As a result of migration from Arabic-majority countries to Europe over the past decades, there is currently a significant Arabic-speaking population in Europe (UNESCO, 2019; Walldoff, 2017). This has important implications for the maintenance of the Arabic language in the European diaspora and, in turn, also for schools across Europe. Currently, Arabic is taught as a ‘mother tongue’ in mainstream schools in several European countries, such as Finland, Germany, and Sweden (Alisaari et al., 2023; Soukah, 2022). In fact, Arabic is the language within so-called mother tongue education in Sweden with the highest number of participants (Walldoff, 2017). Meanwhile, in countries such as Belgium and Norway, Arabic language teaching is relegated to community-based supplementary schools in the evenings and afternoons (Steenwegen et al., 2022; Vedøy & Vassenden, 2020). As such, access to Arabic language teaching varies significantly between countries (ElHawari, 2021). As a response to the limited access to Arabic language education combined with the increased access to digital resources and the COVID-19 pandemic, an increasing number of students are enrolling in online Arabic language education (Hilmi, 2021). Across the diverse provisions for Arabic language learning in the European diaspora, there is significant variation in the instruction’s content, objectives, and organisation. For example, ‘mother tongue teaching’ in Finland and Sweden is regulated by a government-developed and standardised curriculum. Community-based education provided in supplementary schools – either online or onsite – has much greater autonomy to develop the content, objectives, and organisation (Baldridge et al., 2017; Steenwegen et al., 2022).

Based on four distinct ethnographic research projects exploring Arabic teaching in different settings, this symposium offers extensive empirical insight into and analyses of Arabic ‘mother tongue teaching’ in Finland and Sweden, supplementary Arabic language teaching in Belgium, and transnational online Arabic language teaching. Based on findings from the four studies, the symposium explores how different forms of organising Arabic teaching shape the teaching of Arabic, students’ and teachers’ experiences and identity formation. Furthermore, we discuss the ethical dimensions of ethnographic research into Arabic teaching in Europe, considering the increasingly politicized environment where research focusing on languages associated with recent migration operates in today’s Europe.

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