Buttiler Maria Belen, Zhou Qing, Uchikoshi Yuuko
School of Education, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, United States.
Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States.
Front Psychol. 2023 Sep 4;14:1237143. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1237143. eCollection 2023.
Migration is a complex process associated with a range of social, economic, and political reasons. In the U.S., almost one-quarter of the total population of parents are immigrant parents of children ages 0-10. Immigrant parents transmit values from their culture of origin as well as their language to their children. Additionally, they may undergo a process of cultural and psychological change known as acculturation. Research has shown that acculturation can be linked to parenting styles and adolescents' psychological well-being and behavioral problems. However, little is known about the associations among immigrant parents' acculturation, their home language and literacy practices, and their bilingual children's language skills. This study explores the relationships among reasons for migration, parental acculturation, home language and literacy practices, and child expressive vocabulary in English and their heritage language (HL). A group of 190 Spanish-English ( = 66) and Chinese-English ( = 124) dual language learners (DLLs) (mean age = 48.98 months) and their Chinese and Mexican parents (mean age of migration = 18.57 and 21.38 years old respectively participated. Frequency counts revealed that Mexican American families migrated to the U.S. mostly for multiple reasons, including joining family members, getting married, and looking for better education or job opportunities, whereas most Chinese American families migrated for family reasons only. Path analysis models showed that, for both cultural groups, language input in Spanish and Chinese mediated the relationship between parents' cultural orientations and DLLs' HL expressive vocabulary. These findings emphasize that despite the heterogeneity of immigrant families and the variability in DLLs' vocabulary skills in preschool, there exist some similarities across immigrant parents and bilingual children. A deeper understanding of acculturation practices and home language use can help educators better support children from diverse backgrounds and promote cultural awareness and sensitivity in the classroom.
移民是一个复杂的过程，涉及一系列社会、经济和政治原因。在美国，几乎四分之一的父母是0至10岁孩子的移民父母。移民父母将他们原籍文化的价值观以及他们的语言传递给孩子。此外，他们可能会经历一个被称为文化适应的文化和心理变化过程。研究表明，文化适应可能与育儿方式以及青少年的心理健康和行为问题有关。然而，对于移民父母的文化适应、他们的母语和读写实践与他们的双语孩子的语言技能之间的关联，我们知之甚少。本研究探讨了移民原因、父母的文化适应、母语和读写实践以及孩子的英语表达词汇和他们的母语（HL）之间的关系。一组190名西班牙语-英语（n = 66）和中文-英语（n = 124）的双语学习者（DLLs）（平均年龄 = 48.98个月）以及他们的中国和墨西哥父母（平均移民年龄分别为18.57岁和21.38岁）参与了研究。频次统计显示，墨西哥裔美国家庭移民到美国主要有多种原因，包括与家人团聚、结婚以及寻求更好的教育或工作机会，而大多数华裔美国家庭仅因家庭原因移民。路径分析模型表明，对于这两个文化群体，西班牙语和中文的语言输入都介导了父母的文化取向与DLLs的母语表达词汇之间的关系。这些发现强调，尽管移民家庭具有异质性，且DLLs在学前的词汇技能存在差异，但移民父母和双语孩子之间存在一些相似之处。对文化适应实践和母语使用的更深入理解有助于教育工作者更好地支持来自不同背景的孩子，并在课堂上促进文化意识和敏感性。
