short essay
Class Habitus: Middle-Class Chinese Immigrant Parents’ Investment in Their Newcomer Adolescents’ L2 Acquisition and Social Integration XIA CHAO University of Alabama
This ethnographic case study explores how two middle-class Chinese immigrant parents in a southeastern U.S. city facilitate their newcomer adolescents’ second language acquisition and social integration. Data show that parents’ inadequate English proficiency may not be a fixed constraining factor; their class habitus and cultural capital may enable them to work as change agents in their adolescents’ integration process. This study highlights the positive impact of parents’ active social integration on that of their adolescents. [middle-class Chinese immigrant parents, class habitus, newcomer adolescents, L2 acquisition, social integration]
Literature shows that second language (L2) acquisition and social integration are major issues for immigrant families and their children. Some studies have presented that immi- grant adolescents’ poor command of English may curtail schooling (García 2005; Rumbaut 1997), create language and cultural isolation within one’s own ethnic group (Crawford 2004; Li 2002), and hinder opportunities for social integration (Gonzalez 2005; Zhou 1997). Also, schools are inclined to see immigrant parents as inactive participants in school activities because of their limited English proficiency (Dyson 2001; Valdés 1996) and less able to prepare and support their adolescents in and out of school settings (Delgado- Gaitan and Trueba 1991). However, Zhou and Bankston’s (1998) case study of Vietnamese adolescents in a poor neighborhood in New Orleans suggests that immigrant adaptation success should depend on how effectively an immigrant family’s characteristics interact with the circumstances of the host society. The existing evidence indicates the need to consider family as “the strategic research site” (Rumbaut 1997:4) and to examine its dynamic role on immigrant adolescents’ adjustment.
Drawing on eight months of data from an ethnographic study in a southeastern U.S. city, the purpose of this study is to examine to what extent the parents’ L2 proficiency, class habitus, and cultural capital may facilitate their newcomer adolescents’ immigrant adjust- ment process. Two research questions guided this ethnographic case study: (1) How does the middle-class Chinese immigrant parents’ L2 proficiency impact their newcomer ado- lescents’ L2 acquisition, transition to the U.S. junior high school settings, and social integration? (2) To what extent do the parents’ class habitus and cultural capital provide support mechanisms for these factors?
Prior quantitative studies have indicated that L2 proficiency and familial influences can be attributed to complex interrelationships among adolescents’ L2 acquisition, social integration, and school adjustment. For example, a survey study of 286 Chinese immigrant adolescents demonstrates that L2 deficiency and less parental involvement inhibit their transition to the English-speaking setting and social integration (Yeh et al. 2008). Carhill and colleagues (2008) examine a sample of 274 first-generation immigrant adolescents from China, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Central America, and Mexico and find that the amount of time the adolescents spent speaking English in informal social situations was predictive of their English proficiency. Further, Gonzalez’s (2005) quantitative study of educational attainment in immigrant families reveals that Chinese immigrant children are
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Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Vol. 44, Issue 1, pp. 58–74, ISSN 0161-7761, online ISSN 1548-1492. © 2013 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI:10.1111/j.1548-1492.2012.01179.x.
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more likely to succeed in school than children of other ethnicities. It also discovers that immigrant parents’ educational attainment, social networks, and prearrival and postarrival occupations affect their children’s educational attainment. Because these quantitative studies deal with a large number of participants, they do not address the subtlety of parental English proficiency, parenting strategies, social class status, and heritage culture that Chinese immigrant families bring with them to the United States. Also, little research attention is given to how immigrant parents invest in their newcomer adolescents’ initial period of language, sociocultural, and school adjustment. Hence, this study attempts to complement the results of the previous quantitative studies and contribute to research on newly arrived immigrant family dynamics and access to child socialization. It may provide valuable insights for immigrant parents, practitioners, policy makers, and researchers who seek to make family, school, and community dynamics more responsive to recent immigrants.
Theoretical Framework
This study is anchored in Bourdieu’s (1977, 1984, 1985, 1991) concepts of cultural capital, habitus, and field. According to Bourdieu, cultural capital is not only economic goods but also symbolic resources as value, language use, education, and daily practices. These personal dispositions are collectively called “habitus,” which children primarily acquire through family and community socialization. Bourdieu explains that habitus meshes with cultural capital and is regarded as a mechanism for cultural and social class reproduction from generation to generation. Habitus emphasizes an individual’s embod- ied and unconscious daily practices, whereas the concept of field goes beyond the indi- vidual to the broader social contexts of practices. Bourdieu indicates that a field is a social arena of struggle in pursuit of desirable resources and social positions. The different forms of capital, such as economic, cultural, and social capital, “like the aces in a game of cards, are powers that define the chances of profit in a given field” (Bourdieu 1985:724). Bourdieu contends that when an individual’s habitus fits that of the larger society, or when an individual is familiar to the field, he or she has more chances of winning the game. Bourdieu’s argument of cultural capital, habitus, and field works as an analytical tool in this study to explore to what extent the two middle-class Chinese immigrant parents’ class habitus and cultural capital may support or constrain their newcomer adolescents’ L2 acquisition and social integration. It also provides an access to discussion of how class habitus of recent immigrant families and the fields of educational or community institutions may be mutually shaped to affect newcomer adolescents’ immigrant adjustment.
