Ren, L., & Hu, G. W. (2013). A comparative study of family social capital and literacy practices in Singapore. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 13, 98-130 (original) (raw)
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2008
This paper presents findings from a study which explored the lived literacy experience of Malay families in Singapore. The research strategy was one of multiple case studies. The research approach was ethnographic and the data set reported in this paper includes the data collected from the field of two of the sites. Data analysis show that participant parents, regardless of their background, value their children’s educational success, want their children to do well in school, and correspondingly see themselves as supporting their children in one way or another. The evidence, however, demonstrates a variation in familial perspectives and needs and a considerable distinction in how families of different background define literacy and which literacy they consider worth transmitting to the children. These in turn affect the way they foster their children’s acquisition of literacy. The focal children from the two families thus come to school with particular cultural resources and reperto...
Language and social capital in Singapore
English in Singapore, 2010
This paper analyzes the relationship between ethnic group, language use and social class in Singapore in light of implications for performance in the national school system. Using a Bourdieusian theoretical framework we argue that though Singapore equitably distributes the linguistic capital of English through its bilingual language in education policy, children from low income homes are disadvantaged. For the Chinese and Malay ethnic groups there is a correlation between dominant home language and social class though this is not the case for the Indians. Correspondence analysis shows that SES is correlated to English test scores. Multilevel analysis shows that SES is related to aspects of linguistic capital like language choice in reading, watching TV, choosing types of friends and learning about religion. Data for these claims come from The Sociolinguistic Survey of Singapore 2006 (SSS 2006).
British Journal of Sociology of Education, 2007
This paper presents findings from a study which explored the lived literacy experience of Malay families in Singapore. The research strategy was one of multiple case studies. The research approach was ethnographic and the data set reported in this paper includes the data collected from the field of two of the sites. Data analysis show that participant parents, regardless of their background, value their children's educational success, want their children to do well in school, and correspondingly see themselves as supporting their children in one way or another. The evidence, however, demonstrates a variation in familial perspectives and needs and a considerable distinction in how families of different background define literacy and which literacy they consider worth transmitting to the children. These in turn affect the way they foster their children's acquisition of literacy. The focal children from the two families thus come to school with particular cultural resources and repertoires of literacy practices that position them in particular ways with respect to the curriculum to which they have to adapt. These conclusions draw on Bourdieu's notion of cultural capital which explains how individual's access to certain cultural signals (such as attitudes, preferences, tastes, and styles) either enables or limits their entry into high status social groups, organizations, or institutions such as schools. These views present an alternative to the cultural deficit thinking that blame students, their families, and their culture for their academic failure.
Canadian and International Education/Education …, 2010
Challenging the deficit view of immigrant families' roles in family literacy support, this study is situated in the multiliteracies theoretical framework, which celebrates marginalized, yet diverse, literacy practices in immigrant families. This study used semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions to map diverse family literacy practices in Chinese and Pakistani families. It explores whether and how available educational institutions have been inclusive of immigrant families' multiple cultures and multiple literacies. Adopting a bottom-up advocacy approach, this study also invites Chinese and Pakistani families to envision family literacy programs by themselves. It brings to light immigrant families' potential collective agencies in effecting changes to enable more inclusive family literacy programs in the culturally and linguistically diverse context of Canada. Résumé Cet article défit la vision négative du rôle des familles d'immigrés dans le support de la littératie familiale. L'étude se situe dans le cadre conceptuel des multi-littératies qui supportent des pratiques de littératie marginalisées mais néanmoins très diverses dans des familles d'immigrés. La méthodologie d'entrevues semi structurées et de groupes de discussions utilisée a permis de décrire les différentes pratiques de littératie adoptées dans des familles chinoises et pakistanaises. Cette étude cherche également à explorer si les institutions éducatives ont pris en compte les différentes cultures et littératies des familles, et dans le cas positif, comment cette prise en compte s'est effectuée. L'analyse vise aussi à inviter les familles chinoises et pakistanaises à