ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the concept of culturally informed theorizing as a necessary component of research with Mexican Americans, one that can facilitate high quality studies and more accurate scientific inferences. The process is central to scholars' ability to make accurate scientific inferences about causality and generalizability because, in all most extreme cases, a failure to consider ethnic correlates will undermine both internal and external validity. To guide high-quality research with Mexican American children and families, scholars must engage in culturally informed theorizing (CIT), which will require knowledge and understanding about a range of ethnic correlates. Ethnic correlates can be used to describe differences between two ethnic groups. Due to considerable heterogeneity within an ethnic group, it also is used to describe diversity among members of group. CIT is defined as the process of developing ideas about the ways in which ethnic correlates might intersect with existing knowledge and/or theoretical models of human behavior. There are numerous degrees of potential intersection.