Review of Related Literature
The literature review draws from three bodies of work. The first body of literature concerns L2 learners as social beings (Firth and Wagner 1997; Gee 2005; McKay and Wong 1996; Norton Peirce 1995; Pavlenko 2002). L2 acquisition should be taken into account by considering the learners’ situated sociocultural and sociohistorical contexts as well as how these contexts are accepted or resisted. For example, drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital, Norton Peirce (1995) uses the notion of “investment” to indicate that learners’ investment in English constructs their social identity and empowers their right to speak and ownership of English. Bourdieu argues that children’s capacity to speak needs to be identified with “social conditions of acquisition” (1991:55). He explains that social capacity to speak involves the linguistic capacity to generate grammatically correct dis- course and the social capacity to respond appropriately and acceptably to the situations.
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Similarly, Gee emphasizes that “language has meaning only in and through social prac- tices” (2005:8). He uses the term Discourse with a capital “D” for the combination of using language with other social practices (doing, valuing, interacting, etc.) within a socially accepted network. Gee’s perspective of “Discourse” is grounded in the sociocultural theory of learning, which suggests learning as social practice is mediated by interactions with people, objects, and actions within a community of practice (Lave and Wenger 1991; Vygotsky 1978). Lave and Wenger (1991) indicate a community of practice as group engagement and interaction with each other regularly in shared social practices. They stress that access to resources, participation, and members is crucial to get involved in a community of practice. In L2 learning, van Lier (2004) indicates that L2 is a way to relate native speakers to non-native speakers through interaction and engagement in social events. Also, Schumann’s (1976) social distance hypothesis explains that L2 learners’ interaction with native speakers and social engagement can be seen as mechanisms for facilitating their acculturation, which in turn promotes L2 acquisition. The consideration of L2 learners as social beings provides this study with insights into understanding new- comer immigrant adolescents’ L2 acquisition and use.
The second body of literature involves the effect of cultural capital and class habitus on adolescents’ schooling and social integration. Steinberg and his colleagues (1995) identify social integration as a critical factor facilitating schooling and positive adolescent adjust- ment. They construct a rough index of social integration, family social integration and neighborhood social integration, which includes parents’ contact with their children’s peers, engagement in community and social activities, bonding with other families in the neighborhood, and the perception of an integrated membership of the local community. Scholars have noted that middle-class adolescents have more access to a variety of school or community-based resources to engage them in the process of becoming successful learners and independent thinkers (Bourdieu and Passeron 1977; Paulsen 1991). Middle- and upper-class parents are characterized by active school involvement (Brantlinger 1993; Lareau 1987). Also, Bourdieu (1984) has illustrated that middle and upper-class habitus provides children profitable cultural activities that resonate with school practices. This view identifies that preexisting middle- and upper-class habitus and cultural capital are retained and valued equally in school settings. Pertaining to immigrant families, Rumbaut (1997) has argued that the cultural norms and values that middle-class immigrant families bring with them are what most contribute to their children’s educational attainment. These perspectives contribute to the understanding of cultural capital and class habitus as constructs for interpreting the newcomer adolescents’ L2 acquisition, school transition, and social integration.
The third body of literature concerns parental influence on children’s language acqui- sition. With respect to first language (L1) acquisition, Gardner (1985) finds that parents play an active role in children’s L1 learning through supporting, encouraging, and engag- ing children in family discussion and monitoring their children’s curricular activities. Some studies have presented evidence that middle-class parents’ capacity to understand school instructional language enables them to prepare their children for school through daily interactions and practices (Heath 1983; Lareau 1989). Also, the previous survey studies in L2 acquisition have reported statistically significant differences in the relation- ships between parental involvement and their children’s L2 achievement (Cortés 2008; Taguchi et al. 2009). Bartram (2006) examines a total of 411 learners’ perceptions of the ways in which parents influence children’s orientations toward L2 learning. He argues that middle-class children outperform lower-class children in L2 learning aptitude because of parental provision of support and understanding of L2 importance in social status mobil- ity. Although the previous survey studies provide a general idea of parental influences on children’s L2 acquisition, they are too broad to reveal the complexity of newcomer
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immigrant adolescents’ L2 acquisition within their nested contexts. Thus, this study attempts to construct the views of the middle-class Chinese immigrant parents and their newcomer adolescents concerning available support mechanisms for mediating the indi- vidual’s L2 acquisition and social integration.
The literature review demonstrates language as symbolic capital and power (Bourdieu 1991), and language acquisition as a field of struggle for social positions and coconstruc- tions of social relations (Norton Peirce 1995; Pavlenko 2002). van Lier’s (2004) ecological perspective on language education further indicates that actively engaged language learn- ers are offered opportunities or affordance for semiotic activities and social interactions. The ecological perspective favors research conducted in everyday embedded contexts. Accordingly, ethnographic case study method as a way to discover one’s life in relation to the setting and social interactions may be well suited to approach the newcomer immi- grant adolescents’ L2 acquisition and social integration in this study.
