Family language policy and school language choice: pathways to bilingualism and multilingualism in a Canadian context

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article reports on a survey with 170 school-age children growing up with two or more languages in the Canadian province of Ontario where English is the majority language, French is a minority language, and numerous other minority languages may be spoken by immigrant or Indigenous residents. Within this context the study focuses on minority language transmission and maintenance, drawing on insights from family language policy and choice of language of schooling. I describe the general language-related characteristics of the households surveyed and discuss the strategies and resources that parents may use in order to place their children along several different bilingual or multilingual pathways. The results highlight the importance of the choice of language of communication between parents as a potential modelling and extra input opportunity in the household, in addition to the choice of language used by each parent to address a child directly. Furthermore, choice of language of schooling is associated with the likelihood of a child developing as a multilingual individual. Increasing access, inclusion and general enrolment in minority language education are seen as a way of increasing not only the level of bilingualism but also multilingualism in the province.