Parental Acculturation and Children’s Bilingual Abilities: A Study With Chinese American and Mexican American Preschool DLLs

Abstract

Previous studies support the link of parental acculturation to their children’s academic achievement, identity, and family relations. Prior research also suggests that parental language proficiency is associated with children’s vocabulary knowledge. However, few studies have examined the links of parental acculturation to young children’s oral language abilities. As preschool oral language skills have been shown to predict future academic achievement, it is critical to understand the relations between parental acculturation and bilingual abilities with young immigrant children. Furthermore, few studies have examined the links between parental acculturation and children’s bilingual ability among different immigrant groups who live in the same areas to understand possible similarities and differences. To address these gaps, this study examines these relations in two of the largest and fastest-growing immigrant populations in the United States, Chinese American and Mexican American families. A total of 119 dual language learners (DLLs; 64 Chinese Americans and 55 Mexican Americans) enrolled in Head Start programs in Northern California were recruited. DLLs were assessed on oral language measures in both their heritage language (HL) and English. Parental interviews were conducted to obtain parental acculturation and language proficiency. Results showed no significant group differences between Chinese American and Mexican American parents on the majority of their acculturation dimensions. Furthermore, there were no significant group differences in the bilingual abilities between Chinese American and Mexican American DLLs. Cluster analysis identified four groups of DLLs based on their bilingual ability: high language ability in both English and HL, low language ability in both, English-dominant, and HL-dominant. Results suggest that parental acculturation levels are more similar than different among the four groups. On average, parents in all four groups had stronger ties to their heritage culture and HL than to the American culture. Results also showed links between parental cultural identities and children’s language dominance. Parents of English-dominant children had significantly higher levels of American identity than the parents of children with high ability in both languages. Implications are discussed.

Parental perceptions of bilingualism and home language vocabulary: Young bilingual children from low-income immigrant Mexican American and Chinese American families

“…The Chinese version of the Picture Vocabulary subtest was translated from the Spanish subtest and verified by language experts, which has been done in previous studies (e.g., Uchikoshi, 2013 ; Chung et al, 2019 ; Chernoff et al, 2021 ; Uchikoshi et al, 2022 ). The alpha reliabilities in Chinese for our sample was 0.90.…”

Reasons for migration, parental acculturation, and language: the case of Chinese American and Mexican American parents and dual language learners

“…Previous research has primarily examined the acculturation of immigrant parents and their adolescent children, focusing on factors including psychological well-being, depressive symptoms, behavioral problems, and parenting styles (e.g., Liu et al, 2009 ; Costigan and Koryzma, 2011 ; Kim et al, 2015 ). Only a few studies have examined the relationship between parental acculturation and the oral proficiency of dual language learners’ (DLLs’)–children 0–8 who are learning two or more languages (e.g., Tsai et al, 2012 ; Troesch et al, 2021 ; Uchikoshi et al, 2022 ). Little is known about the relationships among the reasons for migration, acculturation, and the home language practices of immigrant parents of young children living in the U.S.…”

“…Similarly, more research is needed to explore family characteristics and practices that can influence the language development of DLLs from culturally and linguistically diverse immigrant backgrounds. Hence, the following sections summarize existing literature in the field of bilingualism and cultural studies that explains the relationship between DLLs’ language outcomes and parental acculturation, home literacy practices, language use (e.g., Tsai et al, 2012 ; Bitetti and Hammer, 2016 ; Uchikoshi et al, 2022 ; Mak et al, 2023 ).…”

“…Previous studies have explored the associations between immigrant parents’ cultural orientations 1 and children’s bilingual skills at different ages ( Tsai et al, 2012 ; Cote and Bornstein, 2014 ; Baker, 2016 ; Troesch et al, 2021 ; Uchikoshi et al, 2022 ), and a few of these studies have shown different findings. Cote and Bornstein (2014) found an indirect link between maternal acculturation and children’s vocabulary size in the heritage and societal language among children from Latino, Japanese, and Korean immigrant groups.…”

“…The authors found that parental acculturation attitudes toward the country of origin negatively correlated with children’s German skills. In a recent study conducted with pilot data, our research team examined the links between Mexican American and Chinese American parental acculturation and bilingual preschoolers’ language abilities ( Uchikoshi et al, 2022 ). In this study, parental acculturation levels were similar among DLLs with four distinct bilingual abilities–high proficiency in both languages, low proficiency in both languages, English-dominant, and Spanish or Cantonese-dominant.…”