Starting early or late? Parental perspectives on the onset of English language education at primary school in Germany

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>This study investigates parents’ perspectives on the preferred onset of English education in Germany and potential explanatory factors drawing on a cross-sectional survey of 2,645 parents from the EUBE project (<jats:italic> <jats:underline>E</jats:underline>nglisch<jats:underline>u</jats:underline>nterrichts<jats:underline>b</jats:underline>eginn aus <jats:underline>E</jats:underline>lternsicht</jats:italic> / Parental perspectives on the onset of English Language Education). Results reveal that a significant majority of parents advocate for an early start in year 1 or 2 of primary school, generally aligning with their strong conviction of the importance of English, high educational aspirations and expectations, and their own (early) start of language education. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of parental perspectives that have also shown to be related to multiple indicators of educational success in general and achievements in language learning in particular.</jats:p>