A new Pew Research Center survey of 3,507 US adults found that 78% say it is extremely, very, or somewhat important for children growing up in the United States to learn a language other than English.
The finding, published in August 2026, lands against a backdrop of chronic staffing shortages and thin course offerings that leave schools struggling to match that public appetite.
Strong consensus, with notable divides
Four in ten Americans say it is extremely or very important for children growing up in the US to learn a language other than English. Another 38% say this is somewhat important, and 21% say it’s not too or not at all important.
That broad agreement masks clear demographic lines within the data. Women are slightly more likely than men to rate language learning as extremely or very important, at 42% versus 38%. Adults with bachelor’s degrees are also more likely than those with less education to hold that view, at 45% versus 37%.
Democrats are about twice as likely as Republicans to say learning a language other than English is extremely or very important.
Pew surveyed 3,507 adults from March 23 to 29, 2026. Every participant is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel, and the survey is designed to represent the full US adult population.
Spanish tops the list, Mandarin reveals a wider gap
More than half of Americans, 53%, say it is highly important for US schools to offer Spanish classes. Spanish is the second-most common language spoken at home in the US after English. Among those aged five and older, 14% of the US population speaks Spanish at home, according to the Census Bureau’s 2024 American Community Survey.
Twenty percent of US adults say it is important for schools to offer Mandarin Chinese, yet only 3% of K-12 public schools offer Mandarin or Cantonese as an independent class , according to the January 2024 NCES School Pulse Panel.
The ACS estimates only around 1% of Americans speak Chinese languages, including Mandarin and Cantonese, at home , meaning demand for school instruction far outpaces both everyday speaker numbers and classroom availability.
Across the full range of languages examined, the gap between public preference and school availability is consistent: 53% of Americans view Spanish as extremely or very important to offer in schools, compared with 40% of public schools that offer it; 14% want Latin against 2% of schools that offer it; 13% want French against 12% that offer it; and 10% want Arabic against just 1% of schools that have it.
A supply problem schools have struggled to fix
Overall, January 2024 School Pulse Panel data found that 43% of all public schools reported offering world language classes, with the highest share by region in the Northeast at 51%.
That means more than half of public schools nationwide offer nothing in this area, even as the Pew survey documents persistent gaps between school language-course offerings and public demand.
Historically, one of the biggest obstacles schools face in offering world language classes is finding sufficient staff. The National Teacher and Principal Survey found that of the K-12 schools that had teaching vacancies in world languages for the 2020, 21 school year, 42.5% of public schools found it very difficult to fill those positions or were unable to fill them at all.
The findings connect to a broader conversation about how Americans communicate and relate across cultural lines. A separate push by younger Muslim Americans for greater cultural recognition has highlighted how language and identity intertwine in everyday civic life, while research on proximity and friendship formation suggests that shared language access could shape social bonds well before formal introductions are made.
What the numbers mean for everyday life
As communication becomes more globally connected, fluency in a second language is increasingly regarded not as an academic luxury but as a practical skill.
The Pew analysis examines Americans’ attitudes toward children in the United States learning a language other than English, and the importance of offering different languages in US schools.
The researchers note the full results expand on existing Pew work into domestic issues and how they interact with views of the United States’ global standing . Whether the broad public consensus translates into renewed investment in language instruction, or remains an aspiration outpacing school capacity, remains an open question.
