Julia Mendez

Dr. Mendez has research and teaching interests related to the impact of poverty on the development of young children, parent involvement in children’s education, risk and resilience, and clinical interventions for ethnic minority children and families. In 2001, she received a five-year federal grant to develop and test a preventive intervention designed to promote home-school connection and parent-child interactive learning for children attending Head Start programs. Her current research, also funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, is a three-year project examining parent involvement and barriers to school readiness for children from English Language Learner families.

There are 39 included publications by Julia Mendez :

TitleDateViewsBrief Description
Acculturation, Religiosity, and Ethnicity Predict Mothers’ Causal Beliefs About Separation Anxiety Disorder and Preferences for Help-Seeking 2012 1739 This study examined causal beliefs about separation anxiety disorder (SAD) and preferences for help-seeking among 117 Indian American, Puerto Rican, and European American mothers. Mothers completed measures of acculturation and strength of religious ...
Adapting clinical services to accommodate needs of refugee populations. 2011 2977 The diversity of the refugee population in the United States requires practicing psychologists to respond by adapting clinical services to meet their mental health needs. However, the available literature on culturally adapted treatments is only a fi...
Adaptive and Challenged Parenting Among African American Mothers: Parenting Profiles Relate to Head Start Children's Aggression and Hyperactivity 2013 3780 Research Findings: This study used a within-group research design and person-centered analytic methods to identify multidimensional profiles of parenting styles, parenting practices, and related emotional factors in a sample of 274 African American m...
African American father involvement and preschool children’s school readiness 2005 5924 A developmental ecological model was used to identify child attributes, father characteristics, and familial factors associated with multidimensional father involvement with preschool children enrolled in Head Start. The relations between father invo...
Assessing the play beliefs of African American mothers with preschool children 2006 5861 A rating scale measuring parent beliefs about play was developed and validated with a sample of 224 African American mothers of children attending Head Start. Principal components analyses of the Parent Play Beliefs Scale (PPBS) revealed two factors,...
Batswana adolescents’ interpretation of American music videos: So that’s what that means! 2001 3579 Understanding the impact of mass media communication from developing countries on Black populations continues to be an important research topic. This study assessed the impact of television, specifically, music video programming from the United State...
Centers Serving High Percentages of Young Hispanic Children Compare Favorably to Other Centers on Key Predictors of Quality 2017 258 In this brief, the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families uses recent national data to better understand the predictors of quality of ECE centers that serve significant numbers of low-income Hispanic children from birth through age ...
Children’s engagement in play at home: a parent’s role in supporting play opportunities during early childhood 2016 2076 This study examined parents’ developmentally appropriate beliefs about young children’s play and parents’ views on their child’s play skills. This exploratory secondary data analysis was drawn from data on low-income African-American and Latino paren...
Conceptualizing sociocultural factors within clinical and research contexts. 2005 1901 Cafri, Yamamiya, Brannick, and Thompson (this issue) reported results from a meta-analysis of relations between three sociocultural factors and body image dissatisfaction. Comparison of the effect sizes reveals that internalization of a thin ideal an...
Contextually –relevant validation of peer play constructs with African American Head Start children: Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale 1998 3602 The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the construct and concurrent validity of a modified version of the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale (PIPPS), a teacher-rating instrument of interactive play behaviors of preschool children. PIPPS were...
Cross-ethnic measurement equivalence of measures of depression, social anxiety and worry. 2010 1223 Although study of clinical phenomena in individuals from different ethnic backgrounds has improved over the years, African American and Asian American individuals continue to be underrepresented in research samples. Without adequate psychometric data...
Emotion regulation, language ability, and the stability of preschool children's peer play behavior 2009 1987 Research Findings: This study examined the stability of preschoolers' peer play behavior across the school year and the relations between emotion regulation, receptive vocabulary, and the trajectory of social competence deficits. Participants were 33...
