Rogelio Becerra Songolo- Department of Education Studies, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, United States
Literature on fathers’ characteristics and parenting behaviors that influence math development remains limited, particularly with respect to Mexican-heritage (MH) fathers. Thus, this mini review addresses this gap by discussing seminal work and recent findings that can point future research in useful directions. The review relies on an established heuristic model that places fathers’ multidimensional qualities as important contributors to children’s development. Importantly, this mini review is among the first to apply this framework specifically to the study of MH fathers in relation to early math development. Twelve peer-reviewed articles published as early as 2000, which analyzed at least a sub-sample of MH or Latine fathers’ characteristics and parenting behaviors were included in this mini review. The review examines paternal characteristics like beliefs about gender roles, linguistic, educational, and financial resources, as well as parenting behaviors such as paternal engagement, responsiveness, and early investments in education. Drawing from studies of diverse methodological approaches, this non-exhaustive review illustrates the varied ways in which fathering and math development have been conceptualized among MH populations. Yet, mixed methods analyses– especially those that focus on non-heterosexual MH fathers– could highlight developmental supports among samples seldom studied. The review concludes by discussing the ethical and educational implications of a continued focus on MH children’s math development. Given the large proportion of MH children in US classrooms and the need to enhance math education through culturally responsive manners, it is imperative to continue to focus on father-child dynamics within this demographic.
Introduction
Children are shaped by influential actors within their environment such as family members (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). Yet, most of the research that has focused on parental influences on child development has solely analyzed mother-child dyads (Baker, 2017; Caughy et al., 2020; Kim and Hill, 2015; Volling and Cabrera, 2019). As such, there is an increasing body of literature focused on father-child dynamics, for it is widely concluded that they too influence a child’s cognitive growth (Cabrera et al., 2014; Toxtle-Colotl et al., 2025). Although humans possess innate skills that serve as building blocks for later learning (Carey, 2011; Gelman, 2004), it is imperative to understand how one’s cultural heritage guides learning processes (Abdulrahim and Orosco, 2019; Gay, 2018; Vélez-Agosto et al., 2017; Vygotsky, 1967). As a result, this mini review aims to synthesize seminal and emerging literature focused on underrepresented fathers’ influence on child math development. Specifically, this review aims to contribute toward the sparse body of scholarship that exclusively centers Mexican-heritage (MH) father-child dyads.
Cultural heritage encompasses the traditions that involve the use and transformation of cultural artifacts and phenomena within specific family, community and institutional contexts (Rogoff, 2003). As such, when analyzing children’s development within any given domain, their sociocultural characteristics must be accounted for Bronfenbrenner (1994), Vélez-Agosto et al. (2017). Despite the sociocultural commonalities that individuals from Latin American lineages living in the US may share, this review considers that lumping every Latin American nationality/ethnicity under the Latine classification can be problematic. For context, the Latino label was first introduced in the 2000 US Census, under the question “Is this person Spanish/Hispanic/Latino?” (Cohn, 2010) to enhance the government’s estimates of peoples from Latin American descent living in the US. This came as a result of a decades-long series of failed attempts to classify Latin American individuals (Rodríguez et al., 2013). Seemingly, for generations, the US government and entire demographics have wrestled with confounding and contradicting theories of “race” and “ethnicity” (Rodríguez et al., 2013).
Latine and Latinx have been used interchangeably in recent literature in recognition of non-binary individuals. Interestingly, the word Latine is lexically-suitable in the Spanish language– compared to Latinx– which allows conversations regarding this demographic to occur in English and/or Spanish. Accordingly, this review opts for Latine given its ease of use in both languages. Latine is used in this mini review only when discussing studies that utilize the Latino/a/x/e label(s). Similarly, it intentionally shifts away from studying Latine fathers as a siloed demographic, by instead synthesizing literature reflecting the qualities of MH fathers. This approach allows analyses of intragroup heterogeneity that may differentiate MH fathers from other Latine subgroups (López et al., 2023). As such, MH fathers are herein understood to be those whose families are of Mexican ancestry, regardless of their generational and/or immigration status, or daily use of Spanish.
Latine children are projected to represent roughly 30% of the school population by 2050 (Leyva et al., 2022), with MH children making up the majority of this population. Seminal contributions to the field of child development have suggested that MH fathers play a powerful role in the societal adaptation of their children (Cabrera and Bradley, 2012; Fuller and García Coll, 2010), but more research is needed within the math domain. Therefore, this mini review will seek to answer the following question: How do the characteristics and parenting behaviors of MH fathers impact their children’s math development?
