Some have described the academic underperformance of Latino children, on the one hand, and their relatively strong socioemotional competencies on the other, as a “Latino Paradox.” We unpack the affective climate of early elementary classrooms to explore how this paradox is addressed in a rural school district where children from low-income Latino families predominate. Using quantitative and qualitative data from a reliable observation instrument, we describe the quality of “emotional support” rendered through classroom interactions, analyze relationships between emotional support and a series of teacher characteristics, and assess how highly supportive teachers interact differently than less supportive teachers in ways that are responsive to children’s cultural and linguistic backgrounds. We provide evidence—Spanish use associated with greater emotional support—for attending to both universal and cultural dimensions of classroom interactions to address the Latino paradox.
