Paternal and maternal roles in children’s multilingual development trajectories among urban Chinese families

Abstract

This longitudinal study employs Realist Social Theory to explore how highly educated urban Chinese parents negotiate maternal and paternal roles in family language-related decisions for their children’s multilingual development. Data were gathered through ethnographic interviews, observations and archival reconstructions with four families whose children transitioned from local educational pathways to international secondary schools. The study traces parental decisions concerning Fangyan (regional dialects), Standard Chinese, English and additional foreign languages (Spanish and French). The findings reveal that paternal and maternal roles shifted across different phases of children’s developmental trajectories: from maternal management and paternal support in preschool, to heightened maternal burden and paternal mediation in primary school, to a more strategic partnership during the transition to international school and, finally, to negotiated collaboration in secondary schooling, at which point children’s agency increasingly shapes language-related decisions. These shifts reflect evolving interactions among parental agency, structural conditions, and cultural norms. This study contributes to the field of family language policy research by foregrounding the gendered negotiation of parental agency as an evolving, relational and adaptive process. The findings have significant implications for educators and policymakers in contexts where parental strategies intersect with multiple layered policy demands and globalised education markets.

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