able to interact with other families who have already experienced this transition. Finally, parents and other family members are invited to attend multiple symposia in which the students present their research.

Sample Demographics

Table 1 provides demographic information about the 18 study participants and their parents. We present this information in aggregate form, rather than by individual student, to provide an additional layer of confidentiality for participants. All participants identify as “Hispanic.” Thirteen out of 18 participants speak Spanish as their first language. Eleven of our participants identify as “women,” and seven identify as “men.”

By the conclusion of our interviews, all participants had recently graduated from college. Six participants were currently in highly selective graduate programs in STEM-related disciplines, and two participants were in STEM-related postbaccalaureate programs. One participant was in a graduate program in a field unrelated to STEM. We include her in our sample, because she was still considering STEM-related doctoral programs as her next career step. The remaining nine participants were working while applying for graduate programs. Twelve out of 18 participants had moved to a city and/or state away from their parents for their job or graduate school. Of the six participants who were currently living at home, four were making plans to move away from their families to attend graduate school.

We also provide information about parents’ educational attainment. Five out of 18 participants are first-generation college students; that is, none of their parents holds a four-year degree. Thirteen participants have at least one parent with a college degree, and six of those participants have at least one parent with a graduate degree. Three participants have at least one parent whose highest education level is less than high school. The application process and selection criteria for the EXCEL program, which relied on GPA and standardized-test scores, likely led to the underrepresentation of first generation and socioeconomically disadvantaged students, compared with the larger university student body. The overrepresentation of continuing-generation college students in our sample provides a unique opportunity to explore whether patterns related to familismo are evident across variation in parental education levels.

Study Design

Data for this analysis were collected through two rounds of interviews we conducted with 18 participants, who were members of the same cohort in the EXCEL Program. We began with a sample of 20 students; however, two students who dropped out of the EXCEL Program after their junior year interview were excluded from the current analysis. We conducted the first round of interviews during participants’ junior year of college and the second round of interviews within nine months after the participants graduated from college. We here forth refer to these two rounds of interviews as the “junior-year interviews” and the “transition interviews.” The junior year interviews provided the opportunity for us to hear participants’ perspectives on leaving home for summer internships, as well as managing the increased demands of work and school during the regular academic year. The transition interviews provided us with participants’ perspectives on their experiences applying for graduate programs and moving away from home for work or graduate school. We offered a $30 gift card to participants upon completion of each interview.

Our study was guided by the research epistemology of grounded theory. Central to this epistemology is that we approached the interviews with a focus on learning from participants, rather than testing existing hypotheses (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). The research team worked collaboratively to develop the semi-structured interview guides for each round of interviews. We agreed upon a set list of questions; however, the interviewer asked additional questions when topics that arose were not covered in the interview guides. Our interview questions focused on themes we identified as being potentially salient for the participants, including mentoring and research-internship experiences, family support, science identity, and their plans for the future. We used several questions in the interview guides to ask specifically about family relationships. For example, in the junior-year interview, we asked participants, “How does your family feel about you pursuing a career in STEM?” and “Has your relationship with your family changed at all while you’ve been in the EXCEL program?”, and during the transition interview, we asked students to describe their family’s involvement in their graduate school decision process. We intentionally used the word “family” to be inclusive of family members other than parents. Though important data were also collected about siblings, an analysis of sibling relationships is beyond the scope of the current analysis.

Grounded theory calls for an inductive approach to interviewing (Strauss and Corbin, 1990); however, scholars have refined the original formulation of grounded theory, recognizing that researchers often enter the field with particular hunches about what is likely to be salient (Timmermans and Tavory, 2012). We knew family would be a topic worthy of investigation, and we asked specific questions during the interviews to explore participants’ experiences and perspectives on their relationships with their parents. We did not, however, anticipate the specific ways participants would make sense of their parental relationships. The theme of “conversational constraints,” for example, emerged as an unexpected finding in our data.

As a team, we brought varying perspectives to the table, which deepened our data collection and analysis, as well as our commitment to produce research that will be respectful of our participants and potentially aid in improving the retention of this group in STEM fields. Angela Frederick, a sociologist, is a white woman who has a visible disability. Angelica Monarrez, an educational researcher in STEM, is a Hispanic/Latinx woman who shares much in common with participants. She attended the same university as the students, and, like most of our participants, she is fluent in English and Spanish. Heather Daniels is a white woman who is a first-generation college student. Danielle Morales, a sociologist, is an Asian woman who worked closely with the participants as they moved through their undergraduate work. Tim Collins, a human geographer, is a white man who worked with some of the participants and on institutional development initiatives as part of the program. Sara Grineski is a white woman and a sociologist. She directed the participants’ research experiences, including placing them with academic-year and summer-research mentors. Collectively, our identities and experiences working with the students in the EXCEL program helped us to develop a robust analysis of the benefits and challenges participants experience in relationship with their parents that is more nuanced and accurate than the deficiency framework scholars have sometimes applied to Hispanic/Latinx families.

