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The Scandinavian countries currently face their largest ever wave of immigration. The immigration wave increases the need for immigrants to learn the host language to be able to participate in work life and become a citizen of the host country. Yet, the language training programmes – ‘Swedish for Immigrants’ in Sweden have come under great criticism for inefficiency. But now, surveys have been carried out with the adult immigrants taking part in the language training programmes. Consequently, the purpose of the present study is to identify predictors of adult immigrant students’ attitudes towards language learning at the training programmes in Sweden. Using survey data collected from adult immigrants participating in the language training programmes, we conduct a series of ordinary least squares regressions. We report that the majority of immigrant students are satisfied with the language programmes. Our findings indicate that satisfaction seems to be due to variables such as level of education, age at arrival, and language exposure through social networks but not to socioeconomic status or sex.

The author presents and discusses typical (traditional) modalities of parent-child interaction based on proverbs, sayings and maxims, and on participant observation, informal talks, and personal experience working with Ethiopian Jews in Israel. Although the author’s assumptions are clear that there is no direct causal link between a single proverb/saying and the behavior associated with it, he also assumes that all the tens of sayings presented combined with the relevant ethnographic data may reveal some patterns of the psychological theories of the caretakers and something of their “native” theories of how children should be socialized in order to become ideal children. Some core values in child growth and development, learning, and parenting that may have great influence on children’s preparedness for formal schooling,, hence their success in scholastic achievement, are also suggested. The principal conclusion drawn from this study underscores the significance of cultural meaning systems and meta-communicative frameworks in which proverbs and sayings are embedded and highlights the largely unconscious effect they can have on socialization processes and various cognitive activities. This may also shed some light on problems related to group-based inequalities in scholastic achievement. Further, there is a need for heightened awareness of intercultural education in order to bridge the broad gap between the culture of the Ethiopian home and the Israeli school culture.