Arabic-speaking Immigrant Parents´ Views on Heritage Language Maintenance and identity Construction for Children in Sweden

Linköping University | Master’s thesis, 15 credits| Master’s Programme in Child Studies, Year 2 2020

Arabic-speaking Immigrant

Parents´ Views on Heritage

Language Maintenance and

Identity Construction for

Children in Sweden

Israa Maher Attaallah

Linköping University SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden +46 013 28 10 00, www.liu.se

Abstract

This study investigates how Levantine Arabic-speaking immigrant parents´ language ideologies, i.e how they think and feel regarding heritage language maintenance, and language policies influence heritage language maintenance or loss for their children. This overarching topic is explored by examining the following questions; (1) What do parents think about maintenance of heritage language for their children? and which concerns do they have? (2) How do they talk about and describe their children´s readiness or resistance to learn/maintain their heritage language? (3) What do parents believe their role is in maintaining heritage language? (4) In which way, according to parents, does maintenance of heritage language influence children´s construction of identity and sense of belonging? In order to answer these questions, I conducted five semi-structured interviews with five Levantine Arabic-speaking immigrant parents, from Palestine and Syria, residing in Sweden and analysed recurring themes using Braun´s and Clarke´s (2006: 87- 93) thematic analysis method.

The study findings show that parents attached great significance to preserving their children´s heritage language due to its close relationship with their cultural, religious, ethnic, and social backgrounds as well as strengthening their success opportunities in future. Furthermore, parents stated that their children did not resist maintenance of heritage language. Instead, results show that children were actively involved in discussions about heritage language maintenance and language practices. Parents confirmed that Arabic language is their children´s heritage language. In relation to influence of heritage language maintenance on constructing children´s identity and sense of belonging, parents´ views varied between emphasizing its role in strengthening children´s sense of belonging to their Arabic background, allowing them a flexible ability to belong to two different cultures or communities, and that maintenance of heritage language is not the major influencer on constructing children´s identity. Participants discussed the methods they use to enhance Arabic language among their children, challenges they encounter, and potential solutions.

Keywords: language ideology, language policy, heritage language maintenance, Levantine Arabic-speaking immigrants, identity.

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my great appreciation to my supervisor Olga Anatoli Smith for her valuable and constructive comments and insightful feedback.

My many thanks for the participant parents for sharing their perspectives and experiences.

This thesis is dedicated to my parents, Maher and Itaf. I am proud to have you as my first teachers and model in life. Even though a thousand miles are between us, I would not have

accomplished this work without your constant prayers.

My deepest gratitude to my family, my husband Nael and my children. Thank you for your tremendous support and patience.

Walid, Sara, Lauren, and Ryan: I hope to inspire you and I am looking forward to celebrating your achievements in life.

Table of Contents Abstract

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction --- 1

1.1 Levantine Arabic-speaking immigrants --- 1

1.2 Immigrants and language law in Sweden --- 2

2. Research topic and research questions --- 3

3. Theoretical framework and previous literature --- 5

3.1 Theoretical framework --- 5

3.1.1 language ideology --- 5

3.1.2 Heritage language and heritage language speakers --- 6

3.1.3 Family language policy --- 7

3.2 Previous literature --- 8

4. Ontological and epistemological framework --- 11

5. Methodology --- 11 5.1 Data collection --- 12 5.1.1 Recruitment --- 12 5.1.2 Participants --- 13 5.1.3 Conducting interviews --- 13 5.2 Ethical considerations --- 14

5.3 Data analysis method --- 15

6. Analysis --- 17

6.1 Parents´ perception of the significance of heritage language maintenance and raising bilingual children --- 17

6.2 Maintenance of heritage language: A priority, yet a challenge--- 20

6.3 Parent-child negotiation of heritage language maintenance --- 24

6.4 Parents´ perception of the influence of heritage language maintenance on constructing children´s identity and belonging --- 26

7.1 Motivations behind heritage language maintenance --- 31

7.2 Factors affecting parents´ efforts to maintain heritage language --- 31

7.3 Parents´ language management --- 33

7.4 “Being an Arabic person means knowing Arabic language”: Heritage language and identity --- 34

