Parenting Practices and Expectations Among Mexican Mothers With Young Children PEDRO SOLlS-CAMARA R. Mexican Social Secur ity Institute, Guadalajar a ROBERT A. FOX Par enting Center , School of Education Mar quette Univer sity ABSTRACT. Parenting practices and developmental expectations were examined in a sam- pleof 221 Mexican mothers with very young children living in Guadalajara, Jalisco. They completed a Spanish version of the Parent Behavior Checklist (PBC), a IOO-itemrating scale thatmeasures parents' developmental expectations, discipline, and nurturing practices. The psychometric properties ofthe PBC for Mexican mothers, including test-retest relia- bilities, werevery similar to those foundfor mothers of youngchildren in theUnited States. Younger Mexican mothers used more frequent discipline and less nurturing with their young children than oldermothers did. Married mothers nurtured their children more than unmarried mothers; young, unmarried mothers nurtured their children the least. Lower nur- turing scores were associated with lower education levels, and higher nurturing scores were associated withhigher education levels. Mothers from higher socioeconomic levels held higherdevelopmental expectations for their children, and they used less frequent discipline and more frequent nurturing practices thanmothers fromlower socioeconomic levels. These findings are consistent with those for mothers of young chi Idren in theUnited States. THE FAMILY CONTEXT, including its complex andongoing bidirectional and interactive processes, has increasingly been recognized as important in the social- ization of children (Maccoby, 1992; Maccoby & Martin, 1983).More specifically, attention has been devoted to determining the influenceofparenting in thesocial- ization process (Simons, Beaman, Conger, & Chao, 1993). As this literature has expanded, Darlingand Steinberg(1993) have recommended thatresearchers main- tain a distinctionbetweenparentingstyleand parentingpractices.They defined par- enting style as a "constellation of attitudes towJllit!lJechild that are communicated .ddr ess cor r espondence to Robert A. Fox, Par enting Center , Mar quette Univer sity, P. O. Box 1881, Milwaukee, WI5J: OI-1881.