Family language policy and bilingual parenting in multilingual Singapore: latent profiles and its predictors

ABSTRACT

This study explored the family language policy, bilingual parenting profiles, and the predictors among Chinese parents in Singapore. Altogether 175 parents of Chinese-English bilingual preschoolers (aged 2;6–5;6) were sampled and surveyed. The research results indicated that: (1) a majority of the parents (93.7%) believed in early bilingualism but differed in their beliefs about the appropriate starting age for early bilingualism; (2) two latent profiles of bilingual parenting emerged: Radical Bilingual Parenting (n = 91, 52.00%, bilingual reading activities from Age 2, longer hours of bilingual parent–child conversation); Moderate Bilingual Parenting (84, 48.00%, bilingual reading activities after Age 3, shorter hours of bilingual parent–child conversation); and (3) child’s age, their preschool education experience, and parents’ belief about the appropriate age to start early bilingualism predicted the profile of bilingual parenting. Implications for language policymaking and early bilingual parenting are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Family language policy
• bilingual parenting
• latent profiles
• multilingual Singapore

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).