Xia Chao

Grounded in the perspectives of language socialization and transnational habitus, this one-year ethnographic case study explores two middle-class Chinese sojourner families’ educational, bilingual and biliterate practices after their arrival in the U.S. It addresses the process that their middle childhood children experienced, from the excitement of the new English-speaking environment to linguistic and social isolation, to their adap- tation to the environment and, finally, to transnational uplift. The families’ transnational practices throughout the four phases are shaped by their economic, educational and sociocultural dispositions that link together their country of origin and the U.S. They tend to cross national borders in language, literacy and education as well as to circulate glocalized English–Chinese biliteracy. This study reveals the disjunction between the families’ ‘‘imagined world’’ of the U.S. and the reality of a language barrier and ideo- logical conflicts underpinned in an English-only society. The families’ transnational migra- tion is an educational practice with access to their children’s ‘‘imagined world’’. This study suggests that ESL learning should be considered as a socialization practice, which is tied to and structured by transnational fields in today’s globalized world.

This multi-sited ethnographic study examines the ways in which Latino and Asian immigrant parents’ English learning through two church-based ESL programs in a Southeastern U.S. city affects their family literacy and home language practices. It demonstrates that the parents’ participation in the programs is an empowering experience promoting ESL acquisition and funds of knowledge, which in turn advances their family literacy. This study also finds that the programs do not promote linguistic assimilation, devalue or erase immigrant parents’ home language. Instead, they facilitate the parents to reclaim their home language and support children’s home language development. The “family literacy ecology of communities” framework is proposed in this study. It indicates that church-based ESL programs as social mediators for situating immigrant adult English learners within real-life communities, empowering their family literacy, accessing communities of power, and having a voice in the larger society. Implications for ESL adult programs and future studies are presented.

In response to the national and individual needs for English instruction, China mandated English provision in elementary schools in 2001. Grounded in the work of Bourdieu, this study examines professional Chinese parents’ language attitudes in relation to their social positions. It draws data from interviews with 20 professional Chinese parents and joint classroom observations with their children in an urban public elementary school in Beijing, China. The findings of this study include that professional Chinese parents hold the instrumental, integrative, and affective language attitudes. Elementary English education is an arena for socioeconomic struggle. It is a field of competition in terms of educational resources and parents’ social positions. This study highlights that English is a carrier of inequality and injustice. It is a means of escaping social injustice in China. The study indicates contradictions and conflicts among the English language policy for elementary schools, parental language attitudes, private tutoring, and children’s English learning.

Socialization as a theoretical concept has been increasingly applied to higher education over the past several decades. However, little research examines international visiting scholars’ overseas academic socialization experiences. Rooted in socialization theory, this one-year qualitative study explores 15 Chinese visiting scholars’ lived experiences in socialization to the US academic community through observations and interviews. The data reveal that the strategies used for academic socialization include motivation, social networking development, academic recognition, goal orientation, and community involvement. Besides, this paper analyses the reasons for their encountered dilemmas such marginalization, time constraint, and external critique. Implications for Chinese Scholarship Committee (CSC) policy makers, international visiting scholars, and researchers are provided.

This ethnographic case study explores how two middle-class Chinese immigrant parents in a southeastern U.S. city facilitate their newcomer adolescents’ second language acquisition and social integration. Data show that parents’ inadequate English proficiency may not be a fixed constraining factor; their class habitus and cultural capital may enable them to work as change agents in their adolescents’ integration process. This study highlights the positive impact of parents’ active social integration on that of their adolescents. [middle-class Chinese immigrant parents, class habitus, newcomer adolescents, L2 acquisition, social integration]

This paper examines the language of mathematics as reflected in lesson plans created by elementary school teachers (grades K-6) in the state of Alabama using a corpus linguistics methodology. Corpora in this study come for the language teachers intended to use in published lesson plans which are housed in a state sanctioned and vetted website. The researchers found that teachers use more sub technical terms than technical terms in their geometry lesson plans. The reasons for this use of more simplistic language are not clear. However, the researchers assert that it is important for teachers to be cognizant of the potential misunderstandings that children may have in mathematics lessons due to simplistic language use.