This Brief describes a study of the role of Vietnamese community-based heritage language (CBHL) schools in the United States, drawing on interviews with 17 teachers and administrators at 10 schools in six states, along with public documents. The study investigates how these schools negotiate identity, language, and educational opportunity amid political memory, demographic shifts, and unequal institutional support. Besides operational constraints, these schools also grapple with language ideologies formed by refugee history, including notions of what registers as authentic or politicized Vietnamese. The findings suggest that inequality in heritage-language education concerns questions not only of access, but also of whose language practices are rendered legitimate and receive institutional recognition.

This Brief describes a project to investigate community-based heritage language education in the Greater Philadelphia area, which engaged undergraduate students to explore the richness of HL programs in the region. The students compiled an annotated bibliography on HL education, documented HL programs in the region, surveyed language diversity on campus, and organized a storytelling event focused on language and identity. Each student also selected one community-based HL school to visit and conducted an interview with a school leader. The project culminated in a Forum on Community-Based Heritage Language Education (agenda: Forum on Community-Based Heritage Language Education ), on May 10, 2025, at Penn State Abington.

This Brief describes a study (conducted 2020-2023) of the effectiveness of seven STARTALK programs in developing language proficiency, cultural competence, and 21st-century skills of the learners involved. The study examined best practices, instructional methodologies used, and areas for improvement. Key findings highlight STARTALK's strengths, including its emphasis on communicative competence, the integration of cultural elements into language instruction, and the use of performance-based assessments. Challenges remain, particularly in adapting to online learning and enhancing grammar instruction. The Brief provides a summary of the study's findings and their implications for future language education programs.

In community-based heritage language schools there is a clear purpose in using the language of the community during instructional and informal times. Valuing and developing the language that the students speak at home and in the community are the reasons the school was founded in the first place. But what is the experience of these multilingual students in other educational contexts, for example in public schools, and how can the teachers in those contexts value and promote use of those languages? This Brief describes the challenges that these teachers and students face with language use and language instruction and some strategies teachers can use.

This Brief describes the results of the first-ever survey of Thai community-based schools in the U.S., with interviews with 48 stakeholders from 11 schools, including administrators, volunteer teachers, parents, and former students. It considers their challenges, successes, and next steps to address the challenges.

This Brief describes a rich collaboration among an Elementary School, a public school in the Chandler Unified School District of Arizona, and two Mandarin Heritage Language Schools, Contemporary Chinese School of Arizona and Arizona Hope Chinese School. It shows the many ways that teachers, students, and parents engage in many different activities that enrich all of them.

The Alliance for the Advancement of Heritage Languages published a number of Heritage Briefs that are relevant to our work.