Survey research: Parent factors for enrolling their children in a two-way immersion program

This study explored reasons and expectations parents enrolled their children in the 2-way bilingual immersion program at the International School. The school that was selected implemented a 2-way bilingual immersion program 8 years ago. The International School is composed of predominantly low-income and working-class immigrant families. The school is located in the Los Angeles area and was selected because of its ethnically diverse student population. The 2-way bilingual program at the International School offers students the opportunity to receive instruction in a minority-language-dominant-program model. The data were collected through a survey of parents with children enrolled in the 2-way bilingual program. The researcher requested 1 survey per family, which rendered a 78.2% response rate. The 5 research questions for this study. (1) What are the expectations of Hispanic and African-American parents for their children in the 2-way bilingual program? (2) What issues (positive or negative) do parents voice while their children are enrolled in the program? (3) What reasons do parents provide for enrolling their children in the 2-way bilingual program? (4) How do parents meet the needs of their children in developing the children's bilingualism and biliteracy? (5) How do parents meet their own needs in developing a personal understanding of bilingualism and biliteracy?; The findings from the parent surveys revealed similarities among Hispanic/Latino and African-American parents when asked about the reasons they enrolled their children in the 2-way bilingual immersion program at the International School. A large majority of the parents believed that studying Spanish was important for their children because they would need it for their future and it would enable them to understand better and appreciate the Hispanic culture.; When considering the reasons parents enrolled their children in the 2-way bilingual program a clear majority indicated that their child would have an academic advantage. Somewhat surprisingly, more than 76% of the respondents selected that their child would have an academic advantage as their 1st or 2nd reason for enrolling their child in the international School's 2-way bilingual immersion program.