The first three authors conducted the interviews in person and via phone or Skype, depending upon participant availability and location. Interviews lasted an average of one hour. Students provided informed consent for the research as they entered the EXCEL program, and again before each individual interview. We transcribed the interviews and assigned a pseudonym to each participant.

Data Analysis

We analyzed the data using the “flexible qualitative data coding” method outlined by Deterding and Waters (2021). This method eschews the open coding originally formulated by Strauss and Corbin (1990) in grounded theory for a system of coding that takes advantage of qualitative data-analysis software. The first and second authors each conducted separate coding of interviews during the first round of coding, capturing any quotes relating to parents and family. These two authors discussed themes that emerged in this parent node and conducted an additional round of coding based on themes identified. These themes included parental support, parental knowledge and understanding of participants’ career paths, and negotiating family obligations and career demands. The organized data were then shared with the entire research team. We employed the collaborative process for team-based data analysis identified by Deterding and Waters (2021), which is in keeping with qualitative research traditions. The team discussed nuances and various possible interpretations of the data. Negative cases were discussed until the team came to agreement about patterns in the data. We conducted another round of coding to capture any changes over time observed through comparison of the two interviews and through participants’ self-reports within one interview. We ultimately found students’ own retrospective accounts of their parents’ changes over time (between their first year and junior year, for example) were more insightful than our comparison between each participant’s two interviews. Thus, we do not provide a longitudinal comparison between the two rounds of interviews here.

FINDINGS

Consistent with prior research on familismo, our interviews reveal patterns of closeness and interdependence between students and their parents. A majority of participants reported a deep involvement with their families. Sixteen out of 18 participants, for example, lived with their families during at least part of their undergraduate education. Living at home is common for students at this university, which is largely a commuter campus; however, it is noteworthy these students chose their university over other options available to them as high-achieving high-school students. In addition, five of our participants made significant contributions to their families while in college. These included not only financial contributions, but also care contributions, such as regularly transporting siblings to and from school and accompanying older relatives to medical appointments. Thus, the patterns of these students’ lives while in college were remarkably distinct from patterns of white, middle-class students, who are far more likely to attend college outside of their hometowns and who largely live free from family-care obligations (Lareau, 2011; Hamilton et al., 2018).

Emotional Support

Our 18 participants reported receiving high levels of emotional support from their parents regarding their pursuit of STEM careers. Only two participants reported having one unsupportive parent. Ilene’s mother, for example, was so displeased with Ilene’s decision to pursue a STEM major that she refused to attend Ilene’s high-school graduation. This story was an outlier however. The majority of participants described their parents as proud, encouraging, and enthusiastic about their children’s educational and career pursuits in STEM. Parental support was strong for both first-generation and continuing-generation students in our sample.

During her junior-year interview, Karen (continuing-generation) described her parents’ unwavering support: “I mean, they’re the type of family that they’re gonna support me in anything I do. So if I tell them, ‘I want to do research. I want to go to graduate school,’ they’re going to be all for it and support me in any way they can.” Karen’s use of the descriptive phrase “all for it” conveys the enthusiasm she has felt from her parents. These sentiments were echoed by the majority of our participants, like Isabel (continuing-generation), who said, “They think that, as long as I like it, that it’s good. So, they approve…”

Pablo (first-generation) is currently pursuing a doctorate in a STEM field. During his transition interview, Pablo described his parents’ pride in his accomplishments. “They’re super proud of me. I mean, we don’t have a Ph.D. in my family. … I think there’s a lawyer somewhere in our very– either far removed or some generations back kind of family. But that’s about it. So, I think they’re really, really proud of me that I decided to do something like this.” Consistent with prior research on aspirational capital (Yosso, 2005), the emotional support Pablo received from his parents was inflected by their sense of collective pride in seeing their son achieve educational milestones that had previously been out of reach for other family members.

Emotional support from parents translated into tangible benefits for some participants when they experienced their first transitions away from home, first for their summer internships, and then as many of them moved away from home to pursue graduate school or industry jobs.

