Chernov D.N. The Role of Ethnicity in the Language Development of Schoolchildren: Review of Modern Studies

Abstract: The research deals with the problem of sociocultural conditionality of child language development. A meta-analysis of studies on the role of ethnic / racial identity in the language development of children at school age has been carried out. The emphasis is made on the study of language development of schoolchildren coming from immigrant families and their socialization is in the 'odd' social and cultural environment where there is one 'title' language that is considered to be the main. Modern foreign and Russian researches are analyzed by the means of comparing approaches, methods, and empirical data. The foreign researches presented in such databases as Medline, Scopus and Web of Science, and national articles posted in the elibrary.ru are used for the meta-analysis.The share of studies involving schoolchildren is relatively small low. Foreign studies carried out using standardized language tests show that children comging from immigrant families are behind in their language development in terms of vocabulary, grammar and semantics. Modern researches pay attention to the study of narratives. Based on the example school-aged children from African American famiiles whose main communication medium is the African American English dialect it is shown that in their development of narrative abilities they, as a rule, do not differ from white Caucasians, and demonstrate the originality and even surpass them in the development of some narratives. In Russian researches the problem is studied in terms of adequate learning of Russian by children from migrant families. Foreign language children pass the stages in their development of Russian language abilities similar to those stages which are Russian-speaking children pass, however, their Russian has some peculiarities that normally go away by the school age. Many language peculiarities are due to the interference of Russian and native languages. It is shown that the most important sociocultural reason for difficulties in mastering Russian is inconsistent and unconscious approach of parents of foreign language children to their children's learning Russian. 

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