International doctoral students’ identity formulations through their orientations to their children’s languages as both stressors and assets

Abstract

This study contributes to research on the doctoral experience of international students who are parents, and for whom the temporary experience of living elsewhere is both a challenge and a resource for all members of the family. The study investigated how a group of these students positioned themselves to their children’s English and home language during their study abroad. A group of 12 international doctoral students from one Australian university and one primary school teacher took part in the study. The doctoral students were from a number of non-anglophone countries. Membership Categorisation Analysis was used to examine the identity categories invoked during focus group discussions. The categories bilingual, student, parent, tutor and spouse, the category devices family, study, nationality/language, time and location, and the attributes responsibility and inadequacy that emerged in the analysis, suggest that language issues are important considerations for international students with families, and need focused attention.

Introduction

Family has been identified as one of the important factors in research on the doctoral experience and completion rates (Breitenbach et al., 2019; Volkert et al., 2018). As will be elaborated below, key factors that have emerged from previous research include the necessity to balance academic study with family needs (Cohen, 2011; Martinez et al., 2013), the need for family integration (Rochinson-Szapkiw et al. 2016), and the importance of educating family members so that they know what doctoral work entails (Breitenbach et al., 2019). In the context of the internationalisation of higher education, family and the support it offers are issues of particular salience for students who cross borders in their quest for higher education degrees. The affordances and the benefits accrued can be of direct value to the individual students, host institutions, and host and home countries (Elliot et al., 2016).

In the case of international doctoral students with family, in moving temporarily to another country, their families can become beneficiaries of the experience through an opportunity to become bicultural. When they move to a country where the majority language is in addition to their own, the experience can also provide an opportunity for their family members to become bilingual. However, language can pose challenges and become a stressor if attention is not given to it. While language as a key issue in the settlement of migrants has received research attention (e.g., Pauwels, 2005), how bilingualism and their children’s languages are oriented to by international doctoral students with families, remains largely unexplored.

Anecdotal discussions during doctoral supervision meetings provided the motivation for the current investigation. During these meetings students recounted concerns about their children’s schooling. They cited both (in)sufficiency of English and the need for continuing home language development and maintenance in preparation for their return home. These discussions prompted interest in exploring the following: (1) how international doctoral students navigate the issues that arise for their children concerning English and home language maintenance and development, and (2) how they formulate their identities as parents, doctoral students, and bilinguals as they discuss their children’s languages and their effects on their studies and parenting. The conceptual framework to be used to guide analysis of the data is membership categorisation analysis (Sacks, 1995).

The study begins with a consideration of the relevant research by locating the current study in investigations of adjustment and stress factors, and international students with family. Next the conceptual framing of the study is discussed, followed by the research design, analysis and discussion. The paper concludes with recommendations derived from the investigation.

Review of the literature

In past research on adjustment and the doctoral student experience, the identification of stressors that can impact study and thesis completion has been a key focus of attention. Levecque et al. (2017) report that one in two doctoral students experiences stress that impacts their study progress. Among the most often cited contributing factors are students’ relationships with supervisors and mentors (Lindén et al., 2013), family (Cohen, 2011), student characteristics and dispositions (Li, 2016), students’ membership to communities (Terrell et al., 2012), financial resources (Calder et al., 2016), departmental characteristics, and challenges to research that are outside the students’ control (Golde, 2005).

Investigations of the doctoral student as part of the family unit (which increasingly has extended beyond narrow definitions of the nuclear family to include student communities of support; see Hlabse et al., 2016; Yalof & Chametzky, 2016), have investigated the positive and negative effects of family commitments and support (Breitenbach et al., 2019), and the work-family, life-study balance (Kudarauskienè & Žydžiūnaitė, 2018; Martinez et al., 2013). Cohen (2011), for example, maintained that students who had to juggle the needs of their families such as assisting their children with schoolwork, were at greater risk of non-completion as were students who experienced difficult family relationships (Schmidt & Hansson, 2018). Other findings to emerge are how well-integrated (Rochinson-Szapkiw et al., 2016) and how well-informed students’ families are about what doctoral study entails (Breitenbach et al., 2019; Walsh et al., 2023). These findings have led researchers (e.g., Breitenbach et al., 2019; Rochinson-Szapkiw et al., 2016; Walsh et al., 2023) to conclude that there is a need for universities to provide resources to support both the education and the integration of doctoral students’ families.

International students, and in particular those who come from linguistic backgrounds in addition to English, face the additional, potential hurdles posed by language competence and cultural differences. Indeed, investigations of the international student experience have been largely concerned with how students’ own academic language proficiency (Sato & Hodge, 2009) and their sociocultural adaptation (Kurtz-Costes et al., 2006; Sato & Hodge, 2009) impact the doctoral study experience.