7.5 Limitations and future studies --- 36

8. List of references --- 37

9. Appendixes --- 41

9.1 Appendix 1: Interview Guide/ English version --- 41

9.2 Appendix 2: Interview Guide/ Arabic version --- 42

9.3 Appendix 3: Consent to participation in research/ English version --- 43

9.4 Appendix 4: Consent to participation in research/ Arabic version --- 44

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1. Introduction

Immigrant parents encounter more challenges and difficulties than mainstream parents in the same context (Lewig et al., 2010: 324, Ochocka and Janzen, 2008: 87; Osman et al., 2006: 2). In the current study, the main addressed challenge for immigrant parents is maintenance of heritage language for their children. Polinsky states that “the phenomenon of heritage language is as old as migration itself” (Polinsky, 2015: 24). In this study, analysis of discourses of heritage language will be based on Polinsky´s definition of heritage language as the “variety of the language that the heritage speaker was exposed to during childhood, as spoken by native speakers in natural situations” (Polinsky, 2015: 9). More specifically, this study focuses on views and experiences of Levantine Arabic-speaking immigrant parents in Sweden regarding maintaining their children´s heritage language. In the current study I investigate which language do these parents relate to as their children´s heritage language, how they feel and think about preserving their children´s heritage language, what motivates them to do so, which methods and procedures they implement to preserve it, how they think their children interact with this topic, and how they describe the influence of maintaining heritage language on constructing children´s identity and sense of belonging.

The expanded number of Levantine Arabic-speaking immigrants in Sweden and the lack of literature studying their language ideologies, family´s language policies and practices, their experiences of raising bilingual children and how they view influence of heritage language maintenance on constructing children´s identities are the centre of this research study. Moreover, the study discusses the challenges parents encounter while maintaining heritage language for their children. Based on parents´ views, the study results show that parents attach great significance to maintaining heritage language for their children, and that children are actively involved in discussions about heritage language maintenance and language practices.

1.1 Levantine Arabic-speaking immigrants

The rate of immigration from Arab countries to Europe in general and Sweden in

particular has increased since the end of the 20th _{century and onward. In this study, I will use}

terms (immigrating instead of migrating), and (immigrants instead of migrants) to describe the movement and status of participants who crossed international borders and became permanent residents in Sweden. According to the International Organisation for Migration; more than half

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of displaced people in 2015 were from Yemen, Syria and Iraq with an estimated number of 8.8 million (IOM, 2018: 37). One of the main reasons behind the increased immigration rate among Arabic-speaking families is the continuous political turmoil and wars in the Middle East and North of Africa region (MENA), which led to violating human rights and internal and external displacement. Among these immigrants, thousands of Levantine Arabic-speaking people immigrated to Sweden due to its reputation on its humanitarian solidarity and migration policies (Stern, 2014 in Josefsson, 2016: 316).

Levantine Arabic is spoken in Palestine, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. In this research study, I focus on narratives and experiences of Levantine Arabic-speaking parents from Palestine and Syria, as an increased population living in Sweden. Based on latest statistics from Statistics Sweden on foreign-born population by country of birth, sex and year of immigration (Statistics Sweden, 2019a), the estimated total number of Levantine Arabic-speaking immigrants is 233385 immigrants over the period between 1969 to 2019. Among them, a total of 199719 immigrants have immigrated from Palestine and Syria to Sweden. Statistics show a large increase in recent years. During the period (2000-2009), 2009 persons immigrated from Palestine, and 6068 persons immigrated from Syria, meanwhile during the period (2010-2019), 5540 persons immigrated from Palestine, and 173169 persons from Syria (Statistics Sweden, 2019a). Official statistics show different levels of education among these immigrants from Palestine and Syria (Statistics Sweden, 2019b). Arabic is the official language in more than 20 countries in Mena, including Palestine and Syria (Zaidan and Callison-Burch, 2013: 172). Arabic is also the primary language of instruction at public schools in Palestine and Syria. Some foreign languages are taught in different educational institutions like mainly English and Hebrew in Palestine, in addition to “various European languages such as French, Spanish, German, and Italian” (Amara, 2003: 228) and English, French or Russian in Syria (Al Hessan et al., 2016: 8).

1.2 Immigrants and language law in Sweden

The context of the current study is Sweden. Shifting from living in a society where one´s heritage language was the dominant language to a new society with another dominant language might lead heritage language speakers´ bilingualism to be imbalanced (Polinsky,

2015: 8). Ministry of Culture in Sweden has issued in 28th _{of May 2009 The Language Act}

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than Swedish or other minority languages have the right to “be given the opportunity to develop and use their mother tongue” (Language Act, 2009). Therefore, “modersmålundervisning” which is mother tongue education in Swedish schools is offered to immigrant pupils and given high attention because of its positive effect on “child’s language, identity, personality and cognitive development” (Skolverket, 2020a). Participants in the current study confirmed that Arabic is their and their children´s mother tongue, except one family whose children have two mother tongues; Arabic and English. According to Skolverket´s statistics for the Academic year 2019/20; 172 languages are taught in Swedish schools as mother tongues/native languages, whereas Arabic language is the largest language by number of students receiving mother tongue education (Skolverket, 2020b). Mother tongue education is arranged by schools with cooperation with municipalities. At the same time, immigrant children are introduced to education in the subject Swedish as a second language to develop their speech and writing skills in Swedish. Immigrant parents have also the opportunity to join Swedish language education for immigrants, svenska för invandrare, as part of their establishment programme, etableringsprogrammet. Establishment programme is approved by the Swedish government to facilitate immigrants´ involvement and integration into Swedish society and labour market through three main actions: (1) civic orientation (samhällsorientering), (2) Swedish for immigrants (svenska för invandrare, SFI), (3) internship or work activities (praktik) (Commission Report, SOU 2010:16). The target group for the establishment programme are immigrants who received permanent residence in Sweden and whose age is between 20-65.

2. Research topic and questions

Language choices and usage are part of people´s everyday experiences which become more negotiated in immigration contexts, especially when an immigrant moves to live in a new society with a different dominant language than his/her first language/mother tongue. Exploring immigrant parents´ language ideologies facilitates understanding their language policies and practices. Nonetheless, Parents´ language ideologies or beliefs, i.e how they think and feel regarding a language, and language management, i.e their choices regarding language usage at home, affect their children´s bilingualism and language shift (Spolsky, 2007: 4). Parents´ language policies and practices identify how they manage language usage between family members. Thus, in immigration contexts, expanded efforts are put by parents on arranging

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language choices and usage, more specifically on maintaining heritage language, to ensure mutual understanding between all family members, to meet their needs, to support their children´s identity formation and increase their future success opportunities, and for its connection to their cultural, religious, ethnic, and social backgrounds.

Children acquire a specific language naturally by hearing it spoken by their native-speaker family members in their surrounding. This also implicates a connection between heritage language and one´s familial culture, which Polinsky refers to; “heritage speakers generally feel a cultural or familial connection to their heritage language” (Polinsky, 2015: 7). Keresztes also features that; “being brought up with two languages often also raises the issue of culture and identity” (Keresztes, 2007: 4). Brown defines identity as “the way that a person classifies him or herself, a mental representation or thought” (Brown, 2004: 13) and argues that identity is “socially constructed— formed and negotiated through everyday experiences and social interactions” (Ibid). Thus, constructing identity in bilingual immigrant families is often influenced by parents´ interests to preserve their heritage language as an element of their culture. Moreover, parents´ attitudes toward learning the societal dominant language and to be socially interacting with others in the host society might influence children´s perception of identity and belonging.

In the current study, I chose to gain parents’ perspectives because of the significance of

familial environment for language socialization and identity formation for children. Based on

parents´ views, the current study focuses on investigating factors affecting heritage language maintenance, examining the relationship between parents´ language ideologies and language policies on children´s maintenance or loss of heritage language, and then the influence of heritage language maintenance for children on constructing their identities and sense of belonging. In order to explore this overarching and broad topic, this study answers the following questions:

 What do Levantine Arabic-speaking immigrant parents think about maintenance of heritage language for their children? and which concerns do they have?

 How do they talk about and describe their children´s readiness or resistance to learn/maintain their heritage language?