Methodology
Participants
This eight-month ethnographic case study took place from August 2010 to March 2011. Middle-class Chinese immigrant families were chosen as the research population for two reasons. First, 1.6 million Chinese immigrants born in China resided in the United States in 2008 and accounted for 4.1 percent of the 38 million U.S. immigrants (Hoefer et al. 2010). Second, an increasing number of recent middle-class Chinese immigrant families come to the United States with adequate schooling and financial and cultural resources. Two families were recruited through purposeful sampling (Merriam 1988). They met the fol- lowing selection criteria: (1) the adolescents were public junior high school students with minimal English proficiency and strong native language proficiency. Their eligibility for English placement was determined by the school district’s placement test, and their Chinese proficiency was determined by grades earned in China; (2) the adolescents had resided in the United States for less than two months when this study began; (3) parent participants were chosen based on who had the primary responsibility for child rearing in each family. Nominations of the exemplary families were obtained from the coordinator of the English as a second language (ESL) program in a Baptist church and the pastor of a local Chinese church. Feng and her daughter Ping, Tang and his son Xu—all names are pseudonyms—agreed to participate in this study. Both families emigrated from Beijing, China. Their profile is presented in Table 1.
When this study began, Ping was a 14-year-old ninth grader and Xu was a 12-year-old seventh grader. Ping’s mother Feng and Xu’s father Tang came to the United States two or three years earlier than their children. Feng was proficient in English, whereas Tang had little command of English. The two families immigrated to the United States for “educa- tional advantage” and “environmental humanism.” Feng and her daughter lived in an apartment near her university campus. Tang and his son lived in an individual house in a
Table 1. Parent Participants’ Profile
Name Age Religion Education ESL Level Job in China Job in US
Feng/mother 38 Christian MA in US Advanced Teacher Doctoral Student Tang/father 45 Buddhist BA in China Low Businessman Businessman
Chao Class Habitus, L2 Acquisition, Social Integration 61
suburban area close to Xu’s school. The two families were classified as middle-class based on the parents’ levels of education, prearrival and postarrival occupations, and family properties.
Data Sources
Data sources included participant-observation, field notes, conversational interviews, artifacts, and my daily research journal. I conducted participant-observation in 12 home visits and activities (Thanksgiving dinner, field trips, etc.), yielding an estimated total of 18 hours of observation for each family. I also conducted postobservation conversational interviews with each participant. The interviews were based on my observations and field notes. The participants selected their preferred language to communicate with me. All used Mandarin during the interviews. Each conversational interview lasted no more than one hour. Eight interviews with each participant and a total of 32 interviews were audio- taped and transcribed in Mandarin verbatim. I emailed a transcript copy to each partici- pant for clarification and confirmation. The transcripts in this study were in the form of Standard English. The interviews, field notes, and observation were interrelated, with each interview eliciting further observation and field notes elucidating the interview and obser- vation contexts. Data also included artifacts, such as emails, letters, report cards, doodles, and school worksheets. The last data source was my daily research journal in which events were recorded as well as personal feelings, insights, and problems that arose from my fieldwork. This journal provided me with a context for understanding the field notes as well as my personal reflections and reactions to the field work. Thus, the journal not only presented a source of data and ongoing analysis but also allowed me to trace research process and biases throughout the study.
Data Analysis
Data analysis relied on Corbin and Strauss’s (2008) open to axial coding, Agar’s (1980) ethnographic analysis, and Merriam’s (1988) case study analysis. I saw each family as a unit of analysis and followed three steps to analyze data. First, I repeatedly read through each source of data. Then, I began with open coding and found related concepts as particular issues emerging. Second, I analyzed the complete data corpus numerous times and triangulated the emerged concepts by drawing from the multiple data sources. Spe- cifically, I interpreted the observation data of each participant by comparing the interview data. When the observation data agreed with the interview data, I included them into the categorized concepts. Third, I sent my final codes to each participant to verify my under- standing of the core issues and ensure that each participant’s voice was fully represented.
Researcher Positioning
Because ethnographic researchers are primary instruments for data collection and analysis (Merriam 1988), I attempted to draw on both my insider and outsider perspec- tives to deepen my sociological understanding of this study. As a member of the partici- pants’ ethnic community, I was an insider with respect to their native language and heritage cultural dispositions. This insider role allowed me to build rapport with the participants as well as to elicit the cultural and linguistic information. Also, as an ESL education researcher and a former teacher of English in Beijing China, I was an insider to L2 acquisition and learning. Additionally, as a Mandarin translator in the local school system and a consultant of the newcomer adolescents’ schooling in the two families, I was an insider to immigrant parental involvement in school activities. However, as a full-time
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doctoral student, my daily time seemed to unfold on the university campus. So I was an outsider with respect to immigrant families’ community life. This outsider status allowed me to listen to the participants’ life stories while keeping me from being obtrusive.
This ethnographic case study attempts to explore the mechanisms for the newcomer Chinese immigrant adolescents’ L2 acquisition and social integration. However, the find- ings of this study may be limited by the homogeneity of the participants in terms of their ethnicity, culture, and social class status. Thus, the findings may not be appropriate to generate to other ethnic immigrant families or those with different sociocultural and class status backgrounds.
A Story of Two Families
Ping
Ping was born in a typical middle-class family in Beijing, China. Her mother was a teacher in Beijing before studying for her doctorate in the United States. Ping’s father was a bank manager in Beijing but kept in touch with Ping and Feng via electronic means every day. Ping had studied English as a foreign language (EFL) for eight years in Beijing. She had three 40-minute EFL classes each week from Grade 1 to Grade 6, and five 45-minute EFL classes each week in Grade 7 and 8. Curriculum in Ping’s EFL classes emphasized reading, writing, and vocabulary memorization. Beyond the school walls, Ping had no opportunities to interact with others in English, with the exception of her exposure to U.S. pop music. Ping was a class vice president and ranked in the top ten percent of students in an elite middle school in Beijing. She was also an accomplished piano player who won several awards. Ping’s school performance and social class status contributed to her confidence and high self-esteem.