Evidence-based solutions for overcoming access barriers, decreasing attrition, and promoting change with underserved families 2004 2762 Various definitions exist for what constitutes family therapy (e.g., Haley, 1976; Minuchin, 1974; Webster-Stratton, Kolpacoff, & Hollinsworth, 1988). In this article, we consider family therapy to encompass any intervention that targets family intera...
Examining the Role of Self Efficacy and Communication as Related to Dimensions of Latino Parent Involvement in Head Start 2013 2182 This study reports data on a sample of Latino immigrant parents and their associated levels of parent involvement in Head Start. Parent involvement was defined and measured as parent behaviors supporting educational and developmental outcomes occurri...
Familism Through a Developmental Lens 2014 6880 This article reviews an emerging literature examining the effects of familism across childhood and adolescence. Familism has been described as a Latino cultural value that emphasizes obligation, filial piety, family support and obedience, and its eff...
Head Start University-Community Partnerships and Mentorship of Graduate Students in Early Childhood Research 2006 2494 University-community partnerships are becoming increasingly salient to the development of early childhood education experiences that promote school readiness for young children (Barnett & Frede, 2001). Given the unique skills required for such collab...
Hispanic Children’s Participation in Early Care and Education: Amount and Timing of Hours by Household Nativity Status, Race/Ethnicity, and Child Age 2018 291 One aspect of ECE utilization that is relevant for child and family well-being is the amount and timing of hours that young children spend in different ECE settings. This brief from the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families uses pu...
Hispanic Children’s Participation in Early Care and Education: Type of Care by Household Nativity Status, Race/Ethnicity, and Child Age 2016 299 ECE programs, especially those that are high quality and center-based, have been shown to promote school readiness and early achievement for children in low-income families. Several studies have shown that low-income Hispanic parents, especially thos...
How Common Are Nonstandard Work Schedules Among Low-Income Hispanic Parents of Young Children? 2017 378 As the United States has shifted to a 24/7 economy, increasing numbers of U.S. workers work nonstandard hours (i.e., beyond the traditional Monday to Friday daytime schedule).1 Given that early care and education (ECE) options are limited during thes...
How can parents get involved in preschool? Barriers and engagement in education by ethnic minority parents of children attending Head Start programs. 2010 7436 An intervention was developed to promote parent involvement with ethnic minority families of children attending Head Start preschool programs. Two hundred eighty-eight predominantly African American families from a small southern city were included i...
Impact of trauma exposure and acculturative stress on internalizing symptoms for recently arrived migrant-origin youth: Results from a community-based partnership 2017 1605 Migrant youth face cultural challenges upon initial adjustment into the United States. Although there is considerable empirical evidence that trauma impacts interpersonal relations, there is a dearth of research examining the association between adve...
Implementation of a culturally adapted treatment to reduce barriers for Latino parents. 2012 2593 Literature to date has not yet included a comprehensive examination of barriers to participation in treatment for Latino populations, incorporating the role of acculturation. This study reports on the process of developing and implementing a cultural...
Mexican Immigrant Family Life in a Pre-Emerging Southern Gateway Community 2015 366 This report provides a rich picture of the lives of Mexican-American couples as they navigate parenting and family life in pre-emerging immigrant communities. Specifically, we share insights gleaned from the UNIDOS study of 120 couples with young chi...
Parent characteristics, economic stress, and neighborhood context as predictors of parent involvement in preschool children’s education 2007 7478 This study examines factors related to three dimensions of parent involvement in preschool: school-based involvement, home-based involvement, and the parent–teacher relationship. Participants were 154 predominantly African American parents recruited ...
Parent involvement, parental depression, and program satisfaction among low-income parents participating in a two-generation early childhood education program. 2010 4609 Research Findings: This study simultaneously examined parental depression and parent involvement as predictors of satisfaction with an early childhood intervention program. Parents (N = 203) of Head Start children participated in this short-term long...
