16 - Young Children’s Language Attitudes with Implications for Identity in a US Dual-Language Immersion Classroom

Summary

This chapter focuses on young students’ attitudes towards the partner languages in dual-language immersion (DLI) programmes, as well as attitudes towards the speakers of these languages with implications for students’ identities as bilingual/biliterate learners in this educational context. The chapter uses example findings with primary school students (5–8 year olds) acquiring Spanish and English in a US DLI programme who are part of a multi-year research and evaluation project. Students are compared with student peers in their school’s English-medium classrooms to help understand potential differences in language attitudes stemming from their instructional experiences. This work is part of a growing call to consider the ‘whole child’ in developmental contexts and a need to employ multidisciplinary and longitudinal methods to better understand the impact of bilingual educational settings on children’s growth and well-being, moving beyond a narrow focus on academic achievement and language proficiency outcomes.