The Pedagogical Practices of an Immigrant Parent: Maintaining Heritage Language in the Home Context

The maintenance of heritage language is essential to immigrant children’s linguistic, cultural, and social development. While there is a large body of literature on heritage language, how heritage language is practiced at home remains largely unknown. Engaging in an autobiographical narrative inquiry, I tell and retell stories of our pedagogical practices in the home context. I seek to bridge the research gap with new understandings of the “parent knowledge” that immigrant parents bring to bear in heritage language education. I invite you into my home and immigrant family’s language journey to witness the efforts, challenges, and rewards of learning heritage language.

The Pedagogical Practices of an Immigrant Parent-Maintaining Heritage Language in the Home Context

The maintenance of heritage language is essential to immigrant children’s linguistic, cultural, and social development. While there is a large body of literature on heritage language, how heritage language is practiced at home remains largely unknown. Engaging in an autobiographical narrative inquiry, I tell and retell stories of our pedagogical practices in the home context. I seek to bridge the research gap with new understandings of the “parent knowledge” immigrant parents bring to bear in heritage language education. I invite you into my home and immigrant family’s language journey to witness the efforts, challenges, and rewards of learning heritage language.

What’s Fair in Child Welfare? Parent Knowledge, Attitudes, and Experiences

Parents play a critical role in the progression and outcomes of juvenile dependency (child welfare court) cases. Yet, very little is known about these parents’ knowledge, attitudes, and experiences. We examined legal understanding and attitudes among 201 parents involved in ongoing dependency cases in California and Florida via semi-structured, in-person interviews. We expected parents’ understanding to be low and attitudes to be negative, particularly among parents of color and low SES parents. We expected greater dependency understanding to be related to more positive justice attitudes, and procedural and distributive justice attitudes to be indistinguishable in this population. Findings partially confirmed expectations. Parents’ understanding of the system was low, especially among parents of color and less educated parents. Parents felt less than satisfied about the fairness of procedures and decisions. However, procedural and distributive justice attitudes were distinguishable. Finally, and unexpectedly, parents’ knowledge and attitudes were negatively related. The consistently low levels of knowledge across CA and FL suggest the critical need to increase parental knowledge. It is also important to promote fair court procedures and decision-making to improve parents’ attitudes about procedural and distributive justice, which were found to be distinct and important factors among parents navigating juvenile dependency cases.

Parent Knowledge and Preferences of Language Learning and Use in an International School in Viet Nam

Although there is a growing base of literature about international schools, there is little research dedicated to studying the parents of students attending international schools. The purpose of this study was to explore English language learner (ELL) parent knowledge and preferences of language learning and use at an English-medium international school in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Within the study, the researcher compared the differences in parent knowledge and preferences of language learning and use between local parents and expatriate parents of students enrolled in an ELL program. Areas explored in the study were language learning and language use within the school, including language policy. Data acquisition for this quantitative study occurred through a survey completed by 134 parents of ELL students enrolled in an international school in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The main findings of this research study revealed there were significant differences between local ELL parents and expatriate ELL parents concerning knowledge and preferences of language learning and use at that international school. Received 26th February 2020; Revised 12th August 2020; Accepted 20th September 2020

Associations between Child and Parent Knowledge of Added Sugar Recommendations and Added Sugar Intake in Multiethnic Elementary-Aged Children

ABSTRACT Background A key goal of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2015–2020 is to reduce added sugar intake by increasing public knowledge about added sugars. However, research has not shown if knowledge of added sugar recommendations is associated with intake. Objectives To determine the relation between parent and child knowledge of added sugar recommendations with added sugar intake in primarily low-income and Hispanic third- to fifth-grade students. Methods Analysis examined baseline, cross-sectional data from TX Sprouts, a 1-y cooking, gardening, and nutrition clustered randomized controlled trial. Participants were 685 parent-child dyads from 16 elementary schools in the greater Austin area. Parents and children completed a survey to assess knowledge of added sugar recommendations. Children completed two 24-h dietary recalls to assess average intake of added sugars. Mixed effects linear regression models were used to estimate associations between child and parent knowledge of added sugar recommendations and average total added sugar intake. Results Children who correctly identified the added sugar recommendation consumed lower amounts of added sugar compared with children who did not correctly identify the recommendation (34.8 ± 2.7 compared with 41.0 ± 2.5 g; P = 0.003), after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics. Parent knowledge of added sugar recommendations was not associated with child intake. Conclusions Child knowledge of added sugar recommendations was associated with lower intake of added sugars. Findings suggest that child nutrition education should focus on increasing knowledge of national recommendations. Future research should investigate a causal relation between added sugar knowledge and intake in elementary-aged children.