PARENTS’ LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES IN THE CONTEXT OF TRILINGUAL EDUCATION POLICY IN KAZAKHSTAN

Abstract

Trilingual education policy is fomenting much debate among scholars and public intellectuals in Kazakhstan. However, parents’ ideologies in relation to trilingual education are not heard although their participation in policy discussions is important since they play a key role in their children’s education. Therefore, this study aimed to explore parents’ language ideologies in the context of trilingual education policy. In order to answer the general question about what parents’ language ideologies are, the study examined six sub-questions: (1) What are parents’ political language ideologies?; (2) What are parents’ economic language ideologies?; (3) What are parents’ cultural and social language ideologies?; (4)What are parents’ educational language ideologies?; (5) How and to what extent do these language ideologies vary by macro factors (type of school and geographical location)?; (6) How and to what extent do these language ideologies vary by micro factors (age, gender, ethnicity, home language, educational attainment and family income level)? The study employed a mixed methods research design including interviews with parents from trilingual and mainstream schools in the North, Centre and South (n = 24), and an online survey of parents from the same schools (n = 356). The findings indicate that although the majority of parents support trilingual education policy, they believe that teaching in English, Kazakh and Russian should be introduced gradually to avoid negative outcomes. Parents highly value knowledge of three languages, among which Kazakh is associated with an ethnic identity and acknowledged instrumentally important for employment, communication and travelling domestically. Russian is deemed important for interethnic communication. English is associated with ample opportunities it provides for employment, education, communication, and travelling. However, studying science subjects in English is seen as problematic since not all children possess giftedness and abilities that are purportedly important for successful studying. Feasibility of use of Kazakh and Russian as media of instruction was also questioned. Parents’ language ideologies varied depending on type of school, geographical location, age, ethnicity, home language, income level and educational attainment. Overall, it can be concluded that there is a contrast between political language idoelogies and educational language ideologies that causes educational implications for policy makers. Keywords: language ideology, language policy, language-in-education policy, parents’ language ideologies, trilingual education