One participant, Victoria (continuing-generation), discussed the encouragement and emotional support her parents provided her during these two major transitions away from home. In her junior-year interview, Victoria described how her parents encouraged her when she experienced a bout of homesickness during her first summer-research internship:

Upon graduation, Victoria entered a highly prestigious doctoral program across the country. Again, she discussed how her family supported her in this major transition away from home. Victoria’s family drove with her (a 36-h journey), to help her move to her new city for graduate school. “My parents are very proud of me, and they actually … drove with me to (graduate school). … If that’s not love, I don’t know what is. It was 36 h of loving each other, of extreme love for one another.”

Victoria’s love for her family and appreciation of their emotional support was palpable in her interview. Victoria explicitly linked these close bonds to the cultural values and practices of familismo. As she explained, “That’s the cool thing about being Hispanic. Your family’s always with you. And they’re always involved in what you do.” In describing Hispanic families as “always with you” and “always involved in what you do,” Victoria gave nod to the unique cultural values of familismo that undergird her family dynamics.

During her junior-year interview, Elena (continuing-generation) described her parents’ support when she left for an internship the prior summer: “I think they’re really excited and happy for me. I know that just having this research summer internship, they were super supportive and really grateful that I had this opportunity. … They were 100% supportive, and they wanted me to make the most of the opportunity.”

Upon graduation, Elena entered a two-year postbaccalaureate program located across the country from her family. During her transition interview, Elena described her parents’ reaction when she told them she would be moving away for this program. Like other participants, Elena did not share much about her postgraduation applications with her family. But, Elena described how her parents put their reservations aside and supported her in making the decision to accept the two-year position across the country.

The hesitation from her parents, which is a subtext in Elena’s story, is unsurprising, given prior research suggests a strong preference among Hispanic/Latinx communities for children to remain close to home (Desmond and Lopez-Turley, 2009). Yet, Elena’s parents demonstrated emotional support by respecting Elena’s decision to move across the country. Elena’s story also captures her parents’ evolving perspective. Their enthusiasm for Elena’s decision grew once they saw how Elena was thriving in her program.

Sofia (first-generation) identified how the EXCEL program helped to ease her parents’ concerns about her moving away. During her transition interview, Sofia relayed the concerns her parents held as she made plans to accept a highly prestigious postbaccalaureate offer, which would require a move to another region of the U.S. As Sofia explained, “So, moving out was definitely one of the concerns for my parents. How would I be safe? Who would be looking out for me? How would I be able to handle living alone? … So yeah, those were definitely their concerns.”

Certainly, Sofia’s parents were expressing their love for their daughter through their concern about her well-being, particularly in a new context in which she would be physically distant from her family network. According to Sofia, the EXCEL workshops helped her parents navigate this major transition. “They’ve been to the (EXCEL) trainings for the parents… so they kind of know, ‘We need to support. We need to give our support and be there.’ And I think the (EXCEL) program has been just incredible, especially … for my parents.” Sofia’s story illustrates the vital role institutional programming can play in helping parents to channel their love and support for their children into forms of support that have tangible benefits for these young adults in their STEM career journeys.

Home–School Value Conflicts

Alongside the emotional support these young people received from their parents, a majority of our participants also experienced home–school value conflicts, that is, tensions between their family obligations and the norms and expectations embedded in their science fields (Espinoza, 2010; Vasquez-Salgado et al., 2015). We identified home–school value conflicts in the stories of both first-generation and continuing-generation young adults in our sample. As illustrated above in Elena’s and Sofia’s stories, one tension participants often discussed in their interviews centered on the decision whether or not to leave home to pursue graduate school or professional jobs. Having been socialized into their STEM fields, our participants largely recognized the career benefits of aiming for the most selective institutions for graduate school. This value system stands in tension with beliefs under familismo, which emphasize the importance of remaining near family.

Pablo (first-generation) moved across the country to pursue graduate school. When Pablo was home for his first winter break, his mother expressed that she did not want him to return to graduate school. “They don’t want me to go back. Yeah. My mom has been pretty– I mean, she does it jokingly, but at some level, I think she does kind of say like, ‘Don’t go back. Don’t go back.’ But they also say that they’re super proud of me.”