Conceptual framework and literature search strategy
To date, there is not one universal theory successfully grounding the concept of fathering (Cabrera and Bradley, 2012; Volling and Cabrera, 2019), appropriately so, for it would swiftly fall vulnerable to claims of cultural erasure. Luckily, there are ecological frameworks (Bronfenbrenner, 1994; Lamb et al., 1987) that can account for the rich multidimensionality of fatherhood in contemporary contexts (Cabrera et al., 2007). Cabrera et al.’s (2014) expanded Heuristic Model of the Dynamics of Paternal Behavior and Influence on Children Over Time builds on these seminal frameworks by proposing directionality among factors that impact child development. The Model indicates that parenting behaviors– themselves influenced by paternal beliefs and characteristics– directly influence how a child develops (see Cabrera et al., 2014 for the full heuristic model). Importantly, this is the pathway of influence – as prescribed by Cabrera et al. (2014) – that will guide the synthesis and discussion of this mini review. Based on a search of the literature, this mini review is likely the first to rely on Cabrera et al.’s (2014) model within the domain of early math development among MH families.
Method
An initial search across three databases, using the following keywords: ((Mexican) OR (Latin*)), (father* OR paternal), ((characteristics) OR (beliefs)), (parenting behavior*), and (child math development) produced exceedingly large (GoogleScholar, n = 37,500), or exceedingly small (Web of Science, n = 2) samples; only ERIC generated an adequate sample size (n = 171). Consequently, the following inclusion criteria were applied: (1) peer-reviewed publication, (2) at minimum a partial analysis explicitly focusing on Mexican-heritage (MH) or Latine fathers’ characteristics, and/or parenting behaviors, and (3) articles published between 2000 and 2025. This date range permits the inclusion of foundational studies and more recent contributions to the field. Rooting back to the early 2000s, there was a substantial increase in theoretical and empirical scholarship that continues to be fundamental in recent literature. Moreover, prominent scholarship has highlighted a sociocultural shift that has seen fathers’ increased involvement in their children’s development over the past few decades (Cabrera et al., 2000). Additional scholars underline the increased presence in the US education system of linguistically and ethnically diverse children– particularly those from Latine/Hispanic backgrounds (López et al., 2024). Thus, considering that scholarship focused explicitly on MH samples is an emerging field, this date parameter appears appropriate for the scope and length of this mini review. Despite the substantial reduction achieved through the inclusion criteria (from N = 37,600 to N = 6,300), the resulting sample remained too large for analysis within the scope of this mini review. This remained the case even after applying the following exclusion criteria: focus on middle school, high school or college; analyses of an academic domain other than math; published in a language other than English; mention of Hispanic/Latine/MH samples but no explicit analysis on those demographics, and; studies conducted outside of the US. Nevertheless, as I read through the first 30 abstracts from each of the Google Scholar and ERIC results, it became evident that the vast majority of the articles did not rise to the narrow specificity of the topic. Most of the abstracts focused broadly on Latine parents rarely mentioning MH subsamples, a sizable portion analyzed mothers rather than fathers, while others compared parenting practices across racial groups. Thus, it became evident that this approach would not produce a sample that explicitly analyzed the central components of this mini review: the characteristics and parenting practices of MH fathers and their impact on young children’s math development.
As a result, implementing a snowball sampling method emerged as a more suitable strategy for identifying literature that explicitly addressed the narrow focus of this mini review. Specifically, I used a backward citation tracking method of the reference list of articles that anchor the focus of this mini review, such as Cabrera et al.’s (2014) and Cabrera and Bradley (2012), along with forward citation tracking (e.g., Google Scholar’s “Cited by” function) to surface studies that explicitly addressed the focal topic. This has been identified as an appropriate method when researching niche areas of research where terminology varies and relevant work may not be captured through keyword searches alone (Greenhalgh and Peacock, 2005; Hirt et al., 2023). This review also draws on Greenhalgh and Peacock’s (2005) findings suggesting that pursuing references of seminal sources– supplemented by the researcher’s own expert knowledge– can yield robust literature reviews of new and emerging fields. Ultimately, this screening process yielded the 12 articles herein reviewed. These 12 articles are representative of the scant scholarship that has analyzed paternal impacts on math development exclusively within a specific ethnic group in the US.
Ten of the 12 articles discuss either paternal characteristics or parenting behaviors in conjunction with math development, while two [e.g., Swirbul et al. (2025) and Cabrera et al. (2017)] discuss all three concepts. Due to the scarce literature, the review utilizes Latine when discussing influential articles that use this pan-ethnic term, but highlights MH-specific findings whenever possible.
