The Relationships among Heritage Language Proficiency, Ethnic Identity, and Self-Esteem
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18275/fire201502021039Keywords:
heritage language proficiency, ethnic identity, self-esteem, Chinese language schoolAbstract
With the trend toward globalization and the continual change of the ethnic composition of the U.S. population, there is increasing awareness in the U.S. that not every child is raised in an English-only family. The purpose of this research is to explore the relationships among heritage language proficiency, ethnic identity, and self-esteem in the American-born Chinese (ABC) children who go to Chinese language schools for Chinese language learning on weekends. A total of 63 students and their 56 parents are surveyed in the quantitative study. Results show that there are positive relationships between Chinese heritage language proficiency and ethnic identity (r = .316, p = .006), language proficiency and self-esteem (r = .255, p = .022), and ethnic identity and self-esteem (r = .240, p = .029). The study provides implications for the Chinese language schools, parents, educators, and policymakers, as well as the implications for future study. The full text of the article can be found at 10.18275/fire201502021039Published
2018-12-06
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This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access. FIRE ISSN: 2326-3873.
How to Cite
The Relationships among Heritage Language Proficiency, Ethnic Identity, and Self-Esteem. (2018). FIRE: Forum for International Research in Education, 2(2). https://doi.org/10.18275/fire201502021039