Issues for Parents Raising Multilingual Children

• In Event: Bridging Multiple Worlds: Innovative Partnerships to Educate Diverse Democracies Within Culturally and Socioeconomically Diverse Communities

Abstract

Objectives
The U.S. has a long history as a country of immigrants (Daniels, 2002). A quarter of U.S. school children have immigrant parents, and one in five people spoke a language other than English at home in 2013 (Zeigler & Camarota, 2014). In 2013, the percentage of school children speaking a language other than English at home was reported as 22%, slightly higher than in 2009 but dramatic higher than in the 1970s. This rapid increase is taxing school systems as educators try to learn how to teach multilingual children (García, 2009). Yet, we know little about the experiences of families as they navigate schooling in the U.S. in languages other than English or try to raise children who are truly multilingual. This qualitative study looks through the eyes of parents raising multilingual children to identify issues they face and how they address them.

Theoretical Framework
This study draws on Vygotsky’s work (1978) on how social and cultural experiences affect how people interact with one another and interpret their experiences and on Cooper’s (2011) Bridging Multiple Worlds Theory as it examines links across the cultural worlds of students’ families and school. Understanding diverse parental perspectives can help educators interpret their behaviors and develop effective strategies to partner with families to support children’s school success.

Method
Parents’ perspectives were assessed through interviews of 25 parents of elementary through high school-aged students, whose home languages included Spanish, Chuukese, Portuguese, Vietnamese, and Korean. Each parent completed an interview of 30-60 minutes about bilingualism at home and school, and responses were coded inductively for themes based on the two theoretical frameworks.

Results
Among participants’ ideas about raising bilingual children, the most common theme involved challenges of parents supporting their children’s multilingualism and multicultural identities while promoting their academic and social success. Additional issues included decision making about language use, strategies for promoting language learning and use at home and school, discrimination, and cultural congruence.

Although most parents wanted their children to know their home culture and language, some prioritized speaking English, especially among recently immigrated families, believing that doing so would help their child succeed in school. Parents with more modest English skills expressed more concern that their children learn English. Many parents did not feel there was a place for their culture in their child’s school, and their children needed to fit in with their English-speaking peers. Perhaps because of implicit or explicit messages from school, parents were not often aware of research about the positive relation between children’s multilingualism and school learning.

Significance
With theory and research demonstrating that including students’ diverse languages and cultures in classrooms promotes their learning (Cooper, 2011; García & Wei, 2014), parents and teachers need to work together so children do not lose assets that could help them learn and be more effective community contributors. This study adds new insights about the importance of educators understanding parents’ ideas about their children’s bilingualism to create more effective home-school partnerships for academic success.

Authors

• Katherine T. Ratliffe, University of Hawaii

• Elizabeth Brook Chapman de Sousa, University of Hawaii