First Three Weeks in the United States. During Ping’s initial three weeks in the United States, my observation and interviews revealed that Ping encountered a self-esteem crisis because of her inadequate English proficiency. As she put it:
I have no idea about how the teachers are going to grade my homework assignments, and I don’t understand what the instructions are asking. I can’t catch up with their everyday language. Sometimes, I don’t know what they laugh about in class. I feel like an outsider. My confidence is collapsing. I even get nervous about the home phone rings, because I am afraid of talking with English speakers. In restaurants, I don’t know how to express myself, how to order food. I just use fingers to point to the pictures. I feel that Chinese is not helpful and useful in my life here. But my mom tells me that Chinese is my biggest heritage, which I do not agree with. [interview, Ping, August 2010]
Ping fell into a sense of emotional loss and resistance of her native language. A lack of English proficiency caused her schooling anxiety, identity disorder, disconnectedness, and poor grades, which made her get caught up in a net of frustrations. Her dejected feelings were vividly described in her doodle as shown in Figure 1.
However, Ping’s feeling as an outsider of her school was somewhat reduced. As Ping said: “A Korean girl stopped me at the hallway after school and told me that she knew my mom. I felt like that I began to have friends here.” Ping’s mother’s social connection buffered her sense of loss and social isolation during her first three weeks in the U.S. school setting.
Three Weeks Later. . . . Despite feeling depressed and inferior because of limited English proficiency, Ping responded to limited English proficiency through dedication to her school work. She repeatedly read the textbook chapters. When she encountered new
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vocabularies, she looked them up in her English–Chinese dictionary and made phrases as shown in Figure 2. Ping told that this word-learning strategy helped her better understand the words’ contextual meanings. Ping’s attitudes and strategies of learning made her transition to the English-speaking setting easier. She received all A’s in the first six weeks’ school work and was invited to the school honor party. Ping’s behaviors and academic performance gained her more respect among her teachers and classmates. With more involvement in the school activities, Ping made a few friends with whom she ate lunch and communicated. Furthermore, Ping was aware that her native language became her cultural identity marker and a facilitator of L2 acquisition.
My biology teacher was amazed at my hard work and my binder’s neatness. She called the teacher next to her classroom and showed her my notes with English on one side and Chinese on the other side. They wish that they could speak and write Chinese. They told Chinese has the artistic writing system and very hard to learn. I felt proud. My classmates were also interested in my native language. Sometimes they asked me to teach them some Chinese. [interview, Ping, October 2011]
Figure 1. Ping’s doodle in her first three weeks in the United States.
Figure 2. Ping’s biology vocabulary notebook.
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The teachers’ appreciation of Chinese language sparked Ping’s sense of pride in her native language and culture. Also, the classmates’ interest in Chinese language promoted Ping’s recognition: Chinese as her resource and unique identity marker. The language attitude of Ping’s teachers and classmates works as a form of power “of making people see and believe, of confirming or transforming the vision of the world” (Bourdieu 1991:170). Observation and interviews also revealed that other forms of power facilitated Ping’s L2 acquisition, social integration, and school transition.
Teachers gave me more attention when we were doing different activities in class and helped me understand the instructions. . . . My mom also gave me several English dictionary websites to help with my English. At the first School Open House, my history teacher told me that my mom’s English was very good. I felt proud of her. My dad made video calls over the internet with Skype every day, talked with me and told me stories about my four lovely cats in Beijing. He was so patient with me and wanted to cheer me up. I wanted my teachers and parents to see my progress in school work. . . . My friend E. J. gave me a cute picture she drew. We talked about the songs we liked. Now, I don’t feel like an outsider any more. [interview, Ping, November 2011]
The above comments and my observation indicated that support mechanisms Ping received from her parents, friends, and teachers enhanced her high intrinsic motivation to learn. Her motivation was also reinforced by the comments from the principal and the teachers on her report cards: “Very impressive!” “I am very proud of you!” “Excellent! A pleasure to teach!”
Although Ping received emotional, cultural, and language support from her family and school, she encountered frustration and depression brought on by changes in her social class status. She had been invested in her sense of calm superiority with her middle-class status in Beijing China. However, being socialized among her middle-class American peers, Ping vented differences of social class status. She said: “I became a poor household in the U.S.” “When can we live in an individual house like my friends?” Ping’s confusion over social class dislocation was balanced by a sense of family warmth and peace. As she expressed the feeling in an email to her friend in Beijing:
Our apartment here is much smaller than the one we have in Beijing. But we made it feel just like the home in Beijing. I love the two homes, here and in Beijing. My dad Skypes me every day. I feel he is so close to me. I will study hard for a better future life. I want to live in a big house just like the ones my friends live. [personal communication, Ping, August 2010]
The change of Ping’s prearrival and postarrival social class status did not shatter her middle-class identity. Instead, her sense of middle-class superiority strengthened her understanding about home and the importance of education in making a better life.