Despite the call for further research in the area, there remain few studies that are specifically concerned with issues regarding international doctoral students as parents. Similar acculturative stressors experienced by students without family have been reported for those with family, including financial concerns (Calder et al., 2016), language difficulties and cultural adjustments, time-management, reduced access to familial support, the work-family, life-study balance (Bireda, 2015), and depression that can negatively impact the student experience (Myers-Walls et al., 2011). Myers-Walls et al. (2011) found that a key difference between doctoral students with families and students without families is that the stressors can affect the acculturation of the family unit (Myers-Walls et al., 2011). This in turn can add considerably to students’ own stress levels (Loveridge et al., 2018). Furthermore, some stressors are unique to the family as a unit and necessitate changes in the status and/or role of a spouse who may need to take on different responsibilities (Myers-Walls et al., 2011). Importantly, not all impacts are considered to be negative when the long-term effects of the doctoral experience in foreign countries are taken into consideration (Loveridge et al., 2018). Bilas (2020), for example, in reporting the positive effects on students in having spouses and families with them during their stay, cited a conclusive link between family support and completion rates (Bilas, 2020). Thus, while stress is often reported during the study period, the lives of all family members are nonetheless likely to be improved on course completion.

In turning to the issue of international doctoral students’ children’s languages, Loveridge et al. (2018), in a study of students with preschool children in New Zealand, reported that parents wrestled with the decision about whether to speak the home language or English, a dilemma shared by migrants (Pauwels, 2005). Pinter (2013) explored doctoral students’ children’s language in the context of adjustment and settling in at school, issues that are also congruent with the migrant experience (e.g., Eisenchlas & Schalley, 2019). Pinter’s study appears to be the only one to have included both the children’s home and second language. However, in neither study was language the key focus as it is in the current investigation. This study therefore intends to bring attention to how international doctoral students orient to their children’s languages as students and as parents. In doing so, the study aims to contribute to understanding the complexities of the transnational (and temporary migrant) experience of international doctoral students to better target programmes for this cohort of students and their families.

Conceptual framework

A recurring human activity as we make sense of our daily lives is to describe, classify and identify others and ourselves as members of social groups in situated activities. We ascribe social categories to others and to ourselves based on our social knowledge. Membership Categorisation Analysis (MCA) (Sacks, 1995) provides an analytic method to reveal people’s assumptions and normative expectations through the categories they invoke in situ. The categories are not fixed but are culturally shaped, constructed and modified in interaction (Fitzgerald, 2015; Hester & Eglin, 1997). The categories belong to a set of devices. For example, ‘child’ belongs to the device ‘family’, but it can also belong to the device ‘pre-school’. These devices work together as a collection and can be structured hierarchically; for example, parent and child or teacher and student, with attendant responsibilities, duties and rights tied to the categories (Watson, 1978).

In categorising people, we also ascribe attributes to them which are based on our expectations about the activities they perform and that we associate with a particular category, referred to as ‘category-bound norms’ (Fitzgerald, 2015; Hester & Eglin, 1997). Membership categories are therefore ways of knowing and making sense of the world through actions achieved in our everyday interactions (Milburn & Hansen, 2017). They are used to accomplish social actions such as complaining, justifying or telling a story (Eglin & Hester, 2006).

MCA has been applied to studies in education including in higher education contexts. Stokoe et al. (2013), for example, explored the categories teacher and student to reveal rights and access to knowledge that the speakers laid claim to as they interacted with each other. While principally used to analyse naturally occurring data, MCA has also been used with interview data. Bridges and Emerald (2013), for example, examined how the interviewees in their study invoked the categories native-speaking English teacher and local English teacher in a teacher education context in Hong Kong. Like Bridges and Emerald (2013), Kupetz (2022), King (2010) and Filipi (2018) also used the interview and focus group as a co-constructed interactional event (Kupetz, 2022). Kupetz explored the identity construction of refugees, King investigated students’ gap year experiences to show how the categories in their accounts changed during their tellings, and Filipi examined how international high school students and their teachers framed, negotiated or contested the categories of English language learner and international student.

In the doctoral student context, students shift between identities as they juggle study and work responsibilities. Their identity construction is shaped through their everyday professional and personal experiences (Mantai, 2019). In exploring the stances of doctoral students with family to their children’s languages, a further layer to family and study is added which creates possibilities to explore how international doctoral students formulate their identities in relation to their children’s languages. MCA can serve to understand and capture how students display their understandings about the social world using categories that may overlap and create both harmony and dissonance as they explore issues raised in relation to bilingualism, English and the home language in their doctoral journeys. Because identity is revealed in the telling of lived experience (Connelly & Clandinin, 1990), a narrative focus is also important. However, as King (2010) rightly points out, care needs to be taken to show that the analyst is not merely projecting meanings onto a narrative and that the interpretation is not simply based on an analyst’s understanding. Rather, the analysis needs to show that the interpretations are made with reference to the participant’s own orientations to what is relevant through their accounts as co-constructed interactional events.

Research design

Data collection and participant details

This was a qualitative case study (Baxter & Jacks, 2008). Cases were current doctoral students from a range of faculties in one university. Recruitment was conducted through purposeful sampling to enable information-rich cases (Patton, 2002). Participants needed to come from a country where English was not the main spoken language and have school-aged children with them for the duration of their studies (3–4 years).

Participants were recruited through an advertisement and through the personal contacts of the research assistant. The research assistant had completed her doctoral studies under the supervision of the author six months prior to the commencement of recruitment for the study. Like the participants sought, she also had come to Australia as an international student with her family. She was therefore well placed as a member of this community to reach out to doctoral students throughout the university. Membership of the group was not shared by the author, who was born in Australia. However, she had brought her (now adult) children up bilingually and had been an English as an Additional Language (EAL) high school teacher. At the time of the study, she was an English language teacher educator.

Twelve students expressed an interest in participating, and all were accepted. All students spoke at least one language in addition to English which was their second language. Participants’ countries of origin included Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Italy, Romania and Vietnam. Participants were at different stages of their candidature. Their children ranged in ages from 3 to 18, and two of the 12 participants were single parents with one child. All families reported that their children had basic or little English prior to coming to Australia even in countries where English was extensively taught. English language proficiency levels varied according to the age of the children and time spent in Australia or in other anglophone countries.

As well as the doctoral students, teachers who were responsible for EAL programmes in three primary schools, and two secondary schools, were invited to take part in the study. Their inclusion was deemed important given the focus of the study. Only one school responded to the invitation—a primary school close to the university which had a large number of EAL students and a well-established programme of support. One teacher from the school was subsequently interviewed to determine how the school developed targeted programmes for this group of EAL students who need to both develop English and high levels in their home language for their subsequent return home. In total, 13 participants took part in the study.

Three focus group discussions were conducted with the doctoral students to permit a deeper exploration of issues while an individual interview took place with the teacher. The focus groups and interview were all conducted at the university by the author together with the research assistant. In total, approximately 4 hours of data were collected. Each discussion was audio-recorded and subsequently transcribed using a professional service in the first instance to create verbatim written transcripts of the interviews. To be noted, while the study in this paper is principally concerned with the doctoral students, data from the interview with the teacher is also included where relevant to the discussion.

The focus groups and interview lasted approximately 60 min each. Questions and prompts started with general topics to generate discussion about being a parent and a doctoral student, or about being a teacher in a school with high numbers of transitory migrants, then moved to the topic of language and the participants’ children’s or students’ bilingualism. Finally, participants were asked for recommendations about the ways in which future doctoral students with families might be supported to assist their children with language development to inform policy.

Approach to analysis

In conducting MCA, the focus group discussions were treated and analysed as co-constructed events through invitations to participants to ‘tell’ about their experiences regarding their children’s languages during their doctoral studies. This was important to understand how participants nominated categories for themselves and others during their accounts. The focus group also made it more likely that a range of views about practices and their impacts, and recommendations, would emerge as co-constructed contributions (Kupetz, 2022).

Using both the recordings and the transcriptions, an initial search for quotations when participants discussed bilingualism, English and the home language, was independently conducted by both the researcher and research assistant, then discussed. Final selections for analysis and possible inclusion were then made by the author.

The transcriptions of the selected examples were subsequently refined by the author to capture features of natural conversation rather than simply create a written record of the event. This was done to retain naturalness and authenticity in capturing participant voice in line with narrative inquiry (Mantai, 2019). Consequently, dysfluency (conveyed through repetition and cut-offs (–)), pauses (measured in one tenths of a second), and emphasis (through underlining), which might shed further light on participants’ discussions, were included in the transcription. An ellipsis was used to indicate excluded sections or indecipherable words, with or without description, and capitalisation for proper nouns was omitted to preserve the spoken quality of the quotations. Finally, it was important to represent and convey exactly what participants said and how they said it by refraining from making any linguistic corrections of the participant quotations.

Ethics approval from the university to conduct the study was obtained (MUHREC 9046), and participant consent was received. Pseudonyms have been used throughout.

Analysis and discussion

The analysis uncovered a number of categories and category devices, and category-related activities and attributes as participants discussed issues related to their children’s languages, the importance of languages for the family, and the particular challenges they posed. The categories invoked revealed how participants formulated their identities as parents and doctoral students.

The analysis and discussion are grouped under the subheadings: bilingualism, English language and the home language. The first subsection begins by exploring the broader context of bilingualism and how the doctoral students formulated their own and their family’s linguistic heritage and identity. The focus here is on how their children’s languages are positioned as issues that shape a shared family identity.

Bilingualism

All participants drew attention to their bilingual identities and to the centrality of language as a practice in family life and as a defining feature of the family unit. In the interests of space, two extracts were selected from families who spoke more than two languages. The categories invoked by the participants were bilingual, language and parent while the category devices were nationality and family.

Extract 1: Irena from Romania, two children aged 5 and 7 (Interviewer is abbreviated to Int. in each extract.)

• 1Int: let’s talk about the languages at home and how you speak

• 2 and what you do with your children in terms of speaking at home.

• 3 (0.3)

• 4 so i’ll just open that up.

• 5Irena: i’m romanian, and my husband is italian.

• 6 (0.4)

• 7 i speak romanian with my kids, he speaks italian with them,

• 8 and they learn perfect english, better than us. …

• 9 (0.4)

• 10Int: and they do speak it at home as well- with you, (0.2)

• 11 the romanian and italian?

• 12Irena: yeah, they respond, yeah, they’re um fluent. (0.3)

• 13 i insisted. i told them, (0.2) ‘if you want to make me happy, do it’.

Irena is drawing attention to the linguistic diversity in the family. She starts by invoking nationality as a device with the categories Romanian (assigned to self) and Italian (assigned to her husband). Next, she responds directly to the interviewer’s question by introducing the activities associated with the device—speaking to the children in their languages. She formulates her children as being highly proficient through a series of attributes (perfect English; better than us (line 8); fluent (line 12)). In responding in the affirmative to the interviewer’s confirmation question in lines 10–11, she invokes her parent identity as someone who has contributed directly to her children’s active bilingualism by insisting on maintaining the home languages. This is expressed through her use of the direct reported speech device (Holt, 1996) (i told them…‘if you want…) in line 13. She thereby constructs her identity as a responsible bilingual parent for whom linguistic heritage is important.

Bilingualism is also positioned as an important family value by Trina.

Extract 2: Trina from Bangladesh; one child aged 5 and 6 months

• 1Int: can you tell me the story about what you do,

• 2 how you support your children’s home language?

• 3 (0.5)

• 4 what language or language you speak at home?

• 5 just give me a little bit of information about that.

• 6Trina: … when i was in south korea i started picking up south korean

• 7 and then i- ah i was multilinguistic.

• 8 (0.3)

• 9 when i came to australia my son was speaking bengali initially

• 10 and he started to speak in english at home continuously

• 11 (0.3) which i’m not encouraging because i want him to know

• 12 his native language as well, (0.3)

• 13 and because he needs to talk to my parents as well,

• 14 and my aunt, (0.2) everyone, (0.3)

• 15 so i don’t want him to forget the language

• 16 and on top of that, because i’m muslim, (0.2)

• 17 so we have to learn arabic.

Trina shares an account of her rich linguistic heritage to foreground her linguistic expectations for her son. She does this by establishing her bilingual identity through the four language categories of English, Korean, Bengali and Arabic. She also brings attention to bilingualism as a normative practice as she associates each of her languages with a range of social activities, or what Spolsky (2012) refers to as domains; i.e. living in South Korea, studying in Australia, using language to communicate with family and friends, and participating in religious activities as a Muslim. Her own current and past linguistic histories are therefore tied to a linguistic future for her son as a bilingual. This is expressed as a need to curtail speaking English continuously at home and not encouraging English (lines 10–11) in the interests of maintaining her son’s ongoing development of Bengali (lines 11–15) and Arabic (line 17). Like Irena, Trina formulates her identity as both a bilingual and a parent tasked with the responsibility of maintaining her son’s language heritage. Languages are thus made relevant to her parenting responsibilities. How the issue of maintaining her son’s bilingualism aligns with her responsibilities and identity as a doctoral student will be elaborated in extract 6 below.

Having discussed the centrality of language use and bilingualism as key parent responsibilities, the analysis next uncovers the tensions and challenges in attending to either English or the home language.

English language

Apart from Trina and Hanh (discussed below), all the participants with young children in pre- to mid-primary school had no or few concerns about their children’s languages. They ascribed to their children the attribute of being linguistically adept, efficient learners who were able to adjust with ease as bilinguals. This assessment is captured by Alberto from Italy, with children aged 5 and 7, who stated that ‘they are young and they learn languages in a very fast way’. The parents of the older children, however, recounted the difficulties confronted with English and the home language.

In extracts 3 to 5, the participants discuss the decisions taken and their practices in supporting their children’s English. In formulating their children’s English language as a stressor, the participants use a range of categories related to school selection and lack of information. They also bring further attention to parent responsibility through the attributes of concern and inadequacy.

Extract 3: Bian from Vietnam; one child aged 7

• 1Bian: at this stage (mid candidature) i’m okay …

• 2 in the first years we struggling with the english as well as my study,

• 3 because she didn’t know english at home, (0.3)

• 4 so when she came here,

• 5 i’m based in (suburb in Melbourne),

• 6 so the (name) language school centre is quite far from us,

• 7 so because i’m only here with her at that time (0.2)

• 8 so i couldn’t drive as well, (0.3)

• 9 so i send her to mainstream school first.

Bian is relating her decision to send her daughter to the local school on arrival rather than to the English Language school (which immigrant children and international students in Australia can attend for six to 12 months for intensive English learning before transferring to a mainstream school). As discussed in the conceptual framework section, speakers’ actions in invoking categories and category devices and tying them to attributes and activities, are launched to achieve a social function such as telling a story (Eglin & Hester, 2006). Here the function is to justify her decision for school selection which she accomplishes through two devices: time (past and present) and location (proximity and distance).

She begins her account by alluding to both present and past time. This enables her to formulate the start of her studies as a difficult time in line 2 (struggling with the english as well as my study) in contrast to the present described as being okay (line 1). In doing so, she is highlighting the particular set of difficulties confronted on arrival, a recurring theme in the literature (Cornwall et al., 2019). Such difficulties are exacerbated for international students with children for whom English is an additional language. They must attend to their children’s English language needs alongside settlement as Bian alludes to here.

She next introduces location as a device that she uses to justify her decision. This is formulated as distance from home (line 6). To be noted is that distance from home in deciding not to send their children to an English Language Centre (which can be located at a considerable distance from the university) was also formulated by the teacher, Annette, as ‘another’ problem. She stated that ‘if they are a parent who doesn’t have a licence or they’re not comfortable on our roads, then you have that problem as well’. In outer suburban areas of Melbourne, distances between places can be vast. Train networks are minimal so that the main means of public transportation is the bus. This increases travel time. In building her justification, Bian also cites not having a car (line 8) and being without her spouse (line 7) (reported as a stressor for doctoral students by Bilas (2020), Breitenbach et al., (2019), Cohen (2011), and Myers-Walls et al., (2011)).

Highlighted in Bian’s account are the tensions in her competing responsibilities as parent and student (implicit through her statement in line 2—as well as my study). The tensions are revealed through the relational pair closer/distant used to justify her decision about choosing the geographically closer mainstream school in preference to the geographically distant English Language school. The latter school could be construed as a better choice for a child who has only just arrived in the country. However, as Bian's opening statements in lines 1 and 2 indicate, when the initial pressures in settling the family are resolved, and expectations and time for study are established, the responsibilities also change and shift the balance to enable attention to study.

In the next extract, displays of concern and inadequacy emerge openly as Quynh recounts her initial experiences.

Extract 4: Quynh from Vietnam, children aged 8 and 10

• 1Int: and if you wouldn’t mind telling me about yourselves

• 2 and who you’ve come with (0.4)

• 3 maybe something about your children, your family,

• 4 whether you’ve had any

• 5 challenges already, how they’re settling.

• 6Quynh: … actually to be honest i didn’t know when i could start

• 7 um the phd here in australia.

• 8 (0.4) so i didn’t prepare well for my sons.

• 9 and actually i did ask my colleagues about the situation there

• 10 and they told me ‘don’t worry about that because your

• 11 sons can quickly adapt to the situation

• 12 because the kids can learn very well, (0.3) especially the language’.

• 13 (0.2) so i didn’t worry much about that. (0.4)

• 14 in fact i did teach them at the weekends,

• 15 maybe once or twice a week on saturday

• 16 and sometimes on sunday as well …

  (talks about the school and EAL withdrawal in lines 17–18 not shown)

• 19 and they did improve but i think (0.5) very slowly.

• 20 … actually i was so worried.

Quynh starts her account in lines 6–7 by invoking her identity as parent and suggesting that she did not prepare her sons well because of a lack of knowledge about the start time for her studies. Her claim of insufficient knowledge (Sert & Walsh, 2013) (to be honest I didn’t know) introduces a plausible reason for her ‘failure’ and mitigates the possibly negative formulation of herself as being irresponsible. She next uses a direct reported speech device (her colleagues’ advice to avoid worrying in lines 10–12, which is both heeded and ignored). This action serves to further her justification for her decision to not adequately attend to her sons’ English prior to their arrival in Australia. Importantly, it also deflects total blame away from herself. She then almost immediately begins to construct her identity as a responsible parent. She does so by introducing the category of teacher/tutor as an additional identity formulation together with the associated activities tied to the category of teaching and learning (i did teach them (line 14), they did improve (line 19)). These are ‘category-bound norms’ that are associated with expectations about how people act in the category (Fitzgerald, 2015; Hester & Eglin, 1997). However, Quynh also hints at the inadequacy of her skills in lines 19–20 when she states that her sons only improved slowly despite her efforts in teaching them on weekends and that she was therefore worried.

Quynh’s account raises the issue of the lack of adequate information about the English language needs of doctoral students’ children prior to arrival that is necessary for the successful transition and integration of the family in the new context, and to ease pressure on the doctoral student. The absence of such information resonates with recommendations in the literature about the need for universities to adequately inform and educate members of the family in preparation for their stay in the new country (e.g., Breitenbach et al., 2019).

The doctoral students as teachers or tutors for their children to assist with schoolwork, and how helping their children affected their study patterns, were discussed by several participants. An example is provided in Bagus’ account in the next extract.

Extract 5: Bagus from Indonesia; children aged 5, 14 and 18

• 1Int: it really is impacting your study?

• 2Bagus: … i cannot meet all the work study stuff,

• 3 so i force my wife to (0.3) care for the third kid,

• 4 even though my wife’s english is not really good

• 5 … but i (0.2) just need to prepare for the one and the second sons,

• 6 because the homework is very intense, every day.

• 7 (0.4)

• 8 i suppose i can work for example … until 8:00 in the night

• 9 … but i cannot do (so) unless my son- ‘do you have homework?’

• 10 ‘no, i don’t have homework,’

• 11 so i can continue.

• 12 (0.3)

• 13 but i think they have a lot of homework,

• 14 especially the writing, academic writing

• 15 (0.3) which is very high ah (0.3) vocabulary for me.

Throughout the account, Bagus is ascribing to himself the categories of student, spouse, parent and tutor to reveal the complex ways in which identity is shaped and emerges in situ.

In response to the interviewer’s question, Bagus begins by drawing attention to the difficulty of attending to all the demands of his study (line 2). This allows him to introduce the necessity for a division of labour and responsibilities associated with the category device family (line 3), displayed through the action of assigning the categories spouse and parent to himself and to his wife. Each category is then associated with specific activities: care of the young child is assigned to the spouse and assistance with schoolwork is assigned to himself.

English language proficiency is another attribute that features strongly in Bagus’ account. He describes who in the family has greater or lesser proficiency in explaining how responsibility for each child is allocated to himself (as the more proficient and therefore taking on the activity of tutoring his older sons by assisting them with their homework) and to his spouse (as the less proficient and thereby tasked with caring for the youngest child—my wife’s English is not really good).

The category of tutor impacts heavily on Bagus’ own study and is closely aligned with the category of student, which is tied to the activities of work and study into the night, also reported by El-Ghoroury et al. (2012). In fact, Bagus states that he prioritises helping his sons when he suggests that whether they have homework determines if he can attend to his studies or not (lines 9–11). As well, like Quynh, Bagus ascribes inadequacy to himself as tutor in line 15. However, for Bagus it is his own English language proficiency through his inadequate school related vocabulary knowledge (which is very high ah vocabulary for me) rather than his skills as an English teacher that is formulated as lacking in his ability to help with his sons’ homework.

The difference in parenting roles described by Bagus concurs with the finding by Myers-Walls et al. (2011) that local contingencies necessitate changes in the roles of spouses who may need to take on different sets of responsibilities. His formulation of helping with schoolwork as being of consequence for his study, has been alluded to in past research (e.g., Cohen, 2011). The issue of children’s languages, however, adds an additional layer and complexity to these findings.

The home language

The category parent and participants’ identity formulations as ‘responsible’ are also relevant and invoked in the discussions about the home language. The doctoral students discussed supporting their children’s home language by insisting on its use in their everyday interactions at home (as illustrated in extracts 1 and 2 above), by engaging regularly on social media with family back home, and by reading to their children. In displaying an awareness of the need to address this issue, parents reported two additional practices: (1) sending their children to language classes in after-hours community language schools (extract 6), and (2) having their children stay on as international students after completion of their doctoral studies (extract 7).

Extract 6: Trina from Bangladesh; one child aged 5 and 6 months

• 1Int: so that could be an issue then in terms of

• 2 learning the home language for school,

• 3 (0.5)

• 4Trina: for me it still hasn’t been because i’m not planning to start

• 5 his native learning this year,

• 6 but next year (0.3) i know that i have to send him off to bengali

• 7 school in addition to arabic school,

• 8 so that would be a bit of challenge because that would mean i

• 9 have to spend both of the days of my weekend to study

• 10 … travelling to and from the schools.

• 11 (0.3)

• 12 and on top of that because i’m doing my research in

• 13 biochemistry, it needs a lot of laboratory work,

• 14 so i usually spend my weekend in the lab as well.

• 15 and i ah (0.2) still don’t know how i’m going to manage all that.

Trina’s account brings attention to the shift in focus to the home language as she approached the end of her study by invoking language and challenge as categories. She uses the category language to articulate the need for her son’s formal learning of both Arabic and Bengali that can only be realised formally in school. The challenges associated with such a decision are tied to the categorical device time—the future in line 6 (next year) which she contrasts with the present in line 5 (this year). She then lists each challenge and its associated activities in attending to her son’s home languages: travelling between schools, giving up her weekends to study, and making time to work in the laboratory at the weekend. She next uses an extreme case formulation (Pomerantz, 1986) (line 12, on top of that) with prosodic emphasis on top. This interactional resource serves to draw attention to the difficulties concerning the competing responsibilities that Trina will face as a parent and as a student (i don’t know how i’m going to manage). It enables her to make a strong claim that she is justified in feeling the weight of the challenges.

In sum, the category parent, invoked alongside doctoral student, has unveiled the tensions that arise in having to manage the time for Trina’s study while simultaneously having to attend to her son’s home language needs in addition to normal care and schooling. Managing family needs has been recurringly reported in the literature as an issue that impacts the study experience especially for women (Kudarauskienè & Žydžiūnaitė, 2018). The new finding here is about how attending to children’s language needs can become a principal, additional stressor. Importantly, it is also a normative practice for bilingual families.

The next extract provides an example of what appears to be an extreme solution to the unsuccessful task (for the home context) of keeping up high levels of proficiency in the home language.

Extract 7: Hanh from Vietnam; one child aged 14

• 1Int: so it’s the culture of learning?

• 2Hanh: and we are not sure that- i myself, will be back to vietnam,

• 3 this is sure for me (0.3),

• 4 but for her (0.3) we are speaking of applying for a student visa for her

• 5 so that she can finish her year 10, 11, and 12 here

• 6 because it’s a very big challenge for her to get back to vietnam

• 7 (0.4) in the educational system in vietnam

• 8 with the old learning and the push- … to learn the language at home.

• 9Int: so you would go home and she would stay, (0.2) is that the plan?

• 10Hanh: yes, it’s our plan and my husband may be the guardian for her.

In projecting her identity as parent, Hanh is discussing an in-progress family decision about her daughter remaining in Australia as part of the international student programme in schools once Hanh completes her thesis and returns home. Here doubts about her daughter’s successful re-integration (lines 2, 6, 7, 8) emerge alongside the responsibility in deciding on the best educational outcome for her.

Like Trina, Hanh explicitly invokes challenge as a category (line 6) to underscore the current situation. She also uses an extreme case formulation (very big challenge) to emphasise the extent of the challenge for her daughter who has not been able to continue developing her home language to a level required for her re-integration into school in Vietnam (lines 6–8). This formulation also allows Hanh to justify what may be construed as an extreme decision.

Also emerging in this account is the change in future parent roles if the decision is acted on. Hahn will go home to take up her career (which projects a new identity that becomes relevant at the completion of her study and is indirectly alluded to in line 2 (i myself, will be back to Vietnam, this is sure for me)) while her husband will stay behind as guardian (line 10). Like Bagus’ account in extract 5, and Myers-Walls et al.’s (2011) findings about changes in parent roles, here there is yet another example of the (projected) division and changes in spousal roles.

Hahn’s account provides a different perspective on the benefits of doctoral study to the family unit as reported in past research (e.g., Bilas, 2020). Improvement for the international doctoral student’s family can come at the cost of geographically dividing the family because of the differences in education systems and because their children’s language needs have not been adequately met at the levels required for schooling on their return.

In sum, both extracts 6 and 7 provide a display of participant concerns about their children’s home language needs. The concerns surrounding languages become particularly relevant as potential stressors not just at the beginning of the doctoral journey but also towards the end for the disruption that attending to them causes family and their successful re-settlement. At such times, a different set of parent responsibilities comes into play that may disrupt study and give greater prominence to parenting.

Discussion

This study drew on MCA to explore international doctoral students’ formulations of identity as they discussed their stances to their children’s languages in focus groups. In treating the focus group as a co-constructed interactional event (Kupetz, 2022), analysis permitted a referential formation of the categories of bilingual, parent, teacher/tutor, spouse and student, the category devices of family, study, nationality/language, time and location, and the activities and attributes associated with the categories that emerged in students’ invited tellings. The categories overlapped and created both harmony and dissonance as participants explored issues raised in relation to past, present, future decisions and practices, and their consequences for bilingualism, and their children’s English and home language development as well as their own doctoral journeys. Narrowing the focus to an analysis of participants’ orientations to children’s language, and using MCA to guide analysis, enabled new findings to emerge to add to and extend previous findings of the experience of international doctoral students with family.

Through the category bilingual, language was characterised as being central to the family even when it created issues that might detract from the participants’ own doctoral studies. From this perspective, language was not merely an academic ‘problem’. Rather, the experience of living in another country where the home language is not shared, was shaped into the occasioning of an opportunity for both the doctoral students and their families to extend and further enhance their bilingualism. In giving attention to bilingualism as linguistic capital, this finding builds on previous research that shows the ways that the doctoral experience can improve the lives of all family members (Myers-Walls et al., 2011) both in the present and potentially in the future.

The category spouse highlighted how proficiency in English and identity as student were related to spousal responsibilities to attend to matters of child-care and schooling. The children’s language needs in English were addressed through a division of labour in communicating with the school, and in assisting with homework and with the English language. In taking on the responsibility of helping their children with their homework or their English language, the additional category of tutor was also invoked. Students cited the effects on their own study time or the lack of requisite skills to address their children’s needs. The task allocations according to proficiency in English adds a new dimension and complexity to previous research about the changes in parenting roles (Myers-Walls et al., 2011) and parent assistance with schoolwork (Cohen, 2011).

The category parent uncovered issues confronted on arrival and in preparation for the return home. Previous research (e.g., Cornwall et al., 2019) has revealed that in the early stages of the doctoral experience, there are a range of immediate settling matters that interfere with studies. There is an added dimension for this cohort, however, who in addition to finding a suitable school, need to also consider both their children’s English and their home language needs. As the analysis of the data revealed, there were also competing demands when the practical issues of geographical distances and not owning a car made the decision of choosing a school on arrival more complex; whether for example to forgo sending their children to an intensive English Language school and manage the consequences as they arose. These were decisions that could impact the study experience.

As well as on arrival issues, preparation for the return home presented a particular set of challenges. The participants discussed the challenges surrounding the reintegration and the potential impact of the lack of adequate and ongoing development of their children’s home language for academic learning. This is a new finding that adds to the potential stressors that affect this cohort of doctoral students. It points to the need for an additional focus in preparation for study abroad and extends previous exhortations regarding the need for faculty support for family integration, and to educate and inform all family members about the doctoral study experience (e.g., Breitenbach et al., 2019; Rochinson-Szapkiw et al., 2016).

Related to the category parent were the attributes of concern and feelings of inadequacy invoked by participants to formulate their identities as responsible parents. The use of the reported speech device and extreme case formulation, in addition to categorising, served to create justifications for the difficult decisions that had been made or would need to be made. These interactional devices enabled participants to construct a series of parent and student responsibilities that at times were in alignment and at other times in misalignment. Participants underestimated the impact of the issues surrounding their children’s languages both on themselves and on their children, and felt ill-informed in being able to adequately prepare their children.

Concern and feelings of guilt and anxiety have been discussed in previous studies; for example, in Kudarauskienè and Žydžiūnaitė’s (2018) study of the challenges that women face in relation to balancing academic work/study with home life, and the guilt they feel in having to juggle the two. Having to also manage appropriate English and/or home language support through finding time at home or taking their children to after-hours programmes in community language schools, or in communicating with family or schools in their home country, or in finding appropriate resources to be used in the home, become considerable additional issues that this cohort of students needs to navigate in attending to family needs. The findings related to the management of children’s languages extends the research on the impacts on students as parents (e.g., Cohen, 2011; Martinez et al., 2013) who must attend to their children’s educational, and language needs as well as their own studies in important ways. They also bring attention to the concept in MCA of normative practices. For bilingual families, the norms and the associated expected behaviours they project, need to be inclusive of language practices.

The reported findings suggest that language issues are important considerations for international students with families and that languages are both an asset and a stressor. Universities, faculties and supervisors all have a role to play in preparing and informing doctoral students about language issues and the available resources to assist them to make informed decisions about their children’s education. These are important if they are to assist their children to adjust linguistically, culturally, socially and educationally while in the host country and on their return so that the benefits of doctoral study do not come at the expense of the family unit.

During the interviews, several suggestions were offered by the doctoral students to bring attention to the children’s languages. They included:

• the possibility of extending to children English language support programmes offered to spouses

• the need to include language related information at pre-departure and on exit that specifically target children

• the need for greater liaison between the university, and mainstream and community schools that are geographically linked to the university to address the issues related to families’ language needs.

These suggestions are important for two reasons. First, they indicate the need to capture the voices of children, school staff and post-graduate university administrators in future investigations of international doctoral students with families. Second, in (re)shaping university policies and practices that take children and languages into account, emphasis is shifted away from the construal of the doctoral experience as an individual one to instead underscore the experience as one that encompasses and affects all members of the family.

Conclusion

The study’s limitations in being located in one Australian university, in gathering data only from the international doctoral students (and one teacher) to the exclusion of students’ spouses and children, are noted. Nonetheless the significance of the findings points to the need for a range of analytic methods as well as the relevance of the issues investigated for all universities in anglophone countries with similar doctoral programmes. It is important for future studies to capture the voices of children, spouses and stakeholders such as post-graduate university administrators, and to examine issues surrounding children’s language needs with a wider group of universities. The focus of future investigations could also be concerned with (1) the ethical issues in not attending to the needs of international doctoral students as members of a family unit, and in not attending to their children’s language needs in particular, and (2) the extent to which attending to children’s language needs impacts doctoral students’ study and completion rates.

In closing, the following quotation from the teacher, Annette, provides some insight into the enormous challenges in shifting views that might enable a more holistic understanding of the international students’ doctoral experience where languages are concerned:

some are just as focused on the children learning English and keeping their first language up at the same time, but some … start with, ‘yes, it’s all about the second language now’, and then year four comes along and then they start to worry … it is incredibly difficult and, as you know, schools are very busy places, so to even think about something like this (linguistically preparing for them to return) it’s like, ‘sorry, it’s not on our agenda, we’re all about STEAM at the moment and nothing else is important’, so you just go: ‘okay’.

Through her use of the reported speech device, Annette’s comment drives home the point that the issues surrounding bilingual children’s needs and in particular their home language development is not a priority for the larger school community and is difficult for an individual teacher to achieve. This has enormous implications for the important role of universities in bringing attention to, and action on, the importance of both English and home languages in the context of the internationalisation of education.