The Family Language Policy of Chinese Immigrant Families in a New Gateway State: An Explanatory Sequential Mixed Methods Study on Parents’ Views

Among various groups of immigrant students who face challenges in maintaining their heritage languages (HLs), Asian American students are especially vulnerable to HL loss (Fillmore, 2000; Pew Research Center, 2012). As the loss of HLs has negative effects on children’s academic, psychological, and emotional well-being (Tse, 2000; Li & Wen, 2015), there is an urgent need to support immigrant students’ HL maintenance. Among efforts in countering the HL loss, families often play the most important role by implementing family language policies (FLP; Curdt-Christiansen & Lanza, 2018). To better understand factors influencing immigrant parents’ FLP, this study uses an explanatory sequential mixed methods design (Creswell & Clark, 2018) to analyze parents’ perspectives, practices, and efforts on their children’s HL maintenance, using the data from Chinese immigrant parents in North Carolina. This study collects quantitative data from an online survey on parents’ demographics and general FLP and then collects qualitative data through interviews. In between these two phases, the quantitative results are used to inform the design of the qualitative interview protocols and the sampling of interviewees from the survey participants. The qualitative results are analyzed through an AsianCrit lens (Museus, 2013) and are connected back to the quantitative data to provide further explanation and contextualization. Findings reveal that parents’ immigration history, racialized experiences living in the U.S. and North Carolina, and their children’s schooling experience contribute to their various language ideologies towards their children’s HL maintenance. These language ideologies, together with the larger sociocultural, socioeconomic, sociohistorical, and sociopolitical context, shape parents’ language practices and management strategies that support their children’s bilingual development. Implications of findings for researchers, educators, and policymakers are also discussed.Doctor of Philosoph