Family Language Policy and Processes of Marginalization

Family Language Policy (FLP) has become an influential research area within different disciplines such as sociolinguistics (King et al., 2008; Obojska & Purkarthofer, 2018), language policy research (Chen & Ni, 2024; Chimbutane & Gonçalves, 2023; Curdt-Christiansen, 2018), childhood studies (Cox et al., 2021; Smith-Christmas, 2022), education (Thoma, 2025), and psychology (Fatima & Nadeem, 2025; Pagé & Noels, 2024).

While pioneering FLP research was concerned with language ideologies and language acquisition processes typically within traditional nuclear families, more recent studies have expanded their focus to include how language ideologies, practices, and management unfold within both traditional and non-traditional family configurations (Xeketwana et al., 2025), including extended families (Molate & McKinney, 2024; Soler & Roberts, 2019), foster or adoptive families (Purkarthofer et al., 2022), and geographically dispersed families (Bose et al., 2023). Beyond the individual level, research has further traced FLP processes across families (Kusters et al., 2021) and explored interconnections with educational institutions (Ballweg, 2022; Maseko & Mutasa, 2018; Spyrou Ntetsika et al., 2023) and with the state (Lomeu Gomes et al., 2024). Recent publications shed light on children’s agency and perspectives in FLP (Maseko, 2022; Panagiotopoulou et al., 2023; Smith-Christmas, 2022) and on digital practices in family communication (Almegren, 2025; Curdt-Christiansen & Iwaniec, 2023). There is growing recognition that FLP is deeply implicated in broader processes of marginalization and social inequality—particularly in contexts of globalization, (post)colonial language policies, minoritized language communities, and socioeconomic exclusion (Mirvahedi, 2023; Schnitzer, 2023). Despite this recognition, the intersections between FLP and structural forms of marginalization (e.g., assimilation pressures, unequal access to resources, racialization, and socioeconomic stratification) remain under-theorized and empirically underexplored.

Building on foundational work that conceptualizes FLP as a nexus of language beliefs, practices, and management within the family domain (Spolsky, 2012), this thematic issue seeks to foreground the ways in which structural conditions shape—and are shaped by—the experiences of multilingual families. We invite contributions that examine FLP in relation to marginalization, language and educational policies, racialization, socioeconomic disadvantage, disability, heteronormativity, and other axes of differentiation (Gal & Irvine, 2019), as well as studies that document resilience, resistance, agency, and inclusion strategies enacted by families and other social actors in diverse settings.

This thematic issue is international in scope, seeking comparative and contextually grounded research that illuminates how FLP intersects with macro-level processes of access, participation, and social justice. We welcome both empirical and conceptual contributions from a variety of epistemological and methodological approaches, including (but not limited to) critical theoretical work, decolonial scholarship, and arts-based methods. By embracing diverse linguistic and cultural contexts, the issue aims to chart new directions in FLP research that advance understanding of processes marginalization in multilingual postcolonial and post-migrant societies.

References

Almegren, R. (2025). Educational language choice and the role of technology: Parental attitudes, decision factors and multilingual learning practices in the digital age. Saudi Journal of Language Studies. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1108/SJLS-05-2025-0037

Ballweg, S. (2022). Anticipating expectations. Family language policy and its orientation to the school system. International Journal of Multilingualism, 1S(2), 251–268. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2022.2033756

Chen, Y., & Ni, L. (2024). Family language policy in Chinese d/Deaf-parented families with hearing children: The interplay of multi-dimensional factors. Language Policy, 23(1), 75–103. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-023-09680-5

Chimbutane, F., & Gonçalves, P. (2023). Family language policy and language shift in postcolonial Mozambique: A critical, multi-layered approach. Language Policy, 22(3), 267–287. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-023-09658-3

Cox, R. B., deSouza, D. K., Bao, J., Lin, H., Sahbaz, S., Greder, K. A., Larzelere, R. E., Washburn, I. J., Leon-Cartagena, M., & Arredondo-Lopez, A. (2021). Shared language erosion: Rethinking immigrant family communication and impacts on youth development. Children, 8(4), Article 256. https://doi.org/10.3390/children8040256

Curdt-Christiansen, X. L. (2018). Family language policy. In J. W. Tollefson & M. Pérez-Milans (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of language policy and planning (pp. 420–441). Oxford University Press.

