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MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School Certificate for Approving the Dissertation We hereby approve the Dissertation of Seyma Inan Candidate for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ______________________________________ Yvette R. Harris, Director ______________________________________ Christopher Wolfe, Reader ______________________________________ Lily Halsted, Reader ______________________________________ Darrel Davis, Graduate School Representative ABSTRACT INFLUENCE OF TURKISH IMMIGRANT PARENT ACCULTURATION STRATEGIES AND LANGUAGE ATTITUDES ON CHILDREN’S BILINGUAL DEVELOPMENT: AN EMBEDDED MIXED METHODS STUDY by Seyma Inan A rapid migration of people to the US is changing the linguistic and cultural landscape of society. In turn, linguistic and cultural diversity have grown as the number of immigrants increases in the US. To date, only a few studies provide an in-depth look at children’s bilingual development with the focus on aspects of multilingual households and bicultural environments in the US (Harris & Almutairi, 2016; Kalia, 2007). One way to understand the influence of acculturation and language attitudes on children's bilingual development is to examine immigrant families. There seems to be little well-documented research that has been done on the influence of the association between acculturation and attitudes toward preserving heritage culture and language among Turkish immigrant parents in the US (Nisanci, 2019). The current study explored the relationship between parental demographic variables (e.g., parents' educational level, child's age) and children's heritage language proficiency (Becker, 2013) using both Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory and Berry’s Acculturation Model. Fifty-two (52) Turkish parents age (M = 38.15, SD = 4.84) and their children age from 5 to 11 years (M = 8.23, SD = 2.18) living in various states (e.g., Ohio, Connecticut) participated in this study. The parents were administered a package of questionnaires and children’s Turkish productivity samples were elicited for proficiency evaluation via a Turkish expressive vocabulary test (TIFALDI). The findings illustrate that parental language attitudes were negatively correlated with marginalization, assimilation, and integration attitudes but positively correlated with separation attitudes. Notable factors that influenced children’s heritage language proficiency were also identified. Children’s age was negatively associated with heritage language proficiency. Conversely, actively speaking Turkish with siblings at home, was positively correlated to children’s Turkish proficiency. However, the amount of reading and watching movies in Turkish did not predict children’s Turkish proficiency. The current research suggests that exposure to the majority language decreases heritage language proficiency. In turn, older children of immigrants lack the motivation to maintain the heritage language. Although immigrant parents seem to be the primary heritage language educators providing a supportive language home environment, their efforts may be hindered by the lack of heritage language exposure in other environments. Therefore, the current study suggests that school curriculum designers, teachers, and researchers should be involved in creating effective and supportive environments for immigrant families that promote the importance of preservation of heritage culture and language as part of bilingual education (Bayram & Wright, 2016). INFLUENCE OF TURKISH IMMIGRANT PARENTS ACCULTURATION STRATEGIES AND LANGUAGE ATTITUDES ON CHILDREN’S BILINGUAL DEVELOPMENT PROCESS: AN EMBEDDED MIXED METHODS STUDY A DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The Department of Psychology by Seyma Inan The Graduate School Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2021 Dissertation Director: Yvette R. Harris © Seyma Inan 2021 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 1 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM ............................................................................................................ 1 THEORETICAL MODELS ON IMMIGRATION EXPERIENCE: SOCIO-CULTURAL THEORY AND ACCULTURATION THEORY ........................................................................................................... 2 ACCULTURATION EXPERIENCES AMONG IMMIGRANT FAMILIES .................................................. 3 DUAL-LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS: BILINGUALISM, HERITAGE LANGUAGE, AND PARENTAL LANGUAGE ATTITUDES .............................................................................................. 4 Bilingualism ............................................................................................................................ 5 Heritage Language as Part of Bilingualism ........................................................................... 5 Benefits and Drawbacks of Dual-Language Maintenance ..................................................... 7 Language Attitudes of Parents: Raising Children in Bilingual Settings ................................ 8 HISTORY OF BILINGUALISM IN THE U.S. ...................................................................................... 9 The History of Turkish Migration to the U.S. ....................................................................... 10 PARENTING AND CULTURE......................................................................................................... 11 Parenting in Turkish Culture ................................................................................................ 11 RATIONALE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ......................................................................... 12 Limitations of the Literature ................................................................................................. 13 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY............................................................................................................. 13 RESEARCH QUESTIONS .............................................................................................................. 14 The Quantitative Research Questions: ................................................................................. 14 The Qualitative Research Question: ..................................................................................... 15 CHAPTER TWO (METHOD) .................................................................................................. 16 QUANTITATIVE PHASE ............................................................................................................... 16 Research Design ................................................................................................................... 16 Description of Participants ................................................................................................... 16 PARENTS AND CHILDREN MEASURES......................................................................................... 17 General Family Demographics Questionnaire ..................................................................... 17 The Parents of Bilingual Children Questionnaire (PaBiQ) ................................................. 17 Acculturation Attitudes Questionnaire ................................................................................. 17 Language Attitudes Questionnaire ....................................................................................... 18 Children Outcomes: Language Skills, TIFALDI .................................................................. 18 TRANSLATION PROCESS ............................................................................................................. 19 RESEARCH PROCEDURES ............................................................................................................ 19 STATISTICAL DATA ANALYSIS ................................................................................................... 20 QUALITATIVE PHASE ................................................................................................................. 20 Interview with Parents .......................................................................................................... 20 Research Procedures ............................................................................................................ 21 Sample Size and Rationale .................................................................................................... 21 Transcribing, Translating, and Coding the Interviews ......................................................... 21 Interview Data Analysis ........................................................................................................ 22 CHAPTER 3 (RESULTS) .......................................................................................................... 24 iii QUANTITATIVE FINDINGS .......................................................................................................... 24 3.1. Descriptive Statistics of the Study .................................................................................. 24 3.2. Parental language attitudes and acculturation attitudes (assimilation, separation, marginalization, and integration) ......................................................................................... 24 3.3. Association between parental language attitudes and acculturation attitudes (assimilation, separation, marginalization, and integration) with children’s heritage