Beyond “Sea, Sun, and Fun”: Exploring the Viability of Jamaican Creole Heritage Language Education in Toronto

Abstract

Given heightened racial tensions as well as steadily increasing globalization and migration, the time is ripe to explore how space can be made for speakers of racialized vernaculars and languages through heritage language education. This study contributes to the limited research in this area by exploring the attitudes of individuals of Jamaican heritage in Toronto toward Jamaican Creole heritage language education and the implications of such attitudes for program offerings and design. By means of a survey and semi-structured interviews, findings showed that while valuing the language and its transmission, attitudes toward formal Jamaican Creole heritage language education were largely dismissive. Rather, greater value was placed on heritage and language education via social and community-based approaches. This study gives voice to the Jamaican community in Toronto and shows that a “one-size-fits-all approach” to heritage language education and transmission, particularly for stigmatized and non-standardized languages, is untenable.

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