The population of Iceland has become increasingly diverse in recent decades and this is reflected in student populations at all education levels. This paper aims to explore children's agency in language policies and practices of immigrant families as well as their agency in their preschools and compulsory schools. The main research question is: How is children's agency represented in multilingual contexts in diverse families and schools in Iceland? The theoretical framework of the study includes family language policy and bi- and multilingual education theories. According to King et al. (2008), the research field of family language policy (FLP) focuses on on how languages are learned, managed and negotiated within families. It brings together research on multilingualism, language acquisition, language policy and cultural studies. Schwartz (2018) has further discussed agency in interactions between children, teachers and parents. Furthermore, children's assertion of agency in language use and socialisation at home in multilingual families has been explored by Said & Zhu (2017). The findings of their research indicate that the children are aware of the language preferences of their parents and assert their agency through their linguistic choices to achieve their interactional goals. The project is a qualitative research study where the focus is on dialogue, observations and drawings from multilingual children in their family and school settings at preschool and compulsory school levels. The age of the children is 5-15 years old. Data from the children was collected in 2022, and data from the parents, teachers and principals in the children's schools was collected from 2020 to 2022 in semi-structured interviews, using interview guides developed by the researchers (Kvale, 2007). Finally, parents of the youngest children (age 5-7) were asked to write regular diaries with examples on their children's multiple language use at home. Findings indicated that the children in the study are active agents in developing language policies and practices in their families. In the school settings they appear to have fewer opportunities and appear to lack agency in developing their multilingualism. The findings also revealed that although the participating families have different language policies, they value their children's language repertoire and use diverse tools to support language development. However, some parents expressed their concerns related to the relatively high linguistical pressure that is put on their children who use up to four different languages on a daily basis, including heritage languages, Icelandic and English. The teachers in the study were interested in supporting the children's multilingualism, while many of them lacked knowledge and training in implementing multilingual and culturally responsive practices.
Bibliography:
King, K. A., Fogle, L. & Logan-Terry, A. (2008) Family language policy. Language and Linguistics Compass (2)5, 907-922. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-818X.2008.00076.x
Kvale, S. (2007) Doing interviews. Sage.
Said, F.F., & Zhu, H. (2019)."No, no Maama! Say 'Shaatir ya Ouledee Shaatir'!" Children's agency in language use and socialisation. International Journal of Bilingualism, 23(3), 771-785.
Schwartz, M. (2018). Preschool bilingual education: Agency in interactions between children, teachers, and parents. In Preschool Bilingual Education (pp. 1-24). Springer.
