Monolingual habitus through the lens of multilingual parents

Abstract

The current study examines the language ideologies of multilingual parents of Austrian students and the role of German as the language of instruction. Thirteen parents (seven mothers, six fathers) of children with emergent proficiency in the language of instruction were interviewed. Parents’ home languages were Arabic (n = 5), Turkish (n = 4), Serbo-Croatian-Bosnian (n = 3), and Chinese (n = 1). The data were analysed using grounded theory. The findings reveal that parents adhere to a ‘monolingual German-speaking habitus’. While all parents express a positive attitude towards multilingualism, they view maintaining native/home languages as secondary to the LoI. This is largely because parents perceive adopting a monolingual habitus as a critical prerequisite for academic success in school.