The Section “Results” is organized according to the pathway of influence described in the previous section [e.g., paternal characteristics that influence parenting behaviors, which in turn influence child math development (Cabrera et al., 2014)]. As such, this mini review first presents salient paternal characteristics among MH fathers (e.g., fathers’ beliefs and expectations about gender roles, as well as their linguistic, educational and financial resources), followed by a review of MH fathering practices known to influence early math development (e.g., engagement and responsiveness, and early investments in education). The mini review concludes by discussing areas for future development and suggestions for strengthening future research designs.
Results
Cultural gender roles and expectations
The impact of fathers’ acculturation level on children’s development has been analyzed in the US and beyond (Leavell et al., 2012). In particular, there has been an emphasis on centering how paternal cultural values impact parenting forms. Cruz et al. (2011) analyzed MH fathers (n = 450) and their adherence to Mexican- and American-aligned cultural values vis-à-vis their children’s reports of positive fathering. Latent regression models did not uncover associations between fathers’ Mexican nor American cultural values and the way their parenting was perceived by their children (Cruz et al., 2011) (see the Supplementary materials for an overview of the research design, sample specifications and data collection instruments of all 12 articles). Fathers’ beliefs about gender roles were also underscored in the literature as important contributors to fathering forms. Semi-structured interviews conducted by Taylor and Behnke (2005) highlighted gender socialization views and cultural beliefs among MH fathers living in the US (n = 19) and in Mexico (n = 13). Results revealed that fathers residing in Mexico were twice as likely to adhere to traditional beliefs about gender roles when compared to those in the US subsample (Taylor and Behnke, 2005). Their findings align with those from Cabrera and Bradley (2012), in that acculturation to the US may contribute toward increased paternal involvement in academic activities– an expected contribution in this country. Fathers in the US were more likely to report an equal expectation about academic achievement between daughters and sons, compared to fathers living in Mexico (Taylor and Behnke, 2005). Cabrera et al. (2012) echoed a similar sentiment: that MH fathers in the US embrace their role as teachers with egalitarian academic expectations, regardless of their children’s gender.
Linguistic, educational and financial resources
Hierarchical regression analyses conducted by Baker (2018) revealed that MH parents (n = 880) who were proficient in English were more likely to engage in activities that stimulated learning at home. Importantly, MH fathers’ English proficiency was positively associated with children’s math scores (β = 0.13, p ≤ 0.01) (Baker, 2018). Conversely, Masek et al.’s (2024) correlational analysis on Latine fathers (n = 24) revealed no difference in “math talk” between parents who spoke predominantly English and those who spoke primarily Spanish. Similarly, Swirbul et al. (2025) found that neither the use of Spanish or English among Latine fathers (n = 25) predicted the amount of “spatial talk” spoken during non-structured play activities. Analyses of contextual factors that contribute toward the formation of young Dual Language Learners found parental language use within MH households to be associated with math achievement (López et al., 2024). Latent profile analyses among MH families (n = 159) suggested that children who hear both English and Spanish at home were more likely to achieve higher math scores.
Paternal education and employment were similarly described as important factors in a child’s development (Arellanes et al., 2023; Cabrera et al., 2017; Cabrera and Bradley, 2012; López et al., 2024). Latine fathers (n = 17) interviewed by Arellanes et al.’s (2023) worked jobs that required physical labor and long hours mostly as a result of their limited formal education. And although this type of employment limited their direct participation in their children’s academics, they perceived their employment as a way to ensure a better future for their children. These narrative-based findings stand in contrast to quantitative findings that may not paint a full picture. Results from Leavell et al.’s (2012) Repeated Measures ANCOVAs suggested that Latine fathers’ (n = 132) lower levels of caregiving “[is] explained by their lower levels of education compared to White and African American fathers” (p. 60). Moreover, Taylor and Behnke (2005) found that an overwhelming majority of the MH fathers living in the US, compared to those in Mexico, believed that receiving an education was the most important goal for their children. This topic merits continued attention considering that many of the MH fathers included in this review had attained minimal levels of education (Arellanes et al., 2023; Baker, 2018; Leavell et al., 2012; López et al., 2024; Taylor and Behnke, 2005), and that father education has been positively associated with children’s math achievement (β = 0.14, p < 0.001) (Cabrera et al., 2017).
