Competence in multiple foreign languages as cultural capital in family language policy: Parents’ perceptions

Abstract

Family language policy for children's foreign language learning has emerged as an important topic for research on language education policy and second language learning in general. Whilst there is no shortage of studies that examine how parents engage in the formation and transformation of family foreign language education policies, little has been known as to how parents perceive the value of multilingual competence which influences their decisions about how their children's foreign language learning should be planned and resourced. Drawing on Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital, this multiple‐case study explored the perceptions of the parents from 16 middle‐class families with children aged 6–14 in Shanghai via interviews (with their children as well) and textual data. Data analysis reveals that parents perceived the language‐derived cultural capital as measured by its exchangeable social benefits at present or in the future. Their perceptions were thus divided as manifested in the three distinctive approaches they took to conceptualize their children's competence in multiple foreign languages as cultural capital, that is, the extra‐point view (language competence as advantage), immediate deficiency view (lack of such competence as immediate disadvantage), and prospective deficiency view (lack of competence as disadvantage in a future scenario).