Global without Borders’

Language policy and the concerted cultivation of multilingualism

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12738658
AutoresGiselle Del Carmen Martinez Negrette (0000-0001-7029-9237, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, autor de correspondencia), Tanya Espinosa Cordoba (0000-0003-2156-1272, Anderson University - South Carolina), Stephanie C Sanders-Smith (0000-0002-1611-6142, University of Illinois System)
Año2024
Volumen22
Número3
Páginas1071-1090
Fecha de publicación2024-07-30
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Journal of Multilingualism (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1479-0718 • E-ISSN: 1747-7530
EditorialRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14790718.2024.2383738
OpenAlexW4401113045
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas32

Shifts toward an interconnected global economy have raised concerns among middle- and upper-middle-class parents about the role of multilingualism and multiculturalism in child-rearing. Affluent parents have been previously recognized as 'cultivating' childhood experiences to promote competitiveness in the professional sphere (Lareau, A. (2003). Unequal childhoods: Class, race, and family life. University of California Press. ). The cultivation of multiple languages and a multicultural stance has, as the global economy has broadened, become part of 'good parenting' for many. Against this background, this qualitative study uses a language policy theory (Spolsky, B. (2007). Towards a theory of language policy. 22 (1), https://repository.upenn.edu/wpel/vol22/iss1/1) to examine beliefs, practices, and behaviors of parents of children enrolled in an early childhood program at a private international school in Hong Kong. The findings show how the focal parents created and enacted their own language policy based on their beliefs about languages, the practices they carried out, and their management of their children's multilingualism, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study highlights contemporary tensions between ideologies and practices of language in present-day multilingual and multicultural school settings; in addition, it expands the existing research on language policy and parental engagement by providing a nuanced analysis of how social actors devise ways to manage and support the complex process of language learning, even under dire conditions

Ideology · Language policy · Multiculturalism · Multilingualism · Pedagogy · Political science · Sociology · Global Education and Multiculturalism · Multilingual Education and Policy · Parental Involvement in Education