Collaborative Construction of Biliteracy

Homework in a German-Japanese Family

Abstract

This paper focuses on the process by which a German-Japanese girl in the third-fourth grades of elementary school performed homework assigned by local and supplementary schools. Qualitative analyses of data consisting primarily of 2.5 years of diary entries by the student’s Japanese mother were undertaken from the perspective of parent-child collaboration, revealing four findings. First, the girl was helped primarily by her mother when performing homework for both schools. Second, both mother-daughter interactions and support from her German father increased while performing homework assigned by her local school after the fifth period, whereas these phenomena remained unchanged while performing homework for the supplementary school. Third, as the girl’s proficiency in German approached that of her mother, her mother found it difficult to help her daughter, especially with vocabulary and composition, after the fifth period. Fourth, although the girl was able to perform Japanese composition assignments almost independently, she experienced difficulty performing Kanji exercises. These findings suggest that parents should offer flexible and complementary support according to the difficulties encountered by parent and child.