Date of Award

5-31-2026

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Early Childhood Education and Care

First Advisor

Dr. Mona Abo-Zena

Second Advisor

Dr. Serra Acar

Third Advisor

Dr. Christian Chun

Abstract

This dissertation investigates how young children in Chinese‑heritage families participate in heritage language development and maintenance (HLDM) in everyday family life. It asks four questions: what agentic behaviors young children display in heritage language socialization (HLS) and family language policy (FLP) co-construction; how they conceptualize language ideologies; what attitudes they hold toward HLDM; and whether differences in agency, ideologies, and attitudes relate to socioeconomic background.

Using a qualitative multiple‑case design, the dissertation focuses on seven families in the San Francisco Bay Area. Data includes parent and child interviews, child language portraits, child audio diaries, parent‑recorded natural conversations, and family background surveys. It incorporates Spolsky’s FLP model, language socialization theory, and Bourdieu’s theory of practice into an integrated theoretical framework, with Smith‑Christmas’s model of child agency serving as the analytical spine.

Findings show that children actively shaped HLDM through agency that extended beyond resistance to include explanation, solicitation, translation, selective uptake, and recipient‑sensitive language choice. Children’s language ideologies were relational and differentiated, mapping languages onto specific people, contexts, and heritage language (HL) varieties. Attitudes toward HLDM also varied across HL varieties, literacy demands, and perceived ease of use. Differences across families were not well explained by socioeconomic status (SES) alone but were better understood through Bourdieusian concepts of capital, habitus, and field.

This dissertation offers a child‑centered, interactionally grounded account of HLDM, contributing to FLP, language socialization, and Chinese‑HL research by showing that understanding HLDM requires attention not only to parental intentions and resources but also to children’s own participation, meaning‑making, and differentiated orientations toward language in everyday interaction.

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