 What do parents believe their role is in maintaining heritage language for their children?  In which way, according to parents, does maintenance of heritage language influence

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3. Theoretical framework and previous literature

3.1 Theoretical framework

Based on Polinsky´s definition to the heritage language, I agree that family unite is most likely “the child’s first and main site for encounters with the heritage language” (Kheirkhah, 2016: 5). A child´s level of knowledge in his/her heritage language is to a big extent influenced by his/her parents´ attitudes towards that language and other languages in their context, as well on the child´s exposure to heritage language performed mostly by his/her native speaker family members. In addition, a child whose parents have two different mother tongues might grow up having two mother tongues if both parents expose the child to both languages. Therefore, acknowledging concepts of language ideologies, heritage language and heritage language speakers and language policies is significant in understanding factors affecting maintenance or loss of a language, parents´ motivations behind maintenance of heritage language, the challenges they encounter, parents-children interaction in this concern, as well as understanding the influence of heritage language maintenance on children´s construction of identity and sense of belonging.

3.1.1 Language ideology

Various interdisciplinary studies have productively contributed to the development of the term language ideology by giving more attention to studying “‘thoughts about language’ by their speakers” (Kroskrity, 2004: 496). Kroskrity defines language ideologies as “beliefs, or feelings, about languages as used in their social worlds” (Ibid., 498). He considers language ideology as “an analytical device which captures diversity rather than emphasizing a static, uniformly shared culture [... and] provide[s] an alternative for exploring variation in ideas, ideals, and communicative practices” (Ibid.,: 496). Moreover, he emphasizes the need to consider speakers´ consciousness and agencies reflected in the way they form their beliefs and feelings concerning a language and the way they use and practice that language in specific social and cultural contexts (Ibid., 496-497).

Besides, Kroskrity identified five significant levels in the process of identifying and exemplifying language ideologies. The first level centres on individuals or group perception of language and discourse shaped and determined by their social or cultural interests (Ibid., 501). In the second level, language ideologies are perceived as multiple due to the “plurality of

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meaningful social divisions (class, gender, clan, elites, generations, and so on) within sociocultural groups” (Ibid., 503). In the third level, Kroskrity explains that individuals´ awareness of language ideologies may vary from discursive to practical consciousness (Ibid., 505). In the fourth level, individuals´ consciousness about their language ideologies is clear in their selection of “forms of talk” (Ibid., 507). The fifth level focuses on the influence of language ideologies on forming social and cultural identities (Ibid., 509). In the current study, understanding these levels while exploring Levantine Arabic-speaking immigrant parents´ language ideologies contribute to deepening our perception of reasons behind parents´ interest to maintain heritage language, what they believe their role is, and how they plan and manage language practices in order to raise bilingual children while maintaining their heritage language. Kheirkhah mentions that studies on family language policies emphasize the significance of understanding language ideologies due to their influence on parental language planning and management (Kheirkhah, 2016: 14).

3.1.2 Heritage language and heritage language speakers

Debates abound over the term heritage language in the post-immigration period, especially when it comes to discussing the rapid acquisition of the societal dominant language among immigrant children. Polinsky defines heritage language as the language individuals were exposed to in their childhood, spoken by family and native speaker relatives, yet their knowledge in it varies from “proficiency in speaking to variation in literacy to dialectal differences” (Polinsky, 2015: 9). That is to say that heritage language speakers differ in their heritage language proficiency as some might only speak the language, referred to as “receptive bilinguals”, while others might be able to read and write in their that language (Ibid., 8). According to Polinsky, heritage language speakers are individuals who have a sort of knowledge/proficiency in their heritage language and who may also become bilingual by learning the dominant language in their new contexts (Ibid).

Acquisition of heritage language can be before or in-line with acquisition of the dominant language (Ibid). Various factors influence the ability of an immigrant child to learn his/her heritage language, such as the length of exposure period to the language and the family manners or “attitudes toward the heritage language and culture” (Ibid., 11). Therefore, it is significant to explore experiences and views of immediate family members, parents in my study, concerning their children´s encounter with their heritage language. Different studies indicate that first generation immigrants show greater interests in maintaining heritage

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language than second generation, while immigrant children tend to shift to the societal language (De Fina, 2012; Fishman, 1970; Straszer, 2011 in Kheirkhah, 2016: 10; Muslim and Brown, 2016: 145) since “the dominant language of the broader speech community eventually becomes the dominant language of the heritage speaker” (Polinsky and Scontras, 2019: 2).

