Chinese immigrant families’ aspirations for children's bilingual learning in New Zealand's social spaces

Abstract

This paper highlights the complex relations between public and private spaces with regard to young children's bilingual learning, and the importance of developing a pedagogy that allows for the interaction of learning across the two spaces. It uses findings from a qualitative study to illustrate nuanced (mis)alignments between dominant language discourses in New Zealand early childhood education and Chinese immigrant families’ aspirations regarding the languages they want their children to learn and use. The study involved analysing a range of institutional documents to identify early childhood education discourses promoted in New Zealand. Alongside this, individual interviews were conducted with a group of Chinese immigrant parents to investigate their involvement in children's early childhood education. Families’ aspirations, experiences and practices regarding children's bilingual learning were frequently mentioned during the interviews, and these are valuable knowledge for teachers. This paper presents findings related to these dual language learning expectations. It uses theoretical constructs of social spaces to interpret the findings and their implications for a responsive pedagogy that embraces bi/multilingualism.

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