Home Language Experiences in Immigration Families: Exploring the Language Challenges and Approaches of Young Adults in Canada

The proposed research project aims to understand how young adults from immigrant families in Canada maintain their home language while also learning English. A intern will help by recruiting participants, collecting and analyzing data through surveys and interviews, and developing a parenting program with community partner. The research will explore how factors like English proficiency, academic success, personality, and parenting styles affect home language use. The findings from this research will provide valuable insights to better support ethnolinguistic parents by developing a parenting program that helps them create a better home language environment for their children. Building on the challenges identified by our partner, the Multi-Cultural Health Brokers Cooperative (MCHB), this project adopts a community-based participatory framework. This approach aims to include and empower both our research partner and community members throughout the research process, building on previous local research that explored barriers and supports for newcomer families in Edmonton regarding preschool settings (Sumaru- Jurf & Felix-Mah, 2019; de Vos, Mukhi, Illumin, Chiu, Gokiert & MCHB, 2022).

Faculty Supervisor:

Andrea MacLeod

Student:

Partner:

Multicultural Health Brokers Co-Operative Ltd

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Health and Related Sciences & Technology

University:

University of Alberta

Program: