Multilingual Children's Beliefs about Homework - from a Literacy and Translanguaging Perspective

This paper targets the role of homework for multilingual pupils. The research topic deals with young children living in Sweden and their experiences and beliefs of homework.

The wider discourse on homework points out the homework's importance for school achievement and the requirements for parents to support their children with their homework. However, previous studies have scarcely focused on multilingual children. The primary research objective addressed in this study is to understand what conditions and means of action are reflected in relation to homework activities among young children with immigrant backgrounds.

Drawing on the concept of translanguaging (García and Wei, 2014), the study examines how children make use of all their language resources in homework activities and in literacy development. The work of Cummins (2007; 2015), suggests that if multilingual children get the opportunity to use all their languages to engage in literacy activities, this is linked to higher achievement in reading comprehension.

Based on interview data originally collected for two dissertation studies, the two datasets were here reanalyzed with a specific focus on homework activities. The project brings new perspectives on experiences and beliefs of homework from the view of young multilingual children. The preliminary results show that the children put much effort and time on homework activities and that they often use all their languages, but despite this, they do not live up to the expectations of their teachers.