Language Practices Among Low-Income Mexican-Heritage Families: Variations in Enacted and Articulated Practices as Cultural Practices

• In Event: Poster Session 3
  In Poster Session: Culture and Resilience

Abstract

Children from low-income and language minority families have different language trajectories, experiencing different types of language practices and often different levels of language use and input from their middle and monolingual peers. Home language practices impact children’s language development while imparting specific cultural values, goals, and practices steeped in the shared cultural, historical, and social context of the cultural community. This study investigates enacted and articulated home language practices among a seemingly homogeneous group of low-income, Mexican heritage families with young children. Variations were evident in home language practices and patterns of language practices coincided with variations in cultural communities.

Author

• Alison Gallwey Wishard Guerra, University of California - San Diego