While immigration to Iceland has grown in recent years, student populations in schools at different levels have become increasingly diverse in terms of languages and cultures.

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 explore language policies and practices of diverse immigrant families (Curdt-Christiansen, 2013; Spolsky, 2004), how these affect their children’s education and the relationships and interactions between these families and the children‘s teachers.

The research questions posed in this paper are:

·      How do multilingual children‘s language identities develop within their families?

·       How do they negotiate these in a school and societal environment which is mainly Icelandic?

The paper builds on Bronfenbrenner‘s ecological systems theory (1979, 2005) which views child development as being affected by multiple levels of the surrounding environment, from the family settings and school to broader societal and cultural values and a further development of this theory by Schwartz (in press). It explores how different systems affect multilingual children‘s language identities. The theoretical framework also includes writings on familiy language policy (FLP). 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) language beliefs or ideology „the beliefs about language and language use“; and 3) language management „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 according to Curdt-Christiansen (2013), emphasized language input, parental discourse strategy and linguistic environmental conditions, 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 emotional, sociocultural, and cognitive perspectives, and what kinds of family literacy environment and parental capital are likely to promote bilingualism. These components differ 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. There they have to learn not only the vocabulary and grammar, but they also have to recognize and acquire the cultural norms connected to the language use. Bi- or multilingual children, who are a heterogeneous group, experience the differences on a daily basis and gradually acquire insights into all languages that they are exposed to. Children sometimes use 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, children‘s 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 for this paper were collected in semi-structured interviews and language portraits from four children, 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.

The findings indicate that the children‘s language identities develop in multiple ways and are affected by different systems, including family, school and society, as well as peers. The children make active choices on when and how to use their diverse languages and appear to have hybrid language identities. They negotiate these on a daily basis within their schools, among their peers and within their families. The families‘ language policies are diverse manifested in different practices at home and in their engagement with the school staff. Some families reported that teachers seemed to be 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 the children‘s multilingual development. The findings indicate that the teachers are interested in supporting the children‘s multilingualism but they claim that Icelandic is the language of instruction and emphasize that it is extremely important for the children‘s education that they learn Icelandic in schools. The teachers also noted that they were not well aware of methods related to multilingual education.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Harvard University Press. Bronfenbrenner, U. (2005). Making human beings human: Bioecological perspectives on human development. Sage. Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2013). Family language policy: sociopolitical reality versuslinguistic continuity. Language policy, 12, 1-6. DOI 10.1007/s10993-012-9269-0 García, O. & Wei, L. (2014).Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. Palgrave MacMillan. Spolsky, B. (2004). Language policy. Cambridge University Press. Wilson, S. (2020).Family language policy: Children’s perspectives. Palgrave