Language Development in Children from Marginalized Cultures

Marginalized communities, including ethnic minorities, migrants, and refugees, exist in every society, and many speak small or endangered languages that remain understudied. Children from these communities often grow up without access to formal childcare or preschool education, acquiring their mother tongue primarily through family and community interaction while simultaneously being exposed to the official language of their host country. Despite the growing global relevance of migration and displacement, there is still limited empirical research on how bilingual or multilingual language development unfolds in these populations. This Research Topic focuses on language acquisition and development among minority, migrant, and refugee children, examining both heritage-language maintenance and the acquisition of a second or third language in bilingual and multilingual contexts.This Research Topic aims to advance scientific understanding of language acquisition and language development among marginalized children, including both typically developing children and those with language impairments. By bringing together empirical, theoretical, and applied contributions, we seek to clarify how bilingual and multilingual development unfolds under conditions of social marginalization, displacement, and limited access to formal early education, and to identify factors that support or hinder healthy language outcomes in these populations. Particular attention will be given to comparative and cross-linguistic perspectives, given how little is currently known about many minority and endangered languages. This collection is explicitly open to early-career researchers and Ph.D. students, encouraging new scholarship in an area that remains significantly underrepresented in the literature.We welcome original research, reviews, and case studies addressing the following themes:- Bilingualism and multilingualism in minority, migrant, and refugee children- Heritage/mother-tongue maintenance alongside second- or third-language acquisition- Language development in under-documented or endangered minority languages- Typical and atypical (language-impaired) language development in marginalized populations- Cross-linguistic and cross-cultural comparative studies of bilingual/multilingual development- Methodological approaches for studying language acquisition in hard-to-reach or under-resourced populationsTo maintain a strong foundation within the psychology of language, all submissions must explicitly focus on the cognitive, psycholinguistic, or developmental mechanisms of language acquisition, processing, or impairment. We prioritize contributions grounded in empirical methodologies, including behavioral experiments, psycholinguistic testing, standardized or naturalistic language assessments, structured corpus linguistics, or longitudinal tracking. Manuscripts that provide purely sociological descriptions, broad educational commentaries, or policy advocacy without direct evaluation of empirical linguistic data or psychological mechanisms fall outside the scope of this Research Topic. Topic editors: Huseyin S. Kyuchuk, William S. New Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/85383/language-development-in-children-from-marginalized-cultures