Received: 12 January 2018 | Accepted: 24 July 2018 DOI: 10.1002/pits.22239 RESEARCH ARTICLE Academic socialization, parental educational expectations, and academic self‐efficacy among Latino adolescents Fernanda L. Cross 1 | Aixa D. Marchand 2 | Michael Medina 2 | Andrea Villafuerte 1 | Deborah Rivas‐Drake 3 1 Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 2 Combined Program in Psychology and Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 3 Department of Psychology, School of Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan Correspondence Fernanda L. Cross, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48103. Email: flcross@umich.edu. Present address Andrea Villafuerte, Stanford University Graduate School of Business, Stanford, California. Abstract This study examined the direct association between parental educational expectations and adolescents’ academic self‐ efficacy, as well as the moderating influence of parental academic socialization messages. Participants were 148 Latino parent–adolescent dyads with the majority of Mexican origin (80.4%). Most of the parent participants were mothers (85.8%). Adolescents were 13 (46%) or 14 (54%) years of age, and 53% identified as female. Adolescents reported their academic self‐ efficacy and perceptions of their parents’ educational expecta- tions; parents reported on their academic socialization messages of shame/pressure and effort regarding academics. The results suggest that, after accounting for parents’ level of education and immigrant status, parental educational expecta- tions were positively associated with adolescent academic self‐ efficacy. This association was stronger among adolescents whose parents reported transmitting fewer messages of shame/pressure and academic effort. These results point to the importance of nuances in the content and type of academic socialization messages within Latino families. KEYWORDS academic self‐efficacy, academic socialization, educational expectations, Latino adolescents, parent–school involvement Psychol Schs. 2019;56:483–496. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pits © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. | 483