Parental Beliefs and Knowledge, Children’s Home Language Experiences, and School Readiness: The Dual Language Perspective

Abstract

Parental beliefs and knowledge about child development affect how they construct children’s home learning experiences, which in turn impact children’s developmental outcomes. A rapidly growing population of dual language learners (DLLs) highlights the need for a better understanding of parents’ beliefs and knowledge about dual language development and practices to support DLLs. The current study examined the dual language beliefs and knowledge of parents of Spanish-English preschool DLLs (n = 32). We further asked how socioeconomic and sociocultural factors were associated with parental beliefs and knowledge, and how parental beliefs and knowledge related to DLLs’ home dual language experiences and school readiness skills as rated by their teachers. Results suggested both strengths and opportunities for growth in parental beliefs and knowledge. Moreover, parents from higher-SES backgrounds reported beliefs and knowledge that were more consistent with scientific evidence. Furthermore, parental beliefs and knowledge was positively related to relative Spanish input at home and negatively related to the frequency of English language and literacy activities. However, parental beliefs and knowledge were not associated with children’s dual language output at home or the frequency of Spanish language and literacy activities. Finally, parental beliefs and knowledge were associated with children’s school readiness skills in Spanish but not in English. Together, these findings highlight the need for culturally responsive interventions and parent education programs, which must recognize both the strengths and areas of improvement in parents of DLLs and support parents to transform knowledge into high-quality language and literacy experiences that benefit DLLs.

Teacher perceptions of parent collaboration in multi-ethnic ECEC settings

“…However, some teachers expressed giving recommendations for language use based on the misperception that using two languages in one setting is problematic. This is similar to what has previously been demonstrated in both kindergarten and primary school teachers (Strobbe et al, 2017) and parents of DLLs (Luo et al, 2021). In addition, the qualitative results also demonstrated that no teacher mentioned the centre's role in improving parent collaboration, indicating a potential for the ECEC centre to support their teachers and parents to communicate and collaborate.…”

“…Still, there are indications of a need for parental support regarding dual language development. For instance, Luo et al (2021) reported that parents tended to misperceive characteristics of dual language development, such as codeswitching, as indicators of problem or disadvantage. Similar misperceptions of languages as fixed entities which should not intermingle in practice were also found in kindergarten and primary school teachers (Strobbe et al, 2017).…”

Cherishing the heritage language: Predictors of parental heritage language maintenance efforts

“…Once we take resources into account, the statistical significance of advice from other sources increases, but the effect size remains weak. Families with more resources might know better where to find accurate or nuanced advice and might find it easier to follow this advice (Luo et al, 2021; Rowe et al, 2016). Interestingly, the bivariate analysis uncovers a moderately strong positive significant correlation between the two sources of advice.…”

Shifting towards the institutional language?

“…Kim and Starks 2010), (mis) conceptions about (bilingual) language acquisition (e.g. Luo et al 2021), children's agency (e.g. Kheirkhah and Cekaite 2015;Tuominen 1999), (teacher) advice (e.g.…”

“…Besides, the (un)solicited advice on multilingual childrearing proffered by early childhood professionals (e.g. childcare workers, paediatricians), teachers, speech therapists, relatives, popular parenting literature, websites and online discussion forums, however, should not be overlooked as another important basis for how families mould their linguistic environment (Bezcioglu-Goktolga and Yagmur 2018; Kaveh 2017; King and Fogle 2006;Luo et al 2021;Piller and Gerber 2021). The advice given by teachers and other professionals is likely to be shaped by the institutional context in which they operate.…”