Education of a child in an ethnically diverse family

Child’s education and its implementation may become a very sensitive issue in a family where both parents are of a different cultural background. As the number of multilingual families has been increasing all over the world, including Lithuania, it is important to find out how multilingual parents deal with child’s education within a family from different perspectives. Only few researches of Lithuanian scientists concentrate on this phenomenon however in the context of emigration. Thus the article is important because of the analysis of the characteristics of children‘s education in ethnically diverse families that live in Lithuania. In this article the term ethnically diverse family is used when considering the parents that are of a different nationality and more than one language is used within a family. The main issue of the article is what characteristics of child’s education in an ethnically diverse family can be distinguished from linguistic, social, cultural and value education perspectives? What theoretical-empirical model can be applied for child’s education in an ethnically diverse family? The object of the article is child’s education in an ethnically diverse family from parents’ point of view. The aim of the research is to examine the characteristics of child’s education in an ethnically diverse family. Having analyzed questionnaires, distributed to each parent, and qualitative data, gathered from semi-structured interviews, it was revealed that all families apply a strategy of trilingualism and it can be already seen in 1 year old child’s behavior. In order to develop child’s multilingualism parents mostly read books or play songs on CD in different languages. Child’s social education takes place within family, in Lithuanian kindergarten, when seeing other families, mostly Lithuanian, constantly communicating with relatives who live abroad by using technologies and regularly visiting the country of foreign-born parent. Children are introduced to both cultures mostly through food variety in daily life and events as well as by incorporating various traditions in calendar celebrations. The values that unite family have an effect on child’s education. Parents in an ethnically diverse family transfer intercultural values, such as respect, tolerance, openness, flexibility, to children. Although parents encounter issues such as child’s identity problem, they are much more focused on the advantages: openness, multilingualism (related to more possibilities in life), flexibility, broader world-view, cultural richness, personal maturity and curiosity.