Acceso usuarios
Jay Parkes
A survey of 724 families of dual language enrichment students in the South-west USA explored what kinds of families had chosen dual language education for their children and why. Of those parents who chose dual language for their children, 45.4% speak primarily English with their child, while 54.6% speak primarily Spanish. English-dominant parents constitute 24.7% of those who so chose, while 34.2% are Spanish-dominant and 40.5% are bilingual. In terms of education level, 50% of them have a high school education or less, 32.1% have an undergraduate degree and 17.9% have a graduate education. Of all respondents, 93.6% said they chose dual language so that their child would be able to speak, read and write in two languages, making it the most frequently selected followed by to be successful in a global society (63.1%), to be more successful in school (61.3%) and to be comfortable relating to different people (60.7%). There are several implications: not all parents have the same motivations; bilingual parents are different from monolingual parents; and more needs to be known about parents of secondary students as well as parents opting out of dual language programmes.
