An Investigation of the Relationship between Social, Economic, and Cultural Capital of the Family and Farsi Language Learning by Azeri Children

The family, as the most important social institution, plays an important role in institutionalizing language learning in children. Bilingualism has raised issues for education systems that need to be accounted for through careful and comprehensive scrutiny. The economic, social and cultural capital of the family is an important factor in the growth and development of the human capital of children. Investigations on first and second language acquisition, the methods of learning and teaching languages, and the role language plays in the structure of the society have always been a major educational research topic in bilingual countries. The importance of this leading issue has recently been captured by the Ministry of Education and many senior policy makers of Iran because of the country's geographical position. Iran as a vast and ethnically diverse country enjoys the presence of several folks speaking and communicating in their native languages. Therefore, in such communities there are a great number of bilingual children whose effective training hinges largely on educating them to learn not only the official language of the country but also their own native languages. Since the official language in Iran is Farsi, almost all of the families emphatically accentuate the importance of learning this official language before their children's entrance to the primary levels of education. The family environment has a great impact on the development of children's language skills. This trend, undoubtedly, pictures the educational environment of the schools in Iran. One of the factors that has a lot to do with language learning is the classroom. In the classroom, information is provided in language by the teacher, and the student must demonstrate that he or she has learned the information using the language. Almost all of the teaching courses in Iran, in all levels, are being taught in Farsi and the children in order not to face the educational upsurges must have a clear understanding of the language being used in the classes....