This study discussed here is part of a larger project titled Apart and Apart? Education and social inclusion of refugee children and youth in Iceland. One of the project’s pillars is to examine refugee youth’s language learning, language use, and multilingualism. Building on that pillar, this study examines multilingual practices that support learning Icelandic and heritage languages, including Icelandic-as-a-second-language classes, homework support, and heritage-language classes across family, school, and community contexts. The research question guiding this study is the following:

How do the language practices of family, school, and community shape Syrian and Iraqi youth’s Icelandic language learning, heritage-language maintenance, and academic progression in upper secondary school education?

Findings from previous studies in Iceland focusing on youth with refugee backgrounds have consistently highlighted structural and institutional barriers to educational inclusivity, including a lack of policy, a lack of teacher preparation, limited heritage-language support, and sustained home-school collaboration (Gunnþórsdóttir, 2019; Hama, 2020; Harðardóttir & Magnúsdóttir, 2018; Ragnarsdóttir, 2020). At the same time, research has paid less attention to thefacilitators that enable youth to persist and progress across school levels, including family language practices, community-based language support, and linguistic and cultural approaches within schools (Allen et al., 2021; Fong et al., 2024). Even less visible is how youth and their families actively navigate structural and institutional barriers to educational inclusivity in everyday life, for example, how they negotiate language expectations, mobilize resources across home, school, and community contexts, and sustain both Icelandic language learning and heritage language use as Syrian and Iraqi youth transition into upper secondary school (Prasad & Lory, 2020; Ungar, 2011; Ungar & Theron, 2019).

 European scholarship highlights the growing recognition of multilingualism and its cognitive, educational, and social benefits. Scholars such as Cummins (2021, 2024) emphasize that multilingual learners benefit when schools move away from monolingualism and create classroom ecologies that welcome cross-linguistic connections, translanguaging, and identity-affirming language use (Cummins, 2021, 2024). Similarly, Fong et al. (2024) argue that undervaluing ethnically or racially minoritized students’ identities, including social status, religious beliefs, and their socio-ecological environment, can undermine their sense of belonging, which in turn shapes their academic progress. Lastly, Chumak-Horbatsch (2025) underscores the importance of investing in multilingual, inclusive classroom practices that draw on all students’ language repertoires and create equitable environments that strengthen students’ belonging.

This paper draws on a theoretical framework in socio-ecological resilience (Ungar & Theron, 2019) and Linguistic and Cultural Collaboration (Prasad & Lory, 2020). In line with Ungar and Theron (2019), resilience is treated as a multisystem process: young people do well under adversity when they can navigate toward and negotiate for psychological, social, cultural, and material resources that sustain well-being and a sense of belonging in culturally meaningful ways. This framing aligns with the study’s focus on how Icelandic language learning, heritage language maintenance, and academic progression depend on resources accessed and negotiated across family, school, and community contexts, including instructional support, culturally and linguistically safe relationships, and opportunities to maintain heritage languages. Complementing this notion, Prasad and Lory’s (2020) LCC specifies what equitable collaboration can look like in practice. In practice, LCC is both a process and a product that emerges when teachers, students, families, and community actors utilize diverse language repertoires and funds of knowledge to enrich learning while challenging deficit views of marginalized languages. Together, these lenses support an analysis of language practice as socially organized, power-laden, and consequential for the academic trajectories of Syrian and Iraqi youth. 

This qualitative research study involves Syrian and Iraqi youth of different genders, their parents from diverse educational and socio-economic backgrounds, schoolteachers, and communities, such as support families and the mosque. A multiple case study was adopted following Stake’s (2005) conceptualization of case studies as a method for revealing the specificity and complexity of each unique case. Data was collected through semi-structured in-depth and focus group interviews (Braun & Clarke, 2013) guided by interview protocols developed by the ESRCI research team. Emphasis is placed on capturing Syrian and Iraqi youth’s agency, experiences, and perspectives through emancipatory approaches, including language portraits and value cards activities designed to foreground youth voices and linguistic and cultural identities (Broek, 2025; Yoshida & Nichols, 2024). The study includes participants across four Icelandic municipalities, three rural and one urban, and comprises twelve youth aged 12 to 23, five parents, four support-family representatives, and four educational professionals, connected to Icelandic as a second language instruction and schooling, and the mosque, a key community-based heritage-language learning environment. Each youth and participant who is related to them constitutes a distinct case, collectively illuminating the broader ecological context surrounding Syrian and Iraqi youth’s Icelandic language learning, heritage language maintenance, and authentic school belonging across home, school, and community contexts (Prasad & Lory, 2020; Ungar, 2011).

