The following important paper has just been published - and cited our work about children's language maintenance in Australia. Both papers show the unidirectional shift to English for migrant communities in Australia - but also that this is mediated by which community they belong to.
Hasnain, A., Hajek, J., & Karidakis, M. (2025). Language shift patterns amongst first-generation migrant communities in Australia: 2011–2021. Australian Journal of Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2025.2542188
Here is their abstract:
In this study we provide a comprehensive overview of first-generation migrants? language shift (LS) to English in Australia, as recorded by the 2021 National Census, and supported by a comparison with the 2011 Census data. Our results reveal a previously unreported reduction in the overall rate of LS from 2011 to 2021. However, the apparent finding is also misleading, as most migrant cohorts under investigation still recorded an increased LS rate during the time period in question. Furthermore, close inspection of first-generation migrant cohorts by size, specific sociodemographic, and geographical characteristics (i.e. gender, age, level of education, duration, and place of residence) confirms earlier findings that neither LS, nor much of the factor patterning associated with it, are evenly distributed across or within migrant communities. Of the investigated factors, relative duration of residence in Australia seems to show the most reliable relationship with LS across cohorts. We otherwise argue that the identified LS heterogeneity is a result of complex and varying interactions between different factors, including community-specific language attitudes, practices, exogamy, and (pre-) migration experiences. Importantly, not only is LS not always unidirectional over time in favour of English, the rate of change in LS can also vary greatly between migrant communities.
Importantly, it only looked at data for children over 5 years of age. Our paper, that they cited looked at children under 5 years of age. The information we considered showed that language shift occurs just before entry to formal schooling around 5 years of age. So, this is a very important time to maintain home languages.
Verdon, S., McLeod, S., & Winsler, A. (2014b). Language maintenance and loss in a population study of young Australian children. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 29, 168–181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2013.12.003
Here is our abstract:
Information about children's cultural and linguistic diversity and language acquisition patterns is important for the development of sustainable educational practices. While there is some knowledge about language maintenance and loss in adults and older children, there is limited information about young children. The first three waves of data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), involving 4252 young children, were considered longitudinally over the first five years of life to identify patterns of language maintenance and loss among those who speak languages other than English. The most common languages other than English spoken by the children were Arabic, Vietnamese, Italian, Spanish, and Greek and 9.1% of all children were reported to use a language other than English at wave 1, 15.7% at wave 2, and 15.2% at wave 3. Overall, 91.5% of children maintained speaking a language other than English between wave 1 and wave 2, and 86.6% did so between wave 1 and wave 3. Children's patterns of language acquisition and loss over the first five years of life varied within and between language groups. For example, Arabic-speaking children tended to maintain Arabic throughout early childhood, whereas Italian-speaking children's use of Italian decreased over the first five years of life while use of English steadily increased. Environmental and personal factors such as parental language use, presence of a grandparent in the home, type of early childhood care, first- and second-generation immigrant status, and parental perception of support from the educational environment were related to language maintenance among non-English speaking children.
