AUTHOR=Nguyen My V. H. , Serafini Ellen J. , Leeman Jennifer , Winsler Adam TITLE=Factors predicting secondary school language course enrollment and performance among U.S. heritage speakers of Spanish JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology VOLUME=13 YEAR=2023 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035716 DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035716 ISSN=1664-1078 ABSTRACT=Introduction

While a growing body of research indicates that Spanish language courses can promote Spanish maintenance and lead to overall improved educational outcomes among heritage speakers, there is little empirical or longitudinal evidence of factors that shape their enrollment in Spanish language courses at the secondary level. To address this issue, the current study takes a large-scale, longitudinal approach to investigate rates of enrollment in secondary school (6th–12th grade) Spanish and other non-English language courses, as well as factors that predict heritage speakers’ enrollment and performance in non-English language courses.

Method

We analyzed subsample data from the Miami School Readiness Project (MSRP), a large-scale, longitudinal study consisting of 17,341 heritage speakers of Spanish (47% female, 95.4% Hispanic/Latino, 82.8% received free/reduced-price lunch, and 18.3% with a disability) who were followed from 4 years old until the end of high school.

Results

In general, Heritage speakers enrolled in Spanish language courses at a higher rate than other non-English language courses (52.2 and 25.3%, respectively). Enrollment patterns varied across different type of languages and grade level. Student-level factors including disability status, poverty status, early behavioral problems, and prior academic achievement significantly predicted students’ enrollment in Spanish and performance in non-English language courses.

Discussion

Findings shed light on the long-term patterns of language study of this growing segment of the US school population with implications for future research and school policies that seek to improve heritage language learning and maintenance as well as equitable access to language education for language-minority students.