Reasons for enrollment at a Spanish–English two-way immersion charter school among highly motivated parents from a diverse community

Abstract

This study builds on previous work to examine parent reasons for enrolling their children in a two-way immersion (TWI) charter school. This work goes beyond ethno linguistic background variables (language, ethnicity), to include other key variables such as education level, income, religion, household distance from school, and family structure. This study takes place in one school-wide TWI program in a charter school where parents must choose and actively pursue enrollment. These highly motivated parents articulate, in their own voice, their reasons for choosing to enroll their children in this school. Using open-coding strategies, six overarching categories emerged from parent responses about their reasons for enrollment: Bilingualisms/Biliteracy, Educational Experiences, Future and Career Opportunities, Cultural Immersion/Diversity, Preserving Heritage, and Proximity to Home. Chi-square statistics are used to compare demographic characteristics across these six reasons. Our findings show that parents from many different background characteristics share a desire for their child to participate in TWI education. Additionally, there are many factors outside of language dominance that are relevant to parental decisions for enrollment. These data clearly showcase a highly motivated and diverse parent population who report various reasons for choosing the school for their children.

Effects of classroom bilingualism on task‐shifting, verbal memory, and word learning in children

“…Second, published studies that examined the reasons behind parents' choice of a dual‐immersion program for their children have consistently revealed that the primary reasons cited by the parents are the desire for the children to become bilingual, and future benefits for educational and career opportunities envisioned as the result of dual‐immersion programs (e.g. Gerena, ; Parkes, ; Whiting & Feinauer, ), rather than any particular talent for language learning that they observe in their children. Third, in the present study, we observed differences between the two groups of children on very specific measures rather than across the board.…”

‘You’re looking at this different language and it freezes you out straight away’: identifying challenges to parental involvement among immersion parents

“…It is expected that a variety of different psychological and sociocultural factors may influence the nature of involvement in this setting and that parental involvement in such a context thus merits study in its own right. Recently, the role of parents in dual immersion has received some research attention, with Whiting and Feinauer (2011) examining parents' motivations for choosing dual immersion and Parkes and Tenley (2011) looking at parents' satisfaction with dual language programmes. While such analyses of parental motivation and satisfaction are important in enlarging our understanding of the role of parents in immersion, it is argued that it is crucial that an exploration of why and how parents are actually involved once they have chosen immersion is particularly important in order to help secure student success in these programmes.…”

A comparison of English and Spanish assessment measures of reading and math development for Hispanic dual language students

“…Future career opportunities were another benefit of bilingualism reported by parents (Whiting & Feinauer, 2011). Being bilingual, biliterate, and bicultural was viewed as a means to more career opportunities, a view expressed by both language minority and language majority parents.…”

“…(Whiting & Feinauer, 2011, p. 643) Another benefit of participation in bilingual programs in school was that the students learned about diversity and other cultures on a daily basis as they studied in both languages. A final benefit for the EL students as reported by their parents was that they were able to retain their heritage by learning their native language in an academic setting (Whiting & Feinauer, 2011).…”

“…Effects of Aging on Bilinguals and Non-BilingualsIn addition to the cognitive benefits of bilinguals compared to monolinguals, other personal and social benefits have been reported Whiting and Feinauer (2011). conducted a study to explore why parents enroll their children in TWI programs.…”