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Article published In: Australian Review of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 48:2 (2025) ► pp.149–176

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Vietnamese Australian children’s voice on community language schools

ORCiD logo with link | Monash UniversityClaytonVIC
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Monash University.

Published online: 22 November 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/aral.24046.bui
Abstract
This qualitative study reports Vietnamese Australian children’s perspectives on their learning experiences at their community language schools. The study draws on interview data with three mothers and their four children (aged 10–12), who used to attend or are currently attending community language schools in the state of Victoria, Australia. Against the backdrop of the current limited research on children’s experiences at community language schools, this study is a contribution to the existing literature in two ways. First, it contributes a children’s voice into research on these so-called marginalised educational sites. Second, it provides a nuanced exploration of the children’s experiences through the lens of (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar constructs of habitus, capital, and field by discussing how their perspectives towards their community language schools are shaped by their lived experiences in the fields they participate in. The findings reveal a mismatch between the children’s habitus, their linguistic capital and the field of community language schools that they participate in, which explains the children’s unfavorable feedback towards their community language schools.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The context
  • Research on community language schools
  • Theoretical orientation: Habitus, capital, and field as lens to explore children’s experiences
  • Method
  • Participants
    • Family 1 (Participants: Ms Tam, aged 44; Tung, aged 10)
    • Family 2 (Participants: Ms Ha, aged 33; Andrew, aged 11)
    • Family 3 (Participants: Ms Ngan, aged 39; Elly, aged 12; and Tilly, aged 10)
  • Data collection methods
  • Researcher reflexivity
  • Transcription and translation
  • Data analysis methods
  • Findings
  • Strict rules
    • Speaking in Vietnamese
    • Accent prioritisation
  • Absence of teacher-student bonds
  • Unappealing teaching methods
  • Discussion
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Disclosure statement
  • Notes
  • References
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