3.1.3 Family language policy

Although “family language policy and practice has been an under-explored area of sociolinguistic research” (Li Wei, 2012: 1), it can be argued that family language policy and practices contribute to the maintenance of a language or its loss across generations. In particular, parents´ involvement in and commitment to their language planning and management policy encourages children´s bilingualism, and the lack or failure to adhere to their language planning might result in language shift (Spolsky, 2007: 4). It is significant in the course of studying maintenance of heritage language to notice that language ideologies and language management affect perception and formation of family language policy and practices. King, Fogle & Logan-Terry (2008) suggest a comprehensive definition of language policy as the clear and precise language usage planning applied at home and among family members (in Fogle and King, 2013: 1).

Spolsky (2004) specifies three central elements forming a family language policy: language ideologies (or beliefs), language practices, and language management. The first element which is language ideology “includes beliefs and attitudes towards cultural practices and identity” (Pillai et al., 2014: 76). It is important here to understand that meaning-making regarding language ideology varies among different people (Ibid., 76). On one hand, some people might preserve a language because of its cultural connection or as an advantage for better academic and professional future. On the other hand, other people might deny any benefits of preserving a specific language in a specific context like for example for being no longer needed. Second, the term language practices refers to “the observable behaviors and choices – what people actually do” (Spolsky, 2007: 3) and “the extent to which a language is used with family members” (Pillai et al., 2014: 76). Spolsky argues that language practices are not limited to words, sounds and grammar, but also refers to the appropriate usage of a language (Spolsky, 2004: 9). The third and last element is language management which includes “the choices made in relation to language use at home” (Pillai et al., 2014: 76). In migration contexts,

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Spolsky considers parents´ efforts to maintain heritage language for their children an example of language management (Spolsky, 2007: 4).

Family unit is a critical site for children to learn and practice languages. Besides; it is considered as a significant site for planning and managing language policies and practices (Spolsky, 2018: 8), where children are agents (Luykx, 2003: 41) who can play an active role in this negotiation (Li Wei, 2012: 1; Kheirkhah, 2016: 9). Despite that “parents’ expectation is, however, not always in line with what their children believe important” (Muslim and Brown, 2016: 145), Fogle & King argue that parents-child interactions can be the base for the best formulation of family language policies, where two interrelated processes are involved: “top-down (e.g., explicit parent-directed decisions about which language or which routine) and bottom-up (e.g., child resistance and negotiation of those decisions) phenomena” (Fogle & King, 2013: 20-21). In this regard, Luykx suggests that children´s language socialization is better viewed as a “dynamic network of mutual family influences” rather than a “one-way process” in which children affect family language choices (Luykx, 2003: 41).

To sum up this section, considering Spolsky´s view where he suggests that the survival of a language can be a result of family language policy, i.e choices regarding the usage of a language, maintenance of heritage language can likely be an outcome of parents´ language ideologies and family´s language policy and practice. The current study examines how participant parents´ language ideologies affect children´s bilingualism. Further, it explores how parents describe their children´s involvement and negotiation in term of their readiness or resistance to learn/maintain their heritage language, and parents´ methods of motivating maintenance of heritage language for their children.

3.2 Previous literature

Raising bilingual children and maintenance of heritage language among second-generation immigrants in different immigration contexts continue to get high attention from scholars. Exploring relevant narratives and experiences of Levantine Arabic-speaking immigrant parents in Sweden has not been studied in depth yet which leaves a knowledge gap concerning this increasing immigrant population in Sweden, specifically families from Palestine and Syria. The current study aims at filling this gap by contributing to the available knowledge. In this section, I will present relevant studies to my research topic in terms of context, population, or method,

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and where notions of bilingualism, family language policy, heritage language maintenance and identity are situated.

In a relevant study in term of context; Kheirkhah (2016) studied language socialization process and language policies among Iranian immigrant parents in Sweden. She explored the influence of family language practices in “developing children´s bilingualism and heritage language maintenance and shift” (Kheirkhah, 2016: 7). By analyzing interviews, observations, and video-recordings of families´ spontaneous daily language usage and recurrent interactions during one year, the results identified family language policies as a collaborative achievement in which parents and children negotiate over the language choice and use among family members: parents, the focus child and siblings (Ibid., 47). The study also illustrated how parents used the move-on practice with their children, after children resisted to use their heritage language with their parents. In this practice, children were allowed to use Swedish language in their communication with their parents and siblings even when parents used the heritage language (Ibid., 7).