Preliminary findings are consistent with previous studies in Iceland, which highlight persistent structural barriers for youth with refugee backgrounds, including policy invisibility, limited teacher preparedness, fragmented home-school collaboration, high demands in Icelandic, and a lack of heritage language support in schools. However, new insights emerge into the ways Syrian and Iraqi youth, and their families, actively navigate and negotiate language-related resources across contexts. For example, heritage-language learning is primarily sustained through parent-organized instruction and community-based initiatives, notably those associated with religious institutions, such as mosques. Furthermore, the analysis reveals that Syrian and Iraqi youth’s language-related well-being and authentic sense of belonging are closely dependent on consistent support provided by family, school, and community contexts. Particularly important facilitators include classroom practices that provide structured support for Icelandic language learning, flexible assessment, and encouragement for Syrian and Iraqi youth to utilize their heritage language for learning without stigma. Community and family support appear to be key to Syrian and Iraqi youth’s educational engagement, heritage language maintenance, and learning Icelandic; however, in schools, support for Icelandic language learning and multilingual practices is left to the goodwill or the ability of individual teachers and schools to provide these services. This is largely due to the municipalities versus the government’s funding responsibility response, which led to secondary schools having uneven resources Ultimately, the paper identifies uneven yet distinct pathways of resilience that enable youth to maintain their heritage languages, learn Icelandic, and advance academically. Beyond structural and systemic stresses, some Syrian and Iraqi youth face a fragmented family environment, peer exclusion, discrimination, and isolation. These pressures may accumulate, constrain their sense of belonging, and, in turn, lead to dropping out of school.

References Allen, K. A., Kern, M. L., Rozek, C. S., McInerney, D. M., & Slavich, G. M. (2021). Belonging: a review of conceptual issues, an integrative framework, and directions for future research. Australian Journal of Psychology, 73(1), 87–102. https://doi.org/10.1080/00049530.2021.1883409 Braun, V. & Clarke, V. (2013). Successful qualitative research: A practical guide for beginners. SAGE Publications. Chumak-Horbatsch, R. (2025). Multilingual teaching: The missing piece. Multilingual Matters. Cummins, J. (2024). Multilingualism in English language education. In the Routledge companion to English studies (2nd ed.). Routledge. Harðardóttir, E. & Magnúsdóttir, B. R. (2018). “Moving in the dark”: Exploring representations of refugee youth through Icelandic public policy documents and teachers’ narratives – Icelandic Review of Politics & Administration, 14(3) Fong, C. J., Adelugba, S. F., Garza, M., Pinto, G. L., Gonzales, C., Zarei, P., & Rozek, C. S. (2024). A scoping review of the associations between sense of belonging and academic outcomes in postsecondary education. Educational Psychology Review, 36(4). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-024-09974-y Gunnþórsdóttir, H., Barillé, S., & Meckl, M. (2019). The Education of Students with Immigrant Background in Iceland: Parents’ and Teachers’ Voices. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 63(4), 605–616. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2017.1415966 Hama, S. R. (2020). Experiences and expectations of successful immigrant and refugee students while in upper secondary schools in Iceland [Doctoral dissertation, University of Iceland]. Opin vísindi. https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11815/2182 Matthews, J. S., Boomhower, K. M., & Ekwueme, C. (2024). Assimilationist, reformist, and sociopolitical phases of school belonging research: A critical race and optimal distinctiveness review. In Advances in motivation science (pp. 171–213). https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.adms.2023.12.001 Stake, R. E. (2005). Multiple case study analysis. Guildford Press. Ungar, M., & Theron, L. (2019). Resilience and mental health: how multisystemic processes contribute to positive outcomes. The Lancet Psychiatry, 7(5), 441–448. https://doi.org/10.1016/s2215-0366(19)30434-1 Yoshida, R., & Nichols, S. (2024). The multiple resources of refugee students: a language portrait inquiry. International Journal of Multilingualism, 21(1), 379–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2022.2026359