Pablo’s story illustrates how messages of “don’t leave” exist alongside expressions of support and pride for their children. Thus, these interactions are best characterized as reflecting home–school value conflicts rather than reflecting unsupportive parental relationships. Pablo’s own desire to stay connected to his family influenced his decision about which graduate school opportunity to accept. As he explained, “So one big reason that I also did kind of like going to (my graduate program) is because it is (near) a big airport. So it’s relatively easier to come back and visit home when necessary.” Though Pablo’s family-value system influenced his decision about graduate programs, Pablo did not forego prestigious opportunities. Instead, he negotiated this home–school value conflict by selecting a highly prestigious graduate program located in a big city so that he could more easily fly home to visit his family.

Like other participants, Lucas (continuing-generation) decided to remain at home while pursuing his undergraduate degree, but he moved across the country to pursue his doctoral studies at a highly prestigious university. Lucas described the tension he experienced at multiple stages when his parents did not want him to leave home to pursue his education:

Lucas’s experience suggests how persistent this home–school value conflict has been for him, as this tension emerged first as Lucas was applying for college and then again when he was applying for graduate schools. It is also noteworthy that Lucas experienced this tension, even though his father holds a graduate degree.

For Alma (continuing-generation), home–school value conflicts ran so deep that she defined her mother as “unsupportive.” Reflecting more traditional gender and religious values, Alma’s mother was not pleased that Alma was pursuing a degree in a STEM field, or a college degree at all. As Alma explained in her junior year interview, “She really didn’t want me to go to college. Like she would rather I guess like (have) me just stay home and get married and like be supported by someone else.” Alma’s mother expressed this resistance to Alma’s career plans, despite the fact that she, herself, has a college degree.

Another common source of tension for our participants centered around parental expectations of spending ample amounts of time with family. Ilene (continuing-generation) decided to enroll in a graduate program that enabled her to live at home for two additional years. She made this decision in large part because she wanted to remain near her family for as long as possible. Yet, Ilene found herself increasingly having to negotiate the demands of graduate school and her father’s expectation that she spend extended time with family:

Ilene expressed surprise in her father’s expectations, given that he holds a Ph.D. in a STEM field. As Ilene explained, “I expected my dad to be more understanding of graduate school since he had done it.” Despite his high level of education, Ilene’s father simultaneously held onto the cultural value that spending time with family should take priority over graduate schoolwork.

Luciana (first-generation) described a powerful transformation she experienced with her mother. Early-on, when Luciana began conducting research in STEM labs, her mother could not understand why Luciana did not immediately respond to her calls and texts. As Luciana explained in her junior year interview, “…Before, she would usually be very demanding, like, ‘I called you. … I’m expecting you to answer.’ Because that’s how she’s been throughout my life. … She expects me to answer whenever she calls.”

Luciana’s mother was, however, deeply impacted by the opportunity to tour Luciana’s summer-research lab and to connect with Luciana’s research mentor through the EXCEL program. Luciana explained:

Luciana experienced a powerful change in her mother’s expectations for immediate communication after this visit to the lab:

Having her family enter her world of the scientific lab, even just for an afternoon, helped to ease one of the home–school value conflicts Luciana had been negotiating. Once her mother saw the kind of work Luciana was doing in the lab and the personal protective equipment Luciana had to wear to perform experiments, Luciana’s mother became much more understanding of why Luciana could not answer her calls and texts immediately. Visiting Luciana’s lab, and taking pictures of Luciana in her STEM world, also increased her mother’s pride in her daughter, and, thus, became another source of emotional support Luciana received from her mother. This story illuminates how mentors can play a critical role in helping young Hispanic/Latinx adults to resolve, or at least to ease, some of the tensions they experience between the demands of family life and the demands of higher education.

Conversational Constraints

A final theme emerged in our interviews with these young adults, that of conversational constraints they experienced with their parents. The majority of our participants reported having difficulty sustaining nuanced conversations with their parents about their science-related college and graduate work or their career paths. Furthermore, participants overwhelmingly reported that their parents were unable to offer them concrete advice about their education or career plans. Notably, participants discussed these challenges, even as they simultaneously expressed gratitude for the high levels of emotional support they received from their parents. While conversational constraints can overlap with the kinds of home–school value conflicts we previously described, conversational constraints do not necessarily involve tension or conflict. Though patterns of conversational constraints have typically appeared in research specific to first-generation college students (Roksa et al., 2020), our analysis reveals that conversational constraints were also present for participants whose parents have college degrees.

In her junior year interview, Jackie (first-generation) explained how she had difficulty talking to her family members about her research. “I mean, they support me and everything. I feel like they don’t like fully, fully understand what I’m doing…. We hardly ever talk about my research projects, but they just know that I do something with science or something (laughs).”

