Claims

Preservation of the mother tongue predicts second-language achievement among migrant children

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · theoretical r3 · q2
Currency · newest study 1979 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims

Reading the evidence codes

q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.

This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.

q2 i? In the UNESCO investigation of Finnish migrant children in Sweden, the hypothesis that children who best preserved their mother tongue were also best in Swedish was strongly supported. → Cummins 1979

Evidence

Cummins 1979

Cummins, James. (1979). Linguistic interdependence and the educational development of bilingual children. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED257312. doi:10.3102/00346543049002222

q2 · i? · theoretical · r3

The review reports the UNESCO investigation by Skutnabb-Kangas and Toukomaa (1976) of Finnish migrant children attending Swedish comprehensive school, which examined interdependence between mother-tongue and Swedish skills. The paper states "This hypothesis was strongly supported by the findings." Children who migrated at age 10 achieved Swedish skills comparable to those of Swedes.

"attention was paid to the interdependence between skills in the mother tongue and Swedish, i.e. the hypothesis was tested that those who have best preserved their mother tongue are also best in Swedish."

Discussion

Page metadata
Field Value
type claim
id mother-tongue-preservation-predicts-l2-achievement
title Preservation of the mother tongue predicts second-language achievement among migrant children
description Preservation of the mother tongue predicts second-language achievement among migrant children
status review
evidence_strength moderate
newest_evidence 1979
generated by claude/unspecified on 2026-09-25
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources 1 — cummins-1979

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