Parents’ Perceptions of Barriers and Facilitators to Their Children’s Multilingual Language Development Before and After the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Multilingual students, according to the deficit framework of “English language learners,” are at a disadvantage compared to their monolingual peers. This framework fails to recognize the assets that accompany home language development, referred to as Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005). In this study, we asked what do parents of multilingual children identify as barriers and facilitators to supporting their children’s language development before and during COVID-19? Six semi-structured interviews were conducted online with parents of children between 3 and 5 years old who spoke a language other than English at home. These interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using the qualitative method of directed content analysis, employing both inductive and deductive coding to identify themes. We organized these themes according to Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) Bioecological Model. Results revealed most barriers and facilitators to children’s multilingual development are at the microsystem level of the family. The themes were related to attitudes and knowledge, English fluency, exposure, resources, and parents’ experiences. Additionally, we found that COVID-19 mostly negatively impacted the child, microsystem, and exosystem. We discuss how these barriers and facilitators are related to the different Capitals of Community Cultural Wealth. Moving forward, this study can contribute to addressing how systems have marginalized families within our community and elevate the knowledge and cultural capital these families offer.