Curdt-Christiansen, X. L., & Iwaniec, J. (2023). ‘妈妈, I miss you ‘: Emotional multilingual practices in transnational families. International Journal of Bilingualism, 27(2), 159–180. https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069221125342

Fatima, S., & Nadeem, M. U. (2025). Family language policy and heritage language transmission in Pakistan: The intersection of family dynamics, ethnic identity and cultural practices on language proficiency and maintenance. Frontiers in Psychology, 1C, Article 1560755. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1560755

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Kusters, A., De Meulder, M., & Napier, J. (2021). Family language policy on holiday: Four multilingual signing and speaking families travelling together. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 42(8), 698–715. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2021.1890752

Lomeu Gomes, R., Lanza, E., & Athari, Z. (2024). (Nanny) State as family by proxy. Journal of Multilingual Theories and Practices, 4(2), 265–287. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmtp.26482

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Maseko, B., & Mutasa, D. (2018). The influence of Kalanga parents’ language ideologies on children’s language practices. Language Matters, 4S(3), 47–66. https://doi.org/10.1080/10228195.2018.1496132

Mirvahedi, S. H. (2023). Family, a racialized space: A phenomenological approach to examining Afghan refugee families’ language policies in Norway. Language Policy, 22(4), 413–432. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-023-09671-6

Molate, B., & McKinney, C. (2024). Resisting the coloniality of language through languaging and making of a multilingual ikhaya in South Africa. Journal of Multilingual Theories and Practices, 4(2), 201–222. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmtp.26058

Obojska, M. A., & Purkarthofer, J. (2018). ‘And all of a sudden, it became my rescue’: Language and agency in transnational families in Norway. International Journal of Multilingualism, 15(3), 249–261. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2018.1477103

Pagé, L. L., & Noels, K. A. (2024). Family language policy retention across generations: Childhood language policies, multilingualism experiences, and future language policies in multilingual emerging Canadian adults. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, Article 1394027. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1394027

Panagiotopoulou, J., Uçan, Y., & Samani, D. (2023). Familiensprachpolitik zwischen Spracherwerb und Spracherhalt: Ergebnisse zu den Perspektiven von Kindern aus dem Lehrforschungsprojekt „Family Language Policy in Deutschland (FaMiLanG). Zeitschrift für Interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht, 28(2), 111–133. https://doi.org/10.48694/zif.3654

Purkarthofer, J., Lanza, E., & Berg, M. F. (2022). Discourses between the public and the private: Transnational families at the crossroads. Applied Linguistics, 43(3), 563–586. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amab053

Schnitzer, A. (2023). Negotiations of language(s) and inequalities in transnational family biographies. European Educational Research Journal, 22(4), 496–516. https://doi.org/10.1177/14749041221147970

Smith-Christmas, C. (2022). Using a ‘Family Language Policy’ lens to explore the dynamic and relational nature of child agency. Children & Society, 3C(3), 354–368. https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12461

Soler, J., & Roberts, T. (2019). Parents’ and grandparents’ views on home language regimes: Language ideologies and trajectories of two multilingual families in Sweden. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 1C(4), 249–270. https://doi.org/10.1080/15427587.2018.1564878

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Spyrou Ntetsika, I., Knappik, M., & Thoma, N. (2023). Living transnational lives: Languages, education and senses of belonging across three generations of a Greek-German bilingual family. Linguistics and Education, 78, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.linged.2022.101143

Thoma, N. (2025). ‘Good parenting’ and linguistic responsibility: Challenging linguistic hierarchisations in German-language ECEC in South Tyrol, Italy. Ethnography and Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/17457823.2025.2513909

Xeketwana, S., Xeketwana, N., & Anthonissen, C. (2025). Family language policy: Choices in isiXhosa families and implications for multilingual education. Reading & Writing, 1C(1), Article a531. https://doi.org/10.4102/rw.v16i1.531

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