In a relative study in term of both methods, interviews, and context, Sweden, Réka Keresztes (2007) interviewed five immigrant parents married to Swedish partners to investigate their reasoning behind raising bilingual children and how they think it affects children´s construction of identity. Keresztes found that all participants viewed raising bilingual children while preserving both parents´ mother tongues as a natural “matter of choices and balance” (Keresztes, 2007: 9). Although informants came from different foreign backgrounds, they all agreed on teaching their children mother tongues of both parents using the one – parent – one – language strategy (Ibid., 31). In contrast to my current study, Keresztes regarded Sweden as a monolingual environment which she described as “an obstacle to bilingualism” (Keresztes, 2007: Abstract). Meanwhile, I adopted Boyd´s view stating that “it cannot be said that Sweden is a monolingual country in any strict sense” (Boyd, 1985: 3). Examining the relationship between bilingualism and identity construction, Keresztes found that informants´ expectations of how raising their children to be bilingual affects constructing their identities varied from expecting them to have a changeable identity, flexible identity depending on the context, or a balanced identity (Keresztes, 2007: 32). Keresztes clarified that identity cannot be separated from language and culture, therefore; identity of bilingual children who are raised between two different cultures is questioned. With changeable identity, parents meant that children with a foreign parent and who have been raised in two cultures will recognize the difference in their look and identify themselves as being bilingual. Hence, children will change their identification

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of themselves as their identities will be formed according to the identity of the surrounding environment (Ibid., 18-19). With flexible identity parents did not want to force one identity on a child (Ibid., 21). As perceived by parents, a child with a certain extent of knowledge in both cultures and languages of both parents will be able to adapt his/her language and behaviours to the culture or social context he/she exists in, and subsequently, this child is flexible in identifying himself with an identity without he/she excludes the other. With balanced identity, parents wanted their children to gain “an equal insight into both cultures”; the foreign culture of the foreign parent and the societal culture (Ibid., 23). This discussion of identity types proposes how contexts individuals live in affect their recognition of their identities, which seems interesting and relative to the current study.

In another study on a similar population of immigrants but in a different context, Yousef and Taylor-Leech (2016) conducted focus groups and semi-structured interviews with bilingual Arabic-speaking new-Australian immigrant mothers in Australia to investigate similar topics of family language policy and challenges of heritage language maintenance, and to explore how mothers view the relation between heritage language maintenance and identity construction among their children. Another relevance to the current study is that Arabic language was the heritage language of participants´ children. Participant mothers highlighted the significance of maintaining Arabic language for their children as a reflection of their religious and cultural identity; and more particularly as “a means to successfully convey their beliefs and pride in their identity as Muslims” (Yousef and Taylor-Leech, 2016: 8). In addition, Arabic language was perceived by mothers as a “part of their family identity” (Ibid., 7) which encouraged their children to stay connected to family and friends in their origin countries and to the Arabic culture. Mothers revealed their concerns regarding the lack of community support towards maintaining Arabic language for their children (Ibid., 7). Although the study was conducted in a different context than the context of the current study, Arabic-speaking mothers in Australia encountered a similar challenge, as Arabic-speaking parents in Sweden, which is inefficiency of Arabic language lessons and mainly the lack of qualified teachers (Ibid., 10).

Finally, this review of previous literature looked into different studies related to my current research in terms of context, population, or methods. A similar approach of collecting data was used in these studies which is interviewing participants. Even when other methods were used, like observation and analysing videos; interviews were conducted to get a closer view to participants´ narratives, and this gave me an insight into the appropriate data collecting method, interviewing.

