Children, childhoods and bilingualism: Exploring experiences, perspectives and policies

Abstract

This special issue brings together scholars from a range of disciplines and contexts concerned with children,1 childhood and bilingualism; that is the ability to communicate in two or more languages with any degree of proficiency, from minimal to advanced (Grosjean, 2010). Language is fundamental to human culture and personhood and a key part of identity at an individual, family and community level. However, language may also be used at a national level as a tool for building nationhood and empire in ways that create power hierarchies. State-sponsored language polices have often marginalised minority languages, whether these are long-established and termed indigenous to the area2 or associated with more recent migration. Equally, bilingualism may be undermined in settings built on monolingualism. As seen in this special issue, national education policies in some countries now offer more support to minoritised indigenous languages but have been slower to recognise the linguistic resource offered by more recent migrant or ethnic language communities, whose languages are still too often treated as an impediment to educational achievement and social integration (Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004). Research points to important advantages of bilingualism in child development and education. Cognitive science research shows the benefits of early bilingualism on language and cognition, including children's better understanding of language structure, an earlier appreciation of others’ perspectives and enhanced attentional control and mental adaptability (Bialystok et al., 2009; Costa & Sebastian-Galles, 2014; Kroll & Bialystok, 2013). Language-awareness approaches in education highlight the value of linguistic diversity in developing metalinguistic skills and in preparing children for a globalised, multilingual and multicultural world (Hawkins, 1984; Hélot et al., 2018). Therefore, bilingualism, can be both individually and collectively advantageous. However, research to date has insufficiently attended to the experiences and perspectives of children themselves, which limits, in turn, the understanding of bilingualism (Peace-Hughes et al., 2021; Wilson, 2020). The perspective of childhood studies that highlights children's participation in the construction of their day-to-day lives and the world around them (James & Prout, 1997; Spyrou, 2018), offers one route to insightful and nuanced understandings. In this special issue, authors use different lenses and framings to examine the ways in which languages and childhoods articulate and are implicated in children's senses of self, ways of seeing and feeling, imagined solidarity, local-national-and-transnational belonging, agency and aspirations. The collection contributes to theorising intersectional power dynamics between children, young people and adults. The theme is foregrounded in the discussion of children as language brokers and translators for parents/carers (Crafter & Iqbal, 2021; Phoenix & Faulstich Orellana, 2021; Romero-Moreno & Vargas-Urpí, 2021) but also arises in education debates around minority community languages (Cohen & Rønning, 2021; Horgan et al., 2021; Peace-Hughes, 2021). Understandings of childhood and child agency are developed for bilingualism research by Smith-Christmas (2021) on Family Language Policy and in the articles on Child Language Brokering (CLB). These articles explore how children's agency can be understood and expressed relationally, in differing contexts across time and domains. The issue offers a sense of the diversity of children's experiences, which not only differ by regional and country contexts, but also often within the same local or national context, and range from situations of disadvantaged marginalisation to being well placed to reap the potential benefits of bilingualism. Further, a number of articles consider the shaping of language by sociocultural context and psychosocial processes (Crafter & Iqbal, 2021; Phoenix & Faulstich Orellana, 2021; Romero-Moreno & Vargas-Urpí, 2021). Articles are drawn mainly from the Global North; Kyereko and Faas (2021) in describing their Ghanaian research suggest some similar issues in the Global South but highlight the complex nature of linguistic barriers in the post-colonial world. Additionally, many of the authors share an interest in policy implications, entering into educational debates on how to support indigenous languages, the potential of place-based and language-awareness approaches (Cohen & Rønning, 2021), translanguaging (Peace-Hughes, 2021), and on the impact of ineffective language policy on educational outcomes (Horgan et al., 2021; Kyereko & Faas, 2021). The first set of articles come together to highlight the implications of educational and social policy on the curriculum. The first of these, drawing on a comparative study of place-based learning in Scotland, Norway and the USA, examines educational and cultural approaches to supporting indigenous and minority community languages, and the help given to children in exploring local linguistic and cultural diversity. Cohen and Rønning argue that place-based approaches, reinforced by a wider cultural and environmental curriculum, can offer a powerful means of embedding language learning in local experiences. However, they find that language and education policies are fragmented and fail to maximise migrant and minority languages as a tool for developing linguistic and intercultural skills. Kyereko and Faas examine South–South migration and the experiences of West African migrant children in Ghanaian schools. Their article sheds light on the availability and accessibility of education for Francophone migrant children and the role played by language as an identity marker. A theme continued from Cohen and Rønning's article is the ineffectiveness, and lack, of language policy, with Kyereko and Faas highlighting how language policy has the power to impact negatively on the educational outcomes of marginalised groups of children. Language policies are further considered in the article by Peace-Hughes where the policy approach to revitalise an indigenous language, Scottish Gaelic, unduly relies on Gaelic Medium Education (GME). Her findings highlight the value of GME in developing language skills but the need for a more considered and life course policy approach to sustain Gaelic language use in adulthood. In particular, Peace-Hughes suggests a less insular and less compartmentalised policy approach––which considers the potential benefits of more fluid and flexible uses of Gaelic inside and outside of the classroom––may better aid revitalisation efforts. Finally, Horgan and colleagues report on the views of migrant and refugee children in Ireland, together with parents and educators, on factors which aid socio-educational integration. Their study forms part of a wider six-country EU project from which some common themes emerged. Children in all six countries recommended better language support in the host language. However, children also valued using their own language, leading the authors to point to the need to develop a more culturally sensitive and flexible curriculum––one which is also more supportive of a diverse language culture within schools. Smith-Christmas explores how childhood studies’ understandings of children's agency can be conceptualised and understood in family's language use at home. In doing so, Smith-Christmas illustrates the multidimensional nature of children's agency in bilingual contexts. Children's use of a minority language is relational––one which is both shaped by the context in which the child is situated and the individuals with which they interact (e.g. parents/ carers and siblings). This theme is considered in the final three papers which explore childhood language brokering (CLB). In their article on, ‘adult narratives of childhood language brokering’, Phoenix and Faulstich Orellana highlight the relational, intersectional and agentic negotiations involved in bilingual exchanges and language brokerage. Through their focus on the experiences of a childhood language broker, they illuminate the psychosocial processes (both individual and structural) that child language brokers are required to negotiate. They join these insights with a consideration of the child's agentic processes, which resulted in the creation of translanguaging spaces where the child was not simply interpreting––but also negotiating and understanding. This results in multi-layered and intersecting understandings of bilingualism and the article serves as a valuable reminder of CLB’s complexity. Next, Crafter and Iqbal, drawing on perspectives from active child language brokers, explore family care practices and parent-child relationships as a result of CLB’s dynamics. Their article offers a nuanced understanding of family care, with child language brokers seen as recipients of care but also as caregivers. Particularly, Crafter and Iqbal convincingly dismiss the notion of the ‘parentified child’ and instead view CLB as a context specific and adaptive process within nuanced family dynamics––and ask in their conclusion for further research to explore CLB as a care practice. The final article by Romero-Moreno and Vargas-Urpí examines CLB in Barcelona as a ‘gift’, using and extending a core anthropological concept in the study of reciprocity and exchange. They conceptualise child language brokers’ competences as a relational and boundary-crossing gift, extending across public as well as private spheres. As with Crafter and Iqbal, Romero-Moreno and Vargas-Urpí highlight the gendered and symbolic division of labour and cultural roles in CLB. Their analysis of the gift given by CLBs leads them to recommend public policies such as translation services as a form of reciprocation from the state to child language brokers and their families. The articles in this special issue bring together a variety of perspectives and disciplines to offer new insights, and provide greater recognition, of the multiple factors interacting in bilingual development. Collectively, they illuminate the issues around children's experiences growing up in bilingual households and the ensuing implications for policy. Further, they demonstrate the need for continued research that respectfully includes children's understandings and experiences of bilingualism and language use in their families, schools and communities.