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ERIC Number: EJ1468645
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0143-4632
EISSN: EISSN-1747-7557
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Needs and Demands for Heritage Language Support in Australia: Results from a Nationwide Survey
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, v46 n2 p437-454 2025
This paper reports on a survey conducted in Australia among parents raising their children with a heritage language (HL). We found strong awareness of the importance of HL maintenance (95%), but only moderate levels of engagement (37-44%) with community initiatives for HL support. There were significantly more primary school-aged children reported as enrolled in community language schools than pre-school aged children, but attendance at informal initiatives, such as language social groups, was higher for pre-schoolers. Less than 20% of respondents indicated that there was enough HL support available, with significantly less support reported for pre-school aged children. However, parents of children who attended HL initiatives during pre-school years reported a significantly higher HL maintenance success rate. Most parents who did not bring their children to HL initiatives stated that it was because they did not know about them. Parents of school-aged children had more positive opinions about available HL support than parents of pre-schoolers and most parents said that if more initiatives were made available they would commit to attending them on a regular basis. Consequently, we suggest a formal language extension programme at the pre-school level as the solution for improving multilingual families' experience.
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Bankstown, Australia; 2Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia; 3School of Languages and Linguistics, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia