Socioeconomic Status and Parental Involvement as Cognitive and Affective Factors Fostering Very Young Learners’ Second Language Development

Abstract

The socio-economic status of the learner, or in the case of very young learners, of his parents, although widely studied in pedagogy and psychology, is now becoming a new area of interest in SLA research (cf. Piasecka 2009; Mattheoudakis and Alexiou 2009). It is even regarded as a cognitive factor, as it mediates access to learning resources, and thus has an impact on final learning outcomes. A family’s financial resources are usually connected with a high level of parental education and occupational position, and consequently determine such elements of family life as amount and quality of time spent with children, as well as expectations and aspirations regarding children’s educational achievement. SES can also be regarded as a mediating affective factor, as it is indirectly connected with the amount of time spent between children and parents, and the type of parental involvement (active vs. passive). The paper presents the results of a survey conducted among parents of very young learners of L2 (n = 41), of higher and lower SES families. The results of the survey show that the two groups differ in ways of spending time with children (i.e. in parental involvement, which could account for an affective factor), and in parental strategies used to support their children’s L2 learning. In addition, a Chi square analysis showed there is a correlation between the amount of the L2 strategies used and the parental level of education and L2 knowledge.