Lucas’s father holds a graduate degree, and his mother completed “some college.” Though Lucas described his parents as “extremely supportive” of his career goals, Lucas’s parents were not involved at all in his process of applying for and deciding upon graduate programs. As Lucas explained in his transition interview, “Throughout the application process and the interview process, and even like choosing a school, they had really no idea quite what I was doing (laughs).” Lucas summarized their family dynamic by saying, “I think they know I’m doing well. They just don’t know what I’m doing.”

At times, these conversational constraints left Lucas feeling alienated in his graduate program: As he explained in his transition interview, “Sometimes people will be like, ‘Oh, my dad just sent me this article on (this topic).’ And I’m like, ‘My parents can’t read about (this topic).’ … I think it definitely makes you feel like you don’t belong.”

Lucas experienced a sense of alienation as he recognized his more privileged peers in graduate school sustained ongoing intellectual conversations with their parents about science related topics. This is notable, given that Lucas’s father holds a graduate degree.

Mariana (continuing-generation) described experiencing high levels of emotional support from her parents. In fact, when Mariana was feeling particularly low during her first semester away from home in graduate school, her parents came to visit her and helped her to get back on track. Yet, Mariana also often felt a disconnect when she tried to share aspects of her career path with her parents. As she explained, “Sometimes it’s a bit discouraging, you know, ‘cause they think I’m not gonna make it, or they don’t know how it is.” For this reason, Mariana learned how to rely on her peers in graduate school for more specific advice related to her education and career path.

Only two participants in our sample described having a high level of conversational involvement by a parent. Both of these participants have one parent who holds a graduate degree. Karen, for example, discussed how her father, who was in medical school himself, was able to assist her with concrete support during her undergraduate education and as she transitioned into graduate school. “He helps me with anything. If I need help looking at my abstract, I can send it to him, and he’ll revise it. If I’m nervous about a presentation, I can FaceTime him, and he’ll listen to me. If I need to vent about something, he’s always there for me.” While the majority of our participants described receiving critical emotional support from their parents, the high level of nuanced involvement and assistance Karen’s father provided her was unique among our participants.

A few students discussed how their parents and other family members have grown to understand and appreciate their STEM fields and are able to sustain more nuanced conversations about their work as these young adults moved through college. In her junior-year interview, Sofia (first-generation) described a major shift in her conversations with her family between her first year and junior year:

Having her family involved and able to grow with her was clearly important to Sofia. As she explained, “… I think that they’re definitely involved more now with the scientific community through myself. And it’s great. I love having them as a part of it.”

As a junior, Michelle (continuing-generation) also described some positive changes in her parents’ levels of conversational engagement with Michelle’s STEM-related work. During her junior year interview, Michelle observed that her parents were better able to engage in more nuanced conversations about her second summer internship compared with her first:

Michelle summarized her parents’ changes: “I would say that they’ve grown to appreciate it, to kind of be more inquisitive about it, and to be more understanding.”

During her transition interview, however, Michelle still described her parents as supportive, but not involved in her decision about what to do after graduating from college. Michelle explained that her parents left it to her to make the decision about which job offer to take upon graduation. “And I told them I had these offers from these places, but when I would try to ask them, ‘Where do you think I should go?’ or ‘What do you think I should do?’ They would definitely just be like, ‘You do what you want. You pick what you want. You know what’s right…’” Michelle added, “They were not helpful at all, but they were supportive.” Thus, though Michelle experienced improved conversational dynamics with her parents as she moved through her undergraduate work, she experienced a reemerging conversational constraint as she and her parents entered the unfamiliar terrain of postgraduation decision making. Michelle’s journey suggests the importance of continuing programming that involves family members in Hispanic/Latinx educational and career journeys. Ultimately, Michelle decided to accept an industry job in a new state.

DISCUSSION

Parental relationships remain an understudied factor in shaping Hispanic/Latinx young adults’ experiences in the STEM pipeline. In this analysis of interviews with 18 Hispanic/Latinx young adults, we identified three themes related to parental relationships: 1) emotional support from parents, 2) home–school value conflicts, and 3) conversational constraints. Overwhelmingly, our participants reported receiving critical emotional support from their parents as they traversed their college education and moved into graduate school and professional careers in STEM. This support was a central source of “aspirational capital” for the young people we interviewed (Yosso, 2005). Thus, leveraging parental support may be an important key to improving the retention rates of Hispanic/Latinx students in STEM fields.

