St. Cloud State University theRepository at St. Cloud State Culminating Projects in English Department of English 6-2018 Somali-English Bilingualism: Somali Parents’ Beliefs and Strategies for Raising Bilingual Children Abdirahman Ikar St. Cloud State University Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/engl_etds Recommended Citation Ikar, Abdirahman, "Somali-English Bilingualism: Somali Parents’ Beliefs and Strategies for Raising Bilingual Children" (2018). Culminating Projects in English. 137. https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/engl_etds/137 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of English at theRepository at St. Cloud State. It has been accepted for inclusion in Culminating Projects in English by an authorized administrator of theRepository at St. Cloud State. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Somali-English Bilingualism: Somali Parents’ Beliefs and Strategies for Raising Bilingual Children by Abdirahman Ikar A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of St. Cloud State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree Master of Arts in English: Teaching English as a Second Language June, 2018 Thesis Committee: James Robinson, Chairperson Choonkyong Kim Rami Amiri 2 Abstract The American Midwest is home to a large number of refugees from Somalia. Numerous studies have explored immigrant communities’ beliefs and strategies for bilingual development of their children. However, there has only been one study (Abikar, 2013) that explored this topic from the perspective of Somali parents. The aim of this qualitative study was to look at first- generation Somali parents’ beliefs and strategies for bilingual development of their children. 10 first-generation Somali parents were interviewed using semi-structured interview questions.