Examining the Home Learning Environment Practices for Emergent Bilinguals: Insights from Parental Survey

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the general practices of bilingual students’ home learning environments and to compare the variation in practices as a function of parents’ length of stay in the USA, educational levels, and household income by analyzing the results of a large-scale parental survey in an urban area in the southwestern United States, serving a predominantly Hispanic student population. The data consisted of 959 parents’ responses. The findings show that parents’ practices of engagement in students’ learning, discussions for students’ future, emotional support, students’ media consumption, disciplinary practice, and support for students’ autonomy vary in multifold ways as a function of their backgrounds. For example, while most parents, regardless of their background, were not prone to supporting children’s autonomy when deciding children’s routines at home, those with higher educational and income levels tend to more frequently participate in children’s classrooms or discuss children’s college entrance and career paths. The study discusses the implications of the findings and limitations.

Keywords

• home learning environment
• parental engagement
• emergent bilinguals
• parental survey