créer leurs propres programmes de littératie en utilisant une approche de soutien ascendant. Les résultats montrent un potentiel collectif d'agentivité qui pourrait engendrer la création de plus de programmes de littératie familiaux dans le contexte multiculturel et multilinguistique du Canada. CONTEXTS AND OBJECTIVES As the home to immigrants from more than 200 different ethno-cultural origins, Canada boasts of its distinct mosaic culture (Minister of Industry, 2008). As of 2006, South Asians (including East Indian and Pakistani) and Chinese immigrants are the largest and second largest visible minority groups in Ontario, respectively accounting for 28.9% and 21% of all visible minorities in the province. However, based on our initial research, settlement infrastructures like family literacy programs meeting immigrants' culture-and language-specific demands are more available in key gateway cities like Toronto and Vancouver where there is a much larger share of Canada's immigrant population and recent immigrant population than in the rest of the country (Citizenship and
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This study provides an empirical investigation into the lives of kindergarten-aged left-behind children (LBC) who could not migrate with their parents in rural China. Two research questions are answered as follows: (1) What are the characteristics of the LBC in kindergarten and at home? and (2) How does family cultural capital influence the LBC's behaviors in kindergarten and at home? The study employs Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital, with a qualitative case study approach based on interpretivism being adopted. It was found that the LBC present different characteristics in kindergarten and at home and that their particular form of family cultural capital/environment is not supportive of their school-based development in China. The data on the LBC in the study provide insight into practices for policymakers and academics.
It Takes a Family:The Effects of Social and Cultural Capital on Educational Achievement
Social scientists, educators, and policy makers have long been concerned with equality in education. Nowhere is this concern greater than in the education of non-mainstream studentslower socioeconomic status, minority and immigrant groups. Much attention has been focused on the material and financial resources of the schools serving these students. My paper focus on the social and cultural capital available to non-mainstream students, and the subsequent effect on educational achievement. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, I have looked at students who categorize themselves as white, black, Asian, or Hispanic. Using the statistical program SPSS, I then used the factors of reading scores, socioeconomic status, parental involvement with education, and parental engagement with schools to look at the effects of social and cultural capital among groups. I further adjusted the findings for the effects of the combined factors of socioeconomic status, parental involvement in education, and parental engagement with schools. The results show that social and cultural capital does have an effect on the educational achievement of non-mainstream students in the United States. This information will be useful to educators and policy makers concerned with this subject.
Families as social contexts for literacy development
New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 1993
This chapter presents an overview of a number of ways in which social interactions within the family support literacy acquisition. There has, of course, been a substantial amount of research devoted to this topic, much of it starting from the observation that middle-class and highly educated families typically produce more successful school learners than do working-class families. A major site for looking at family interactions has been book reading, on the assumption that early exposure to literacy promotes later literacy skills. The research I discuss here differs from previous efforts in two major ways. I have not engaged in social class comparisons, preferring to compare within relatively high-risk samples the families who successfully support their children's literacy development to those who do not. And I have focused less on literacy-specific interactions than on language interaction in general as a source of skills that are relevant to literacy.
Parental Involvement Contributes to Family Cultural Capital in J District in Shanghai
Advances in Educational Marketing, Administration, and Leadership, 2019
Family cultural capital can be defined as a series of family cultural elements that are mainly held and transmitted by parents, that can contribute to children development. Many studies reveal that the family cultural capital of the migrant works is insufficient, which exerts negative effects on the development of their children. The study focuses on exploring the relationship between parental involvement and family cultural capital. The authors selected Taoyuan migrant as a case which has conducted home-school collaboration reform for more than three years, using the methods of interview, questionnaire, and observation to get two mains findings: (1) The model of parental involvement experienced a change process from self-elimination to active-participation, in which the school played a major role. (2) When parents adopt the model of active-participation, family cultural capital changes in three main forms of activation, increasing and transformation.