Raising children bilingually is hard: Why bother?

Abstract

This paper presents results from a pilot project that sought to establish parental motivations for raising children bilingually in regional Australia in the absence of a co-located speech community. Cultural and linguistic diversity outside metropolitan areas is increasing as a result of Commonwealth Government incentive schemes, and one effect of this is that migrant families must find innovative ways to stem the shift to English that is virtually inevitable in the absence of a systematic and committed family language policy. Five families of varied language background were interviewed regarding their motivations for and challenges in raising their children bilingually. Four key themes emerged, comprising three goals and one major challenge. The three goals were: to create a sense of belonging to a family, a community and a culture; to create a competitive advantage for their children's future; and to improve their children's school learning. The major challenge was the difficulty of the task despite their commitment to the family language plan. Results from this pilot have informed the design of a larger study of regional family language maintenance.