Engagement and responsiveness
Coley et al.’s (2011) autoregressive model analysis on Latine fathers (n = 117, 45% of the total sample) revealed that neither paternal warmth (e.g., physical/emotional response to children’s needs), stimulating fathering (e.g., engagement in cognitively enriching activities), nor restrictive fathering (e.g., disciplinary attitudes) were associated with math skills among Latine children. An analysis on fathering practices’ impact on math achievement among Latine (n = 171, 88.6% of total sample) and African American (AA) children found that paternal sensitivity (p < 0.05) and positive regard (p < 0.001) toward children was higher among Latine fathers than AA fathers (Caughy et al., 2020). The same study found that paternal intrusiveness was higher among Latine fathers of boys compared to Latine fathers of girls (p < 0.05), thereby adding weight to claims of early gender socialization (e.g., Taylor and Behnke, 2005). Masek et al.’s (2024) study on parental math talk found no difference in how Latine fathers and mothers scaffolded their children’s math understanding. Moreover, although math talk differed significantly (p < 0.05) depending on the play materials father-child dyads engaged with (e.g., spatial-, numerical- and magnitudinal-oriented toys), analyses revealed an association between parents and their children’s use of math talk during play (Masek et al., 2024). A similar study on “spatial talk” among Latine father-child dyads found that Spanish-dominant parents used more deictic [e.g., aquí (here), allá (there)] words than English-dominant parents (Swirbul et al., 2025). Interestingly, fathers and toddlers produced virtually the same amount of unique words in English as they did in Spanish (181 and 180, respectively) (Swirbul et al., 2025).
An examination of the developmental trajectories of Latine boys found that Latine fathers engaged more often in harsher disciplinary practices with their sons than their daughters (d = 0.12, p < 0.05). Yet, fathers reported higher nurturing levels– such as singing– with their sons compared to their daughters at 24 months of age (d = 0.65, p < 0.001) but not at 9 months of age (Cabrera et al., 2017). The study also noted that Latine boys and girls received similar levels of cognitive stimulation. Involvement in child rearing as early as the prenatal stages is also discussed in the literature (Cabrera and Bradley, 2012). Specifically, MH fathers are likely to be involved during this stage, which has been linked to paternal involvement later in a child’s life (Cabrera and Bradley, 2012). Similarly, Coley et al.’s (2011) longitudinal study on the influence of fathers’ parenting over long-term cognitive growth revealed that neither restrictive parenting nor engagement among Latine father-child dyads impacted math development.
Early investments in education
In their analysis of influences on fathers’ engagement in educational activities, Arellanes et al. (2023) found that –given their limited income and education– Latine fathers prioritized a stable and supportive home learning environment. The fathers demonstrated resourcefulness in encouraging their children’s academic learning by enacting rewarding protocols that allowed children to receive a financial bonus for performing well in school (Arellanes et al., 2023). Fathers noted that this monetary agreement was an adaptation of their own employment experiences. Moreover, Baker’s (2018) study revealed a positive association between family income and math achievement (β = 0.08, p < 0.05). Although Baker’s (2018) findings indicated that fathers who were proficient in English were more likely to engage their children in stimulating activities, learning stimulation was not associated with children’s math scores. Conversely, López et al. (2024) found that children who hear English and Spanish at home perform well on math tasks, thereby challenging future studies to tease apart the idiosyncrasies between fathers’ income, linguistic investments, and children’s math achievement.
Discussion
Like other immigrants, newly arrived MH fathers must grapple with cultural values that may clash against their own, yet, they may realize that a cultural shift must occur in order to position their children for success (Cruz et al., 2011). Shifting one’s beliefs, parenting behaviors and overall identities is something that requires time and learning. This shift was expressed by the fathers interviewed by Taylor and Behnke (2005), in particular, those who expressed the importance of a strong work ethic and the tenacity their children needed to display to succeed academically. The fathers interviewed by Arellanes et al. (2023) might agree, particularly those who expressed that while their job was that of the provider, schoolwork was the child’s job. Redefining family values in light of the new cultural landscape may come along with father-child conflict, yet, some of the evidence presented here might suggest that stern fathering may not negatively impact math development and may in fact support it (Cruz et al., 2011).
Future research could complement findings from Masek et al. (2024) and Swirbul et al. (2025) that suggest that MH fathers do not verbally adjust scaffolding when doing math-related tasks based on their child’s gender. Plausably, longitudinal studies could address whether that level of verbal scaffolding holds steady over time, and whether fathers contribute through other mediums toward the underrepresentation of women in math-related fields. As such, building upon cross-sectional studies could produce more nuanced understandings of father-daughter dynamics beyond observed play interactions. Importantly, this mini review intentionally omitted the extensive research describing the importance of co-parenting on a child’s development (Cabrera et al., 2014). The concise nature of this mini review disallowed such a discussion but it would be unfair to proceed without recognizing mother figures’ essential role.