Overall, Ping’s courage and ability to meet the linguistic and sociocultural challenges are outcomes of power embedded in and through her situated contexts. Her L2 acquisition reinforces Norton Peirce’s argument of language learners “not as ahistorical and unidi- mentional, but as having a complex social history and multiple desires” (1995:9). Ping’s integration process invites an understanding from a social perspective, rather than a purely personal one.
Ping’s Mother, Feng. Feng valued education as a stepping stone for success. As the callig- raphy hanging in her apartment told, “zhi shi gai bian ming yun” [Knowledge changes one’s fate]. Feng was hardworking, disciplined, and academically inclined. She felt that parents should be the primary role models for children. Her expectations for Ping reflected a Chinese saying, “wang nv cheng feng” [Parents expect daughters to be successful]. The data demonstrated Feng’s active involvement in Ping’s L2 acquisition, school transition, and social integration.
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I took Ping to visit her school campus before classes started. I tutored her English and treasured our dinner table talks. I ordered her textbooks for home use and paid for her summer trip to France. We also went to church on Sundays. I didn’t mean to impose Christianity on her. Just let her get more familiar with the ways Americans live. She didn’t want to go at the first, but she went for enjoying church choral music. We went to the university gym, bookstores, libraries, grocery stores, museums, etc. I also let her be responsible for mail check. I think these activities might help her with subconscious reading practices and cultural understanding. [interview, Feng, September 2010]
Feng was attentive to the available symbolic resources that she could employ to promote Ping’s L2 acquisition and sociocultural understanding, such as Feng’s advanced English proficiency, family dinner table communication, and a variety of educational and recre- ation activities. Particularly, Feng’s advanced English proficiency increased her ability to participate in Ping’s L2 acquisition, such as serving as Ping’s English tutor and expanding Ping’s English exposure through daily practices. Further, Feng’s economic capital enabled her to afford Ping’s textbooks for home use, weekend activities, and an educational trip to France. These eased the conversion of the family’s economic capital to cultural capital.
Additionally, Feng acted as a mechanism for bridging the relationship between Ping and her teachers through school visits and email contacts. As she told:
I encouraged Ping to communicate with her teachers about the problems she had in class. At the same time, I visited the teachers. I let them know that Ping liked them, and the reason she didn’t come to ask them questions was because her anxiety of having an English conversation with them. Ping’s teachers were very glad to know it and asked me to tell Ping that they were always looking forward to talking with her. [interview, Feng, December 2010]
The data demonstrated that Feng’s interaction with the teachers accelerated mutual under- standing between Ping and the teachers. As Ping’s French teacher mentioned in an email to Feng:
I’m so happy to have Ping in my French class, and I think she is doing well. I’m also glad that she likes it (French). If she has trouble when we do an activity in English, I will try to help her without having it lower her grade. I’m sure she will be fine with French. [personal communication, French teacher, August 2010]
The interaction between Feng and Ping’s teachers increased the frequency that Ping visited the teachers. It also enriched Ping’s communication with the English speakers, which in turn facilitated her L2 acquisition and use.
In addition to working as a mechanism for the interaction between Ping and her teachers, Feng also served as a dynamic to help Ping construct friendship with her peers. She noted: “Authentic Chinese food is a good way to let kids know about Ping and our culture. So I cooked dumplings and let Ping share with her friends.” Feng used homemade authentic Chinese food as a medium to help Ping build networks with the target language group and develop Ping’s sharing personality. Furthermore, Feng’s own social networks created opportunities for Ping’s L2 practices. The following letter was from Feng’s Ameri- can friend Amii to Ping.
So proud of you for taking a risk and coming to a foreign place to further your education. You are brave and have such wonderful, supportive parents. . . . I attached a picture of Sam (Amii’s son). He is in this white outfit because he was the ring bearer in a wedding ceremony recently. He walked down the aisle holding this other little girl’s hand. She was the flower girl. :) [letter to Ping, Amii, September 2010]
Ping replied to Amii as shown in her letter:
Hi! Amii. I’m doing fine. I have world history, P.E., biology and French. French is easier to me, because it’s like English. I like French teacher. She’s very nice. I work hard. I’m reading some
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novels. My mom says that reading will make my English better. Sam is cute. I like his smiling. I’d like to see him. [letter to Amii, Ping, September 2010]
Ping benefited directly from Feng’s social networks not only in L2 and cultural acquisition but also in social integration. For example, Feng’s friend invited Ping to play the piano for entertaining the residents in a local nursing home every other week. The data indicated that Ping’s community service in the nursing home facilitated her sense of belonging and positive L2 and sociocultural adjustment.
Even though Ping’s first few months in the United States were fraught with a lan- guage barrier, social isolation, frustration on school transition and social class tension, her interaction with the host society in and outside her school fostered Ping’s height- ened sense of belonging and self-esteem. Ping’s access to L2 acquisition and social inte- gration was given and facilitated by her class habitus, cultural dispositions, family support and networks, and Feng’s advanced English proficiency. Feng’s English profi- ciency stood in direct contrast to that of Xu’s father Tang, and a description of Xu and his father follows.
