Family Language Policy And Community Of Practices

Abstract

This paper studies Kazakhstani citizens’ family language policy and language practices in education within the period of transference from bilingual education policy to multilingual education policy. The study starts with an analysis of different views on family language education and practices. Bilingualism or trilingualism are researched within the Kazakhstani society via families.Family language policy is influenced by three main factors: beliefs, individual practices, and intervention practices.These factors are in line with an integration to the constantly changing society and global world. These changes influence not only the community of practices, but also the family language policy in-depth. The quantitative study results show that citizens’ beliefs highly influence their choices of using languages at home and educational environment rather than their community and intervention practices. The research work revealed the similarity of parents and children’s language repertoires. Their beliefs concerning family language policy mostly depend on the fact that a certain language is more spoken in a society or it is necessary to us e it. In the survey results, Kazakh and Russian languages appeared to be more frequently used in the family. The study proposes to dwell on the other stakeholders’ voices in further research that may identify and explain various issues while bilingual-trilingual education transference.