This article discusses the findings from a qualitative study, which forms part of a larger project, Apart and Apart? Education and Social Inclusion of Refugee Children and Youth in Iceland (ESRCI). Funded by the Icelandic Research Fund. The ESRCI project is the first large-scale study in Iceland to examine the education and social inclusion of Syrian and Iraqi children and youth with refugee backgrounds at pre-, compulsory, and upper secondary school levels. This article examines the experiences of two young women from Syria and Iraq as they learned Icelandic and maintained their heritage language, and the significance that these languages played in their personal and academic lives, particularly in identity formation and academic aspirations.  The research question guiding this study is:  

How do two young Syrian and Iraqi women describe using and learning Icelandic and heritage languages, and what roles do these languages play in their daily lives?  

Previous studies in Iceland indicate that a sense of physical safety after resettlement does not automatically lead to linguistic and social inclusion among young women with refugee backgrounds. Kristjánsdóttir and Skaptadóttir's (2018) qualitative study of Palestinian women living in a small Icelandic town indicates that, although the women valued the security and hospitality of the Icelandic nation, they experienced social exclusion and loneliness due to limited proficiency in Icelandic and limited daily contact with the Icelandic community.   Nouh et al. (2022) report that illiteracy, unaddressed trauma, overwhelming caregiving responsibilities, and emotional exhaustion severely hindered their ability to attend classes and make meaningful progress in learning Icelandic. Across these studies, learning Icelandic emerges as an essential component that structurally constrains and shapes the intersection of disrupted education, caregiving responsibilities, trauma, and social isolation.  

Similarly, European research indicates that young women with refugee backgrounds sit at the intersection of multilingualism, gender roles, and identity formation (Norton, 2009). Norton (2009) suggests that women with refugee backgrounds use the majority language to claim the right to speak, reposition themselves as students, workers, and citizens, and negotiate gender roles. In Sweden, New Zealand (Svensson, 2024), Scotland (Cox & Phipps, 2022), Greece (Kyrligkitsi & Mouti, 2023), and Australia (Choi et al., 2017), learning the majority language was a form of language capital that allowed Syrian women with rich multilingual repertoires and limited prior schooling to leverage these languages to challenge or reconfigure expectations of being homebound. Taken together, international studies of young women with refugee backgrounds emphasize that language skills and education are vital to achieving future goals, accessing the labor market, and becoming role models. However, their progress is hindered by gender norms, racism, and institutional obstacles that restrict the benefits of their language and educational efforts investments.  

The framework guiding this study, therefore, draws on Norton’s (2015) model of investment and Bourdieu's (1991) theory of language capital as a lens to understanding Syrian and Iraqi young women’s Icelandic language learning and their heritage language maintenance as they form their identity and future social and academic aspirations in Iceland. Norton’s (2015) model of investment conceptualizes language learning as a socially situated process, shaped by learners’ visions of their future selves and the communities they wish to belong to. Bourdieu’s (1991) theory of language capital further illuminates how different languages hold different social value within specific institutional and social environments, positioning Icelandic as a powerful resource for educational access, social mobility, and long-term opportunity, while Syrian and Iraqi youth's heritage language is undervalued within social and educational language hierarchies.  Together, these frameworks enable the study to examine how multilingual identity is negotiated within unequal power structures, highlighting the complex interplay among aspiration, sense of belonging, and the role of multilingual resources in participants' lives

The study employs a qualitative multiple-case design (Stake, 2005) to investigate how two young Syrian and Iraqi women describe their use and learning of Icelandic and heritage languages. Each case is treated as contextually unique, while a cross-case analysis enables identification of shared patterns in language learning and use, identity formation, and multilingual experiences within Icelandic educational and social contexts. Data was collected in two Icelandic municipalities, one urban and one rural, as part of the ESRCI project. The two focal participants were selected through purposive sampling to reflect diverse resettlement contexts, educational histories, and multilingual repertoires. Three complementary methods were used during field work: semi-structured interviews, language portraits, and value cards. The objective was to use agentive, epistemologically equitable tools to enable free discussion of the participants' language experiences on their own terms (Prasad, 2014; Yoshida & Nichols, 2024; McPartland, 2024). Thematic analysis informed by constructive grounded theory (Charmaz, 2016) was used to identify and interpret themes across interviews and visual artifacts. Coding proceeded interactively through initial and thematical stages, followed by cross-case comparisons to examine similarities and differences in participants' experiences. Themes are interpreted through the lens of investement and language capital, allowing attention to aspirations, power dynamics and access to language support.

So far, findings reveal persistent institutional barriers that shape and often limit the multilingual development of young women from Syria and Iraq, affirming their identities and social and academic aspirations. Within school settings, some youth arrive with limited Modern Standard Arabic literacy and fragmented prior schooling, making it difficult, especially for older students, to use their heritage language as scaffolding for Icelandic language learning, adapt to a school environment, and take a longer time to meet the high demands for Icelandic proficiency set out by educational institutions. Within families, parents value and invest in Syrian and Iraqi youth’s heritage language maintenance and Icelandic language learning, either by paying for online Modern Standard Arabic classes, collaborating with support families, or/and by sending their children to extracurricular activities such as Sunday school at the mosque The anticipated outcomes will not only shed light on the lived experiences of multilingual young women with refugee backgrounds in Iceland but also provide actionable insights for creating an equitable, supportive, and culturally responsive educational environment.

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