Xu
Xu, 12 years old, was born in a wealthy family in Beijing, China. Xu’s father Tang was a successful businessman who had commerce with China and the United States. He spent most of his time in the United States. Xu’s mother was a civil servant in China but kept in touch with Xu and Tang through frequent visits and electronic means. Xu’s family was characterized by diligence, plain living, and role-model discourse. Similar to Ping’s family, parental expectations for Xu were evident, as his name in Chinese means “familial con- tinuation of excellence.” Xu had learned English for six years in Beijing from the first through the sixth grades, which included three 40-minute English periods each week. Although Xu was in China, he visited Canada, Australia, Europe, and the United States for vacations. These visits increased Xu’s exposure to English. Xu’s academic record in Beijing was above average. He enjoyed sports, such as swimming, tennis, and basketball. The cohesive upper-middle-class status of Xu’s family from prearrival and postarrival contrib- uted to his amiability, faithfulness, and confidence.
First Three Weeks in the United States. Xu came to school without language anxiety. Instead, he was optimistic because he believed that he could acquire English easily through immer- sion in the mainstream classrooms. Yet, his optimism was shattered by several incidents of bullying:
The two idiots giggled and laughed at me in a mean way. They thought I couldn’t see the words they talked. But I could tell from their gestures and the way they talked. One time, they pushed me. I shouted at them. When our teacher came, they defended themselves. But I couldn’t report it in English. I felt like a coward! [interview, Xu, September 2010]
Being bullied made Xu fall into anger and a sense of emotional loss. His failure to report the incident in English had him recognize that he needed to improve English as fast as he could. Xu told his father about the bullies and let his father hire a private English tutor for him. Xu said:
I kept silent when the first time I got bullied. What a shame! I told my dad when they pushed me the second time. He was so mad that he and his interpreter came to my school and reported. Things were getting better. English is important. I need an English tongue to protect me. [interview, Xu, October 2010]
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Xu and his father were sensitive toward bullying. Xu’s experience of being a bully victim promoted his desire to learn English. As Xu’s words presented, “I need an English tongue to protect me.” They echo Norton Peirce’s statement that L2 acquisition is an investment in learners’ power to “claim the right to speak” (1995:25). Also, Xu’s words demonstrate a strong desire of claiming his ownership of English as well as a legitimate speaker and participant (Bourdieu 1991) in English-mediated social activities.
Xu’s desire to learn English was initially fueled by power negotiation with the bullies. His experience as a bully victim strengthened the roles of English in his life: a means to realize his right to speak and a tool for self-protection and self-demonstration.
Three Weeks Later. . . . The observation and interviews revealed what mattered most in Xu’s L2 acquisition and social practice was his private English tutor and his father. As Xu recounted:
My father supported me in every way. He hired a university student as my tutor. The tutor was like my big brother. We talked about funny things like his middle school life. He helped me with my writing and reading. It was fun to learn English with him. We were both sport fans, watched basketball games, played tennis or swam together. He also introduced his friends to me. [inter- view, Xu, November 2010]
Xu’s tutor served as a counselor in Xu’s transition to the English-speaking setting. At the same time, the tutor increased Xu’s access to social engagement through community of practice. Xu’s integration process reinforces Schumann’s (1976) social distance perspec- tive: Xu’s tutor shortened social distance between Xu and the target language group, which in turn facilitated Xu’s integration in the target language group and opportunities to learn English. Xu’s family possessed economic capital to employ the English tutor for Xu’s English learning, which in turn gave Xu an added social and academic advantage.
The data also showed that Xu’s exceptional performance in mathematics facilitated his integration in the mainstream classroom. He recalled:
I got 100 in my math chapter test. My classmate was excited. He said: You’re smart! You made a 100. I felt good to be recognized in my math class, and became confident in learning English. It will let me more engage in class. [interview, Xu, September 2010]
Xu’s math performance not only accelerated acceptance by his peers but also invested in his confidence to overcome the language barrier. Xu’s desire for more engagement in class reflected Wittgenstein’s argument that “to have a language means to be a member of a community” (1974:157).
Xu’s transition to the English-speaking setting involved four stages: linguistic opti- mism, provocation of L2 acquisition led by being a bully victim, desire for social partici- pation, and eventual enhancement of L2 acquisition and social integration. Xu’s school transition and L2 acquisition were facilitated by his confidence of social class location, parental support and involvement, tutor-mediated social engagement, and exceptional math performance. Xu’s L2 acquisition process stresses Gee’s (2005) understanding of language as the most basic capital for community membership within a social practice.
Xu’s Father, Tang. Tang was a second-generation family-firm businessman in China. He regarded education as a direct means of honoring his family. The data suggested that Tang’s parental expectation for Xu was derived from Chinese Confucian culture: “wang zi cheng long” [Parents expect sons to be successful]. His parenting strategies promoted Xu’s integration into the mainstream school:
I visited Xu’s counselor with my interpreter to find out more school information. I also asked my friends here about their children’s school life. . . . My wife and I enjoyed listening to Xu and
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sharing his feelings. My poor English hindered my business expansion and blocked me from the mainstream society. So I would not like to see this happens again on Xu. I let my friend, a university professor, find a tutor for Xu. [interview, Tang, December 2010]
Tang’s experience with limited English proficiency advanced his recognition that English is an important asset to enable them to cross sociocultural borders. His lack of English proficiency did not keep him from supporting Xu’s L2 acquisition and school transition. Instead, Tang’s economic capital enabled him to bolster his investment in Xu’s L2 acqui- sition and school transition through hiring an English tutor for Xu and an interpreter for his interaction with Xu’s school. Also, Tang benefited from his social networks to know about the U.S. school systems and educational resources. Tang’s economic, cultural, and social capital reduced the risk of parental disadvantage that might be caused by his lack of English proficiency.
