Effects of Minority-Language Literacy on the Academic Achievement of Vietnamese Youths in New Orleans

Abstract

This article identifies the major theoretical perspectives on nativelanguage literacy-forcible assimilation, reluctant bilingualism, and linguistic pluralism-and reports on a case study of the role of such literacy in the academic achievement of 387 Vietnamese high school students in New Orleans. The study found that literacy in Vietnamese is positively related to identification with the ethnic group and to academic achievement. The authors maintain that ethnic language skills contribute to academic achievement by the community-level sociological means of providing access to social capital, as well as by the individual-level psychological means of cognitive transference. They conclude that ethnic language skills may not always be a hindrance to the social adaptation and upward mobility of young members of an ethnic immigrant group and that these skills may actually contribute to the goals of mainstream education, rather than compete with them.