Strengthening research designs
The available literature invites some critical observations. Among the most important is the lack of inclusion of non-heterosexual fathers. It is imperative that future research analyzes parental influences on children’s math development by including the voices and identities of all sexual and gender minority parents. Studies focusing on non-heterosexual, non-gay, non-lesbian, and/or transgender couples can increase our understanding of the rich experiences that result from complex, fluid and intersecting identities. Accounting for the promotive factors that may become salient in these studies can assist in celebrating sexual and gender minority parents. Additionally, although this review presents a wide variety of research designs, sample sizes and complexity in data collection instruments, mixed methods studies were sorely missed. Merging qualitative and quantitative analyses could provide results supported by reliable assessment tools, while simultaneously including the voices of those being researched. Crawford et al.’s (2018) powerful commentary on Quantitative Critical Race Theory (QuantCrit) can help in addressing this gap. QuantCrit can strengthen studies with potentially misleading interpretations such as the one conducted by Leavell et al. (2012). The study’s conclusion that low levels of caregiving among Latine fathers is explained by their low levels of education could benefit from incorporating a qualitative component. That is, since caregiving was assessed based on frequency reports of participation in at-home, parenting activities, asking fathers for their definition of caregiving or how they enact it could provide a more genuine account of caregiving. Indeed, disallowing data “to speak for itself” can help in strengthening future studies and testing researchers’ commitment to social justice and equity (Crawford et al., 2018). Moreover, longitudinal studies can complement cross-sectional analyses by contrasting cross-sectional findings with those that analyze progress– or lackthereof– over a period of time. Longitudinal research could enhance the field’s understanding of children’s math development at different time points and how to adjust educational support accordingly.
Conclusion
To the best of the author’s knowledge, this mini review is among the first to highlight MH fathers’ influence on their children’s math development by explicitly relying on Cabrera et al.’s (2014) conceptual framework. Certainly, there is a considerable amount of research that has espoused their heuristic model, as well as research that has focused on MH fathers’ contributions to math development. Nevertheless, this mini review stands out for being the first to combine both. Its examination of father-child dynamics that occur at the micro level serve as a foundation for future studies interested in analyzing exo- and macro-level influences (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). In fact, the strong representation of immigrant fathers throughout this mini review (Arellanes et al., 2023; Baker, 2018; Caughy et al., 2020; Cruz et al., 2011; Leavell et al., 2012; López et al., 2024; Taylor and Behnke, 2005) opens avenues for future scholarship analyzing how societal factors shape fathers’ roles in children’s math development. Similar is the case for cultural, political and economic conditions that bound fathers within specific societal parameters (Cabrera et al., 2014). For this reason, this mini review could constitute an initial step toward identifying and scrutinizing current and future support systems for this demographic. To that end, this contribution to the field comes at a pivotal moment in the US. At the time of the writing of this publication, men, women and children from Latine backgrounds in the US face unprecedented targeting by the federal government’s mass deportation efforts, regardless of their citizenship, immigration or criminal status (Gonzalez, 2024; Suárez-Orozco et al., 2021). Thus, the current societal landscape offers an opportunity for education researchers to celebrate Latine fathers’ contributions to their children’s math development, while simultaneously highlighting current obstacles faced by this demographic. In light of Latine children’s continued underperformance on math assessments (Caughy et al., 2020) and the brief discussion of promotive influences of Latine fathers herein presented, continued research implementing family-centered interventions can help leverage children’s sociocultural capital. As mentioned, within the next few decades Latine children will make up 30% of the school population in the US; and considering the increased paternal involvement in a child’s development among MH fathers, it behooves educators and policymakers to continue pursuing avenues of support for a population that will only continue to grow in this country.
Author contributions
RB: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.
Funding
The author(s) declared that financial support was not received for this work and/or its publication.
Acknowledgments
The author acknowledge Christoforos Mamas for his assistance with writing, review, and editing of the manuscript.
Conflict of interest
The author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
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The author(s) declared that generative AI was not used in the creation of this manuscript.
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Supplementary material
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2025.1700500/full#supplementary-material
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Keywords: Mexican-heritage, fathers, child development, math, ecological model
Citation: Becerra Songolo R (2026) Mexican-heritage fathers’ impact on their children’s math development: a mini review. Front. Educ. 10:1700500. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1700500
Received: 06 September 2025; Revised: 20 November 2025; Accepted: 22 December 2025;
Published: 14 January 2026.
Edited by:
Meenakshi Sharma Yadav, King Khalid University, Saudi ArabiaReviewed by:
Aisyah Durrotun Nafisah, Darul Ulum Islamic University, IndonesiaCopyright © 2026 Becerra Songolo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Rogelio Becerra Songolo, cmJlY2VycmFzb25nb2xvQHVjc2QuZWR1