Alongside the emotional support they received from their parents, our participants also frequently described home–school value conflicts (Vasquez-Salgado et al., 2015), that is, tensions between the value system and obligations of family and the value system and demands in their STEM fields. These home–school value conflicts included pressure to remain near home, intense demands on their time to fulfill family obligations, and expectations of frequent and immediate communication with their parents. An important finding of our study is that these patterns of home–school value conflicts were present, even for continuing-generation participants. Greenfield (2009) has argued those who live in ethnic enclaves, such as the community in which our study was conducted, tend to retain their ethnic values across social class positions. This may explain our finding that home–school value conflicts persist for continuing-generation college students, in contrast to previous study findings (Vasquez-Salgado et al., 2021).

A major contribution of this study is our identification of conversational constraints as a key dynamic in these young adults’ interactions with their parents. Most participants reported their parents did not engage in nuanced conversations about their work or did not offer detailed feedback or advice about participants’ career decisions. This pattern largely held across parental education levels. We posit two explanations for why participants experienced these conversational constraints, even when their parents held college and graduate degrees. First, this pattern suggests that engaging in nuanced conversations and giving advice related to STEM fields might require more specialized terminology and particular forms of knowledge about career paths. In other words, these college-educated parents might still not possess the specific forms of science-related knowledge that would have enabled them to engage in highly detailed conversations or to give advice to their children. Alternatively, it might be the case that the ability of participants’ college-educated parents to engage in highly involved conversations regarding STEM careers is shaped by factors such as degrees earned in Mexico versus the United States, or degrees earned at nontraditional ages. Our study design does not facilitate an exploration of these potential explanations; however, this topic warrants future scholarly attention.

Implications for Practice

Findings from this study have important implications for current and future STEM programming. Most importantly, the strong emotional support the majority of participants received from their parents illuminates a key area of strength that can be leveraged in STEM programming. A key feature of the EXCEL program was that parents and other family members were encouraged to be a part of the participants’ journeys through workshops for parents. Due to popular narratives, and real patterns, of helicopter parenting among privileged parents, college administrators and professors might bristle at the idea of involving parents and families in the learning process of college students. Yet, our findings indicate these interventions might hold an important key to facilitating the success of Hispanic/Latinx college students in STEM. Our research suggests that the emotional support that parents provide is deeply valued by these young people, but simultaneously, participants often experienced a widening disconnect between themselves and their families as they moved further along the STEM pipeline. The EXCEL program helped the parents of some of our participants to better understand the demands on students’ time, the importance of being supportive of students’ decisions to leave home to pursue educational and career opportunities, and the value of demonstrating interest in their children’s work by sustaining more nuanced conversations. Programs like EXCEL might consider more regular opportunities to involve parents in the students’ educational experiences, including inviting families to tour the students’ research labs and facilitating opportunities for families to connect with the students’ research mentors. To maximize the benefits of such interactions, faculty mentors might benefit from training that speaks to the unique positionality of Hispanic/Latinx students and the context of familismo. Finally, programming might also focus on helping students translate their science work and career demands into language that is more easily understood by their parents and other family members. Given that continuing-generation college students in our sample struggled with similar dynamics with their parents, our study findings indicate that such programming should not be limited to first-generation college students.

Implications for Future Research

Our study also points to important avenues for future research. First, while we found evidence that both men and women in our sample were negotiating the patterns we identified, the uneven numbers of men and women in our sample made it difficult to compare differences by gender. Future research should examine the nuanced ways in which the patterns we identified differ for Latinas, Latinos, transgender, and nonbinary members of the Hispanic/Latinx community. Second, our sample consists of young Hispanic/Latinx adults who remained in the STEM pipeline and in the EXCEL program in particular. Our findings might point to potential family dynamics, which made it difficult for others to remain in the program or to continue to pursue careers in science altogether. Do levels of parental emotional support vary for the students who have dropped out of the STEM pipeline while in college? Do home–school value conflicts partly explain other young Hispanic/Latinx adults’ decisions to change to non-STEM majors, and are these constraints particularly powerful for first-generation college students? These are important questions to be explored in future research. Finally, research reveals familismo includes deep attachments to extended kin. Thus, while our focus was on parental relationships, future research might explore these questions as they relate to both siblings and extended kin. For example, given we found some parents were also gaining knowledge about STEM careers from our participants, the impact of parents’ newly acquired knowledge on their interactions with younger children is an important topic for future investigation.

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