This paper derives from the research project Language policies and practices of diverse immigrant families in Iceland and their implications for education.

The objectives of the project are to explores language policies and practices of diverse immigrant families (Curdt-Christiansen, Schwartz & Vershik, 2013), how these affect their children’s education and the relationships and interactions between these families, their heritage language communities and their teachers.

The main research question posed in this paper is: How do the families support their children in their education, navigating between two or even three languages and diverse cultures? 

The theoretical framework includes writing on familiy language policies. Families face various challenges in their attempt to bring up a bilingual or a multilingual child. Schwartz & Vershik (2013, p. 1) note that there are, for example, “identity conflicts, time pressure restraints in negotiating conflicting language demands and the negative effects of macro-level social processes such as state language policy”. Even in these challenging circumstances, some families do succeed in holding on to their heritage language and using it with their children. Families are in a key position for maintaining and preserving languages. The relatively new research field of family language policy (FLP) presents “an integrated overview of research on how languages are managed, learned and negotiated within families” (King et al., 2008, p. 97). It brings together research on multilingualism, language acquisition, language policy and cultural studies. Spolsky (2004, p. 5) distinguished three components of family language policy: 1) language practices „the habitual pattern of selecting among the varieties that make up its linguistic repertoire“; 2) its language beliefs or ideology; „the beliefs about language and language use“; and 3) „any specific efforts to modify or influence that practice by any kind of language intervention, planning or management.” These have been extended further by Curdt Christiansen (2013), who notes that FLP also recognizes the relevance and influence of economic, political and social structures and processes in a given society. While early approaches to FLP emphasized language input, parental discourse strategy and linguistic environmental conditions according to Curdt-Christiansen (2013), more recently there has been a shift of focus in research towards issues such as why different values are ascribed to different languages, how parents view bilingualism from sociocultural, emotional and cognitive perspectives, and what kinds of family literacy environment and parental capital are likely to promote bilingualism. These components are different from one family to another and Schwartz (2018) notes that pro-active family language management might interact with and be influenced by the surrounding ethno-linguistic community and schools (policy-makers, teachers, and peers). When children enter a new socio-cultural community, such as a school, where a majority language is spoken, they also encounter culturally related challenges. They have to learn not only the vocabulary and grammar, but also recognize and acquire the cultural norms connected to the language use. Bi- or multilingual children, a heterogeneous group, experience the differences on a daily basis and gradually acquire insights into all languages that they are exposed to. Sometimes translanguaging, i.e. the effective communication through activating all linguistic resources of the individual, is used to achieve communicative goals (García & Wei, 2014). Wilson (2020) argues that whilst the language management of minority-language parents tends to be geared towards transmitting a linguistic heritage, often associated with their emotional bond to the home country, their children, who may be born in the country of immigration, may not share such a deep connection with the heritage culture. As a result, their language choices may differ from their parents’.

The project is a qualitative research study and involves altogether 16 immigrant families, who have diverse languages, and educational and socio-economic backgrounds and their children (age 2-16) of different genders, as well as the children’s teachers and principals at preschool and compulsory school levels and, where relevant, their heritage language teachers. Data was collected in semi-structured interviews with the children‘s parents, as well as teachers and principals in the children‘s schools. Semi-structured interviews were chosen to elicit the views of the participants as clearly and accurately as possible (Kvale, 2007). The families live in four different municipalities in Iceland. Families speaking heritage languages belonging to both small (such as Philippines) and large (Polish) language groups in Iceland were selected. The municipalities are located in four different parts of Iceland and there may be important differences between the municipalities where the children are located when it comes to educational opportunities and support. This will provide understanding of various and different challenges faced by different schools. There may also be important differences in belonging to different heritage language groups which the project will shed light on.

The findings indicate that the families have diverse language policies that are manifested in diverse practices in their engagement with the school staff. Some families reported that teachers seemed to be rather unaware of the possibilities to encourage children to use their heritage languages in their studies at school. The findings also reveal that the participating families value their children’s language repertoire and use diverse methods and resources to support language development. There is a difference between the small heritage language communities and the larger ones when it comes to support and access to resources. There is also a difference in access to resources and support between smaller and larger municipalities, while personal communication is more common in the smaller municipalities. Despite of good intentions, several of the participating parents experienced some kind of a struggle between them and the school staff regarding language policies.

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