Rural Parents’ Home-Based Academic Socialisation and the Reluctance to Learn English

This study seeks to understand the role of parent academic socialisation and its possible connections to rural adolescents’ reluctance in developing English proficiency. The Parent Socialisation Model of Eccles and Wigfield’s Situated Expectancy-Value Theory guides this qualitative study to examine parents’ beliefs of the value of English for their children, perceptions of their children’s actual English language abilities and how parents’ beliefs and perceptions are reflected through parents’ learning-related behaviours. Data was elicited from semi structured interviews and home observations in a rural community in Malaysia. Thematic analysis revealed that parents’ English language beliefs were not evenly positive and not reflected strongly through home academic socialisation. Furthermore, due to gaps in understanding learning realities, parents did not accurately perceive their children’s actual abilities in English. Consequently, parental learning investments were inadequate and not sustained. This study concludes that rural parents’ insufficient academic socialisation contributes to their children’s reluctance to learn English. Reversal of English learning reluctance will require increasing parents’ beliefs in the utility of English in order to increase and diversify their engagement in their children’s learning. Fostering parent-practitioner bonds of trust will help parents understand that children’s learning of English is a shared responsibility between parents and practitioners.