Along with Tang’s economic, social, and cultural capital, the data demonstrated that his own school habitus also contributed to his understanding of Xu’s schooling and sociocul- tural transition. Tang remarked:
When I was at school, my mom talked with my teachers regularly. My teachers came to know me better. So I may try to do the same thing for Xu. I didn’t mean teachers should concentrate on Xu. I just didn’t want my son to be neglected in this transition. [interview, Tang, November 2010]
Tang’s parental strategy was inherited from his mother. His school habitus facilitated his willingness to get involved in Xu’s school activities, and invested in Tang’s awareness of “a ‘feel for the game,’ a sense of what is appropriate in the circumstances and what is not, a ‘practical sense’ ” (Thompson 1991:13).
In addition to Tang’s parental involvement in Xu’s school life, Tang also constructed opportunities for Xu in community engagement and L2 acquisition. Tang recounted:
I took English classes in a local Baptist church. Xu went there with me sometimes when he was out of school. I was glad that he played and communicated with other immigrant adult English learners’ children. They soon became friends, . . . I also wanted him to see how serious I was about English learning. Sometimes our ESL program had field trips, like visiting the police station, the fire station, and the hospitals. Xu liked to go with me. I thought it was good for him to see the society. [interview, Tang, October 2010]
Tang recognized that his participation in the church ESL program facilitated his L2 acqui- sition, community ties, and social participation as well as that of his son’s. At the same time, he also wanted to set up a positive L2 learner figure for his son. Tang’s parental philosophy is grounded in Confucian cultural value: “yang bu jiao, fu zhi guo” [It is father’s mistake not to cultivate his children]; “fu mu shi hai zi de di yi ge lao shi” [A parent is the primary teacher of his or her children].
Tang’s class habitus, economic, social, cultural, and community capital bolstered his capacity to shape an ecological environment for Xu’s social integration process. Tang’s case demonstrates that immigrant parents’ limited English proficiency may not be a fixed factor hindering them from getting involved in their children’s L2 acquisition, school adjustment, and social integration.
Discussion
The purpose of this ethnographic case study is to understand how class habitus, social, cultural, and economic capital of the two middle-class Chinese immigrant families are transferred in their newcomer adolescents’ L2 acquisition and social integration. One of the key findings of this study is that the middle-class Chinese immigrant parents’ class
Chao Class Habitus, L2 Acquisition, Social Integration 69
habitus and sociocultural resources may work as constructs, which enable them to respond with relative ease and flexibility to their newcomer adolescents’ socialization in the United States.
The two families’ class habitus affects their actions and strategies they take to facilitate their newcomer adolescents’ adjustment to the U.S. society. It enables the parents to construct an ecological environment, including “all physical, social and symbolic affor- dances that provide grounds for activity” (van Lier 2004:5). In other words, class habitus provides the parents with more access, information, and resources for participation in their newcomer adolescents’ integration into the mainstream schools and resistance to linguis- tic, cultural, and community marginalization. Further, class habitus of Ping and Xu pro- motes their capacity to claim back their position of authority and exercise more power for themselves in negotiating social relations with schools and communities. The findings from this study indicate that class habitus is not a noun phrase, but a verb phrase showing an active process of perceiving and adapting to the new contexts based on primary implicit socialization within family and community. This finding seems to support Hanks’s statement that “habitus is both a product of history and part of what produces history” (1996:239).
Cultural capital of the two recent middle-class Chinese immigrant families is trans- formed into the adolescents’ L2 acquisition, school transition, and community integration through habitual practices. Three main forms of cultural capital coexist to promote the newcomer adolescents’ transition to the English-speaking setting. The first form of cul- tural capital is that the parents’ Chinese heritage culture as a form of symbolic power invests in their parenting strategies. For example, both Feng and Tang place education as a top priority for success and parents as role models in children’s development. Data from these eight months of fieldwork demonstrate that Chinese heritage cultural values are manifested and embedded in the contexts of the two families. They are important mecha- nisms for the two recent immigrant parents’ commitment to being go-betweens among home, school, and community in their children’s social integration. Chinese heritage cultural values facilitate the parents to negotiate and discover a wider societal force in promoting their children’s continuity of socialization. Influenced by Chinese heritage culture, the parents view themselves as change agents in the newcomer adolescents’ immigrant adjustment. At the same time, the parents’ support encourages Ping and Xu to see themselves as agents in L2 learning and social integration. Therefore, Ping and Xu refuse to be subordinate in coping with language trap (Honey 1983) and sociocultural dislocations (Rumbaut 1997). In this sense, Chinese heritage culture is transmitted and reproduced from one generation to the next.