Parental assessment of peer play: Development and validation of the parent version of the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale 1998 4472 The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the construct validity of the parent version of the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale (PIPPS) and to compare it with the teacher version. PIPPS were collected on 297 urban Head Start children. The Pare...
Parental engagement and barriers to participation in a community-based preventive intervention. 2009 3023 This study examined parent characteristics and barriers to participation in a community-based preventive intervention with a sample of 201 parents from low-income and predominantly ethnic minority backgrounds. Person-centered analyses revealed five s...
Parental reports of preschool children’s social behavior: Relations among peer play, language competence and problem behavior 2002 5200 This investigation examined relations between preschool children's play behavior, language competence, and problem behavior. Parents and teachers provided information on 113 preschool children enrolled in a Head Start program. A subset of these child...
Peer play interactions and readiness to learn: A protective influence for African American preschool children from low-income households. 2012 5060 Guided by a strengths-based resiliency framework, this article reviews a body of research on the positive influence of interactive peer play for African American preschool children from low-income households. This literature provides evidence for pos...
Play beliefs and responsive parenting among low-income mothers of preschoolers in the United States 2016 1826 This study examined associations between parents’ developmentally appropriate beliefs about young children’s play and responsive parenting. Low-income parents and their children enrolled in Head Start programmes (n?=?231) in the United States partici...
Preschool peer interactions and readiness to learn: Relationships between classroom peer play and learning behaviors and conduct 2000 16834 Promoting young children's readiness to learn is a national priority. This mandate is clearly stated within the first of our National Education Goals, which reads that all American children will start school ready to learn by the year 2000 (U.S. Depa...
Profiles of social competence among low income African American preschool children 2002 5235 Relations between children’s personal attributes and peer play competence were investigated in a sample of 141 African American preschool children who participated in Head Start. Variable-oriented analyses confirmed that dispositions of temperament, ...
Resilient partners: The development of a university community collaboration to promote wellness for Head Start children and families 2005 2397 This paper describes a theoretically driven approach uniquely suited for the development of research partnerships between university teams and local communities serving children enrolled in Head Start programs. A literature review on dimensions of su...
Using Existing Large-Scale Data to Study Early Care and Education Among Hispanics: Families’ Utilization of Early Care and Education 2016 255 As part of a project analyzing existing large-scale data sets with information about the ECE experiences of Hispanic populations, this brief describes survey data elements relevant to studying the patterns and characteristics of Hispanic families’ EC...
Using Existing Large-Scale Data to Study Early Care and Education Among Hispanics: How Hispanic Parents and Children Experience ECE Settings 2016 412 As part of a larger effort to build research capacity related to early care and education (ECE) issues for low-income Hispanic families, this brief describes data elements specific to the experiences children and families have with ECE providers and ...
Using Existing Large-Scale Data to Study Early Care and Education Among Hispanics: Project Overview and Methodology 2016 432 To promote the well-informed and strategic use of data for building the knowledge base aboutLatinos’ ECE access and utilization, the interrelated briefs in this series provide summary information and data tables that can be used by researchers to sel...
Using Existing Large-Scale Data to Study Early Care and Education Among Hispanics: Search and Decision-Making 2016 386 New research is needed to learn more about how, when, and why Latino parents access certain early childhood programs and services, and not others. As highlighted in this brief series, numerous existing large-scale data sets offer potentially valuable...
A validation study of the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale with urban Hispanic and African American preschool children 2002 4264 Promoting young children’s readiness to learn is a national priority. With the arrival of the new millennium, it is appropriate to reassess our National Education Goal that all American children will start school ready to learn by the year 2000 (U.S....
The validity of interactive peer play competencies for Latino preschool children from low-income households 2016 1603 In accord with a strength-based, eco-cultural model, the present study examined the validity of the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale-Teacher report (PIPPS-T; Fantuzzo, Coolahan, Mendez, McDermott, & Sutton-Smith, 1998) for use with Latino preschool c...