Imagined Communities and Language Socialization Practices in Transnational Space: A Case Study of Two Korean “Study Abroad” Families in the United States (original) (raw)
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Although research has indicated that parent participation is considered to be one of the most important elements of transition planning, there are a few studies which have sought to measure the involvement of culturally and linguistically diverse parents. Asian Americans are the most diverse of America’s leading minority groups and one of the most poorly understood ethnic minorities. We interviewed 10 Korean American parents to understand their perspectives regarding the transition experiences of their children with disabilities. Through the qualitative study, five themes emerged: parental perceptions of disability, experiences with advocacy, expectations for future living, connections with Korean communities, and family-professional partnership. The findings discuss implications for practice among educators in order to enhance the involvement of Korean American parents in the development of long range plans that will affect the postschool outcomes of their children with disabilities.
This study explores Korean-immigrant parents' language ideologies and practices with respect to their American-born children's language development. Participants were seven ethnic Korean families composed of immigrant parents and their American-born children, aged between five and seven, in Midwestern America. Interviews in the medium of Korean with the parents, and naturally-occurring family conversations during a meal time, reading time, and play time were audio-recorded and analyzed. The findings suggest that Korean-immigrant parents have a strong desire to pass on their mother tongue to their American-born children, largely derived from their language barrier, and perception of language as an identity marker and socio-economic capital in case they return to Korea for familial obligations and economic opportunities, which represent the context-specific nature of family language policy. Language strategies, such as parental feedback and language-mixing, serve as a catalyst for the implementation of family language policy on the levels of functions, forms, and teaching of the Korean language for Korean-American children's bilingual development.
Aspirational family language policy
Language Policy, 2023
The current article applies interactional sociolinguistic discourse analysis to interviews with three parents of Ukrainian families living in New Zealand to further complexify what we know about Family Language Policy (FLP) and language transmission. More specifically, this article theorizes what we call "Aspirational FLP"when the desired imagined language identities of family members will require families to adopt an FLP that goes above and beyond what might otherwise be considered practical. In the case of our participants, this involves Ukrainians living in the diaspora who discuss the homeland's "changing your mother tongue" discourse (from Russian to Ukrainian) and what this means when it involves replacing one heritage language with another when both are minority languages in the hostland. Additionally, we consider the importance of both homeland and hostland sociopolitical contexts, as the interviews reflect dominant discourses from both. Finally, our interview data occurs twice with the same participants (2014 and again in 2021), therein allowing us to investigate the participants' Aspirational FLPs diachronically, bringing further insight to the dynamism of FLP. Our findings show that participants' Aspirational FLPs are connected to both homeland and hostland sociopolitical contexts, and as such are dynamic and shifting. Aspirational FLPs also shift differently as individual family members' investments and imagined future identities also shift. Furthermore, the longitudinal nature of the data sheds light on how and why Aspirational FLPs become reality for some families while they remain aspirational for others. We conclude that both local contexts and wider world contexts are important to consider when investigating FLP, and diachronic research is highly valuable for uncovering factors that contribute to the complexity of FLP, both Aspirational and realized.
School Choice Overseas: Are Parents Citizens or Consumers?
2011
School Choice Overseas: Are Parents Citizens or Consumers? Daekwon Park Currently, some Korean parents are educating their children in primary and secondary schools in foreign countries even though Korean schools demonstrate high performance as confirmed by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Report. Using Hirschman’s (1970) framework of “exit” and “voice,” this study investigated characteristics of exiting parents and their reasons for educating their child(ren) in foreign schools. This study also examined the organizational, political and educational context of Korea, including the High School Equalization Policy (HSEP), private tutoring, change in the study abroad law, and the role these play in leading some families to leave their domestic local schools. A survey questionnaire was administered to two groups of parents – parents whose children attend school domestically (staying parents) and parents whose children attend school abroad (exiting parents). Purp...
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The migration of nations is a phenomenon that has been with us since time immemorial, always being a very important factor of societal development. Currently, only its motives and scope have changed. Nowadays, the migration of Polish citizens has a specific meaning and has become a natural state of affairs. There is nothing surprising in spontaneous migrations in search of better employment. What is more, living a foreign country for one or two years has become a widely approved norm. Motivations that are of importance at this day and age are the willingness to earn as much as possible, improve one’s living condition, learn a foreign language, and push one’s professional career further. The migration of people is not a new issue, but in the age of globalization, it is becoming notably more common, as well as more interesting for scientists, especially due to its diverse nature and changes that it initiates in various walks of life of migrants. The family is one of the basic social g...
Part 3: Qualitative Case Studies How low SES families support children's learning in the home
The focus of our qualitative case studies is on the experience of low SES families from five ethnic groups: White U.K., Pakistani, Black Caribbean, Black African and Bangladeshi. The broad objective of our analysis has been to establish how (and why) some poorer families in each of these communities are able to provide better support for their children's learning at home. Department for Education and Skills (DfES, 2006) evidence shows that Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Black African and Black Caribbean children are more likely to experience deprivation than White UK children: For example, 70% of Bangladeshi pupils and almost 60% of Pakistani and Black African pupils live in the 20% most deprived postcode areas (as defined by the Index of Multiple Deprivation) compared to less than 20% of White British pupils. (DfES, 2006, p.5). This part of the report begins by identifying the context of the study and provides a rationale for the loose theoretical framework that was applied in the initial stages of analysis. The EPPE project (Sylva et al., 2004) has shown that various specific parental activities explain (in the statistical sense) a substantial variance in attainment. On their child's entry to the EPPE study, over ninety-eight per cent of parents were interviewed based on an 11 page interview schedule. When compared with child attainments, analysis of this child/parent/home data identified a range of indicators of disadvantage. In terms of child characteristics, for example, children tended to be disadvantaged where English was an additional language (EAL), where they lived in large families with 3 or more siblings or were born prematurely, or with a low birth weight (below 2500 grams). Although the parents' SES and levels of education were also strongly related to child outcomes, the quality of the home learning environment (HLE) was found to be more important. At age 3 years and onwards strong associations were found between poor cognitive attainment and a less stimulating HLE. By comparison there was only a moderate, positive association between the HLE and parents' SES and qualifications (r=0.3). For example, the children of parents who reported that they regularly taught/played with the 'ABC' had pre-reading scores 4.5 points higher than children whose parents did not teach/play with the alphabet. This could be compared to the impact of social class where it was found that the difference between the lowest classification (IV and V) and highest (I) was only 2.4 points (Sammons et al., 2002). In other words; EPPE found that it is what parents did that was more important than who they were (Melhuish et al., 2001). New evidence on the importance of the HLE has been included in earlier sections of the report. 89