The second form of cultural capital that the two families bring to their children’s successful adjustment in U.S. society is their substantial schooling and social class aspi- rations. The exceptional native language proficiency of Ping and Xu provides them a tool for their L2 acquisition and school transition. Their prearrival educational credentials build foundations for their postarrival schooling. These findings are consistent with the perspective that immigrant children’s native language and past educational records con- tribute to their postarrival educational attainment and L2 acquisition (Cummins 2001; Peterson and Heywood 2007; Wong Fillmore 2000). Also, the two families’ class aspira- tions contribute to the adolescents’ optimism and determination to face the complexity of immigrant adjustment. Even though Ping experienced social class dislocation, this may not influence her educational aspirations or Feng’s expectations for Ping. Instead, it rein- forces Ping’s motivation to achieve educational success for a better life in the future. The third form of cultural capital is the parents’ ability to utilize their social networks and community resources to empower their adolescents’ social capacity to speak (Bourdieu 1991). The data suggest that newcomer adolescents’ opportunities for increasing their
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social capacity to speak seem to be generated by social contacts mediated by their parents’ social networks, the degree of integration in the mainstream society, and habitual prac- tices. For example, Ping’s communication with her mother’s English-speaking friends not only increases her opportunities of L2 use but also contributes to her U.S. cultural acqui- sition. Similarly, Xu’s English tutor expands Xu’s exposure to English. At the same time, he becomes a source of social capital to invest in Xu’s social integration. In addition, Tang’s participation in the church ESL program is a supportive factor to strengthen the family’s community ties, which in turn yield cumulative advantages for both his and Xu’s com- munity engagement. In this sense, Tang’s participation in the church ESL program becomes “social coparticipation” (Hanks 1991:14) of both himself and Xu. This study indicates that newcomer immigrant adolescents’ social capacity to speak is a matter of social participation. It depends on access to participation in school and community activi- ties. Those newcomer immigrant adolescents living in families with relatively more family and neighborhood social integration may benefit directly from their parents’ increased social participation in school and community activities as well as strong ties with children’s friends and other families in the neighborhood. Hanks argues: “To speak is to take up a position in a social field in which all positions are moving a defined relative to one another” (1996:201). This study indicates that newcomer immigrant ado- lescents’ social capacity to speak at least partly depends on parents’ “positions” in the process of social integration. These positions may mediate and promote their children’s social integration.
This study finds that the “fields” of the two middle-class Chinese immigrant families, their situated communities, and schools are arenas of struggle as well as an ecology in which the adolescents seek to integrate into the English-speaking setting. On the one hand, the fields impose on Xu and Ping a form of struggle for claiming back their right to speak through L2 use, a dilemma of Ping’s social class self-location, and Xu as a bully victim. On the other hand, the fields mutually build the ecology for the newcomer adolescents’ school transition, social integration, and L2 acquisition. The ecological environment signals opportunities for Xu and Ping “as users of multiple linguistic resources and as members of multiple communities of practice” (Pavlenko 2002:295). It socializes the newcomer adolescents’ ways of doing, talking, thinking, and communi- cating. This study supports the perspectives that focus on language as symbolic power and social relations (Agha 2007; Bourdieu 1991), and L2 acquisition as product of socialization and the establishment of social relationships (Pavlenko 2002; van Lier 2004).
Another finding of this study is that immigrant parents’ L2 proficiency may not be a fixed factor in affecting parents’ involvement in children’s L2 acquisition, schooling, and community engagement. For example, Feng’s advanced English proficiency gives her an added advantage of becoming Ping’s English tutor and a mediator between Ping and her teachers. However, Tang’s limited English proficiency may not impact his involvement in his son’s integration into the mainstream society. Tang has strong economic capital that provides access for his employment of a private tutor for his son and an interpreter for his communication with the teachers. Also, Tang’s own community engagement through participation in the local church ESL program provides him increased resources for Xu’s L2 use, cultural acquisition, and social practices. This study argues that limited English proficiency of immigrant parents may not be a decisive factor in determining their involve- ment in school and community activities, and the progress of their newcomer adolescents’ L2 acquisition and socialization in the host society. This study suggests that recent immi- grant parents’ economic capital, social capital, cultural capital, and class habitus may compensate for their inadequacy of command of English in facilitating their children’s social integration and L2 acquisition.
Chao Class Habitus, L2 Acquisition, Social Integration 71
Conclusion
This study attempts to understand how two middle-class Chinese immigrant families facilitate their newcomer adolescent children’s L2 acquisition, school transition, and social integration. The findings of this study indicate that immigrant parents’ lack of English proficiency may not be a decisive factor in determining their adolescents’ integration process. As this study suggests, Tang’s economic resources enabled him to employ a private English tutor for his son and an interpreter for his interactions with English speakers. Similarly, economic capital allowed Feng to purchase a laptop, textbooks, and her daughter’s summer trip to France. The two cases illustrate that the middle-class Chinese immigrant parents not only possess class habitus to facilitate their newcomer adolescents’ transition to the English-speaking setting but they also have the socioeco- nomic resources to do so. This study confirms findings from Gonzalez’s (2005) quantitative study that family backgrounds influence immigrant children’s educational attainment. It further highlights the positive impact of recent immigrant parents’ active social integra- tion on that of their children. The study suggests that immigrant families’ class habitus, sociocultural and economic resources, and social integration should be considered in exploring their newcomer adolescent children’s immigrant adjustment.
Xia Chao is Graduate Research Assistant at the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education, University of Alabama (xchao@crimson.ua.edu).
Note
Acknowledgments. I thank Dr. Spector, Dr. Mundy, and Alan Brown in the Department of Curricu- lum and Instruction at the University of Alabama for their suggestions and comments on this project. I also extend my gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback. My deepest thanks go to the two families in this study.
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