Family language policies, reported language use and proficiency in Russian-Hebrew bilingual children in Israel

Routledge Journals from the Taylor & Francis Group have recently featured an article written by two of our faculty members – Armon-Lotem and Walters – in collaboration with three of our alumni -- Altman, Burnstein-Feldman, and Yitzhaki – in the series Global Issues: Language, Culture & Identity. The paper "Family language policies, reported language use and proficiency in Russian – Hebrew bilingual children in Israel" explores the relationship between parents' language policy and language choice at home, and preschool children's proficiency in Russian and Hebrew.  Regardless of the level of Russian language maintenance at home,  children were performing better in Hebrew than Russian. Children also reported more codeswitching into L2/Hebrew than into their home language. These findings serve as evidence for language shift due to greater influence of peers and siblings rather than parents. The paper is now featured as part of the Preservation and Revitalization collection.