In today’s transnational and global society, more and more families have lived in plural locations, languages, and cultures where multiplicity, intersections, and contestations co-exist. Much of the current literature focuses on bilingual children’s language and literacy development, but the role of immigrant parents in such a developmental process is often missing.
In engaging with and learning from parents from three immigrant families with young bi/multilingual children in Western Canada, I inquire into their transnational knowledge construction and enactment in regard to heritage language education. The methodological approach for my research is narrative inquiry which focuses on personal lives and how they are lived. Data is gathered through recorded conversations and relevant artifacts. Preliminary results show that the transnational lived experience grants these parents a global perspective – they become comparative education experts who are familiar with both Chinese and Canadian education systems. They support their children’s language learning by engaging in parallel schooling standards both in Canada and in China. The parents also demonstrate contradictory societal situations in their daily lives; like the two sides of one coin, these immigrant parents are both privileged (because of their strong educational background, affluent financial situation, and middle class status) and racially and linguistically maginalized in society and school systems. The findings of this study provides new perspectives through which to see transnational parents – a historically marginalized and ignored group in education – as knowledge holders, by demonstrating the dynamic interplay between their transnational knowledge systems and multilayered, translingual language repertoire.

Authors:
Emma Chen, University of Saskatchewan, Canada

About the Presenter(s)
Ms Emma Chen is a University Doctoral Student at University of Saskatchewan in Canada

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