Despite the increasing emphasis on social studies in Early Childhood Education, there has been a serious paucity of empirical studies on how culturally and linguistically diverse children develop their emergent understanding on their identities and citizenships in different racial and cultural surroundings. The main purpose of this article is to…

This paper explores how the discourse of Japanese ethnolinguistic identity differently affected three youths in a heritage language class in Australia. Based on a case study involving these informants, I show how the discourse was contested, reproduced, and appropriated. More specifically, I show how language was disaligned from ethnicity and…

Given the loss of heritage languages due to assimilation of the dominant English language in U.S. society within three generations of migration to the U.S. (Wiley & Valdes, 2000), it is of paramount importance to examine how we can maintain and enhance heritage languages. Humor is a pragmatic tool which one can utilize to increase…

The UK is linguistically rich but faces a reducing uptake of language learning in schools, as pupils feel more withdrawn and disinterested in learning an additional language to English. A key component in many linguistic minority communities to preserve their language is complementary schooling (CS), which has wide-ranging educational and societal…

This study invited parents in 21 one-way Mandarin Chinese dual immersion programs in Utah to respond to a survey on-line. Five hundred and eighty parents participated in this study. The objectives of the survey study were to learn the parents' reasons for enrollment, their program satisfaction, and whether there was a group difference based on the…

Following the invasion, or colonisation as some prefer to call it, Indigenous Australia has been characterised by plummeting populations, largely as a result of introduced diseases and the movement of peoples, following the theft of their lands and in response to colonial and subsequent Australian state and federal government policies. At times,…

This study investigates correlations of course level, gender, and ethnic identity labels with attitudinal dimensions toward Spanish by Spanish as a Heritage Language Learners in New Mexico. Participants in first-semester (n = 327) and fourth-semester (n = 174) Spanish as a Heritage Language courses rated twelve items designed to index language…

The number of heritage language learners in American universities is increasing each year. Similar to monolingual students, this subgroup of learners is required to complete university level "foreign language" coursework, which can be a source of anxiety. Particularly, this subgroup of learners may experience high levels of anxiety due…

This study investigated Korean heritage language (KHL) learners' foreign language classroom anxiety, reading anxiety and writing anxiety using the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) by Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope, the Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) by Saito, Garza and Horwitz and the Writing Apprehension Test (WAT) by…

This paper investigates the role of a Turkish Saturday school in the United States in helping students maintain the Turkish language and form a sense of Turkish cultural identity. This case study of one Turkish Saturday school in New York City builds on research in language maintenance and shift, and in language ideologies and linguistic identity…

Recent studies of Asian American youth language practices have presented compelling insights about the identities and migration experiences of young people of Asian descent. This article offers a detailed examination of the relationship between language use and select issues concerning Asian American youth, including social life, schooling,…

This article, part of a larger study, examines three middle-class, Hispanic Canadian families' conceptualizations of language, culture, and identity. Via an analysis of interview data, the findings indicate that the parents assigned diverse meanings to heritage language development (HLD) and held high expectations for their children's formation of…

This paper examines the ideologies and practices surrounding respect at a Korean American heritage language school in California. It illustrates the interaction between locally circulating metadiscourses about children's dispositions, intentions, and identities and the enforcement of classroom norms of respect. In some cases, teachers accommodated…

This article presents results of a study on a weekend Chinese community school in a mid-Atlantic state that looks at parents' perceptions of the challenges the school faced in teaching Chinese to heritage versus non-heritage learners. Survey and qualitative interviews with parents show differences in their expectations regarding teacher…

The motivation of 145 learners of Chinese was examined in light of self-determination theory through a questionnaire survey. The results showed that the more learners felt they were learning Chinese because it was personally meaningful and fun, the more they engaged in the learning process. This orientation was promoted to the extent that learners…