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4. Ontological and epistemological framework

The current study is situated within social science studies and encompasses other related interdisciplinary fields such as linguistics, migration, and communication. Weber explicitly defines sociology as a ‘science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action in order to arrive at a causal explanation of its course and effects’ (Weber, 1947: 88). In the current study, adopting a social constructivist ontological perspective, I aimed to reflect on how objects/phenomenon in a specific social world cannot be taken for granted, rather “social phenomena and their meanings are continually being accomplished by social actors” (Bryman, 2012: 33). I considered (maintenance of heritage language) and (identity) as objects or social phenomenon that are socially constructed through language and interaction and need to be studied in its specific social contexts. These objects are in constant change as different social actors´ meaning-making personally differs. Further, departing from an interpretivist epistemological perspective in the course of studying social world, it is essential to implement different research procedures that recognize “the subjective meaning of social action” (Bryman, 2012: 30) and “the distinctiveness of humans as against the natural order” (Bryman, 2012: 28). Adopting an interpretivist epistemological perspective; the current study´s main questions looked into how do parents view and feel about this part of their social world; i.e maintaining their children´s heritage language and its influence on constructing children´s identities, how do they attribute the factors affecting their points of view, how do they manage their roles as social actors in their social reality, and how do they coop with the challenges encountered.

5. Methodology

Levantine Arabic-speaking immigrant parents´ views and experiences of maintaining heritage language were the data I needed to answer my research questions. Such data can give an insight into how parents think and feel about heritage language maintenance for their children, and into their language choices and management at home. In addition, parents´ narratives can tell about parents -children negotiation on this topic. In order to explore their views, I conducted five semi-structured interviews with five Levantine Arabic-speaking immigrant parents from Palestine and Syria living in Sweden. Conducting interviews allowed me to collect relevant data as I aimed at investigating and prioritizing participants´ views and

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meaning-making behind maintenance of heritage language for their children, which language they orient to as a heritage language, how they perceive their role, and how they view their children´s readiness and resistance, and construction of identity and sense of belonging. I analysed recurring themes and patterns using Braun´s and Clarke´s (2006: 87- 93) thematic analysis method to answer the research questions.

5.1 Data collection

From my previous research on Arabic‐speaking immigrant parents´ challenges and concerns regarding parenting and raising their children while integrating in Sweden, I have found that conducting semi-structured interviews was an appropriate data collecting method which helped collecting relevant data on parent´s views. Based on an epistemological position of interpretivism, conducting semi-structured interviews allows me an access to parents´ views, and it further prioritizes participants´ views and allows them to decide what they prefer, or not, to share with researcher (Bryman, 2016: 466-467). Virtually, conducting semi-structured interviews for this research topic was feasible and more suitable than other methods like for example conducting structured interviews which limits participants´ detailed narrations needed for information production. Interviews were conducted over the telephone.

5.1.1 Recruitment

Participants in the current study were recruited from two Facebook groups for Arabic-speaking immigrants in Sweden, which I am a member of. Several people expressed their willingness to participate in research. After I expressed my appreciation and gratitude to all who volunteered, I have contacted those who have Levantine Arabic dialect through Facebook Messenger to keep records of their names and accounts for further interview arrangements. Although being a member in those two Facebook groups, I do not know any of the research participants personally. Being Levantine Arabic-speaking immigrant parents who have an experience of maintaining heritage language for their children were participants´ recruitment selection criteria, no other specific criteria were designed for recruitment. For instance, children´s ages and family residence period in Sweden did not appear to have significant roles at this stage of the study. Consent forms and interview questions were sent to participants in advance. We also exchanged phone numbers and participants were asked to choose time for the interview to assure their full engagement and minimize any destructions during interviews.

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5.1.2 Participants

Five Levantine Arabic-speaking parents, four mothers and one father, were recruited from five various households. All informants were born in Arabic-speaking countries and both parents, in each family, speak the same variety of Arabic, Levantine Arabic. The four participant mothers, out of five participants, confirmed that Arabic language is their and their children´s only mother tongue as it was the first language they learnt and use to communicate in their daily life since early childhood till the day of immigrating. They also emphasized that, after immigrating, Arabic is the only language used at home to communicate between family members and with their relatives back home. Meanwhile, the participant father said that although his mother tongue is Arabic, his children have two mother tongues, Arabic and English. He explained that his children were born and grew up in an Arabic-speaking country for Arabic native speaker parents who also are fluent in English. The father and his partner acquired fluency in English language during their university studies. The couple taught their children Arabic and English simultaneously and used both languages to communicate with them before and after immigrating. Participants originate from Palestine and Syria and their ages varied between 32 – 55. Four out of the five participants have completed university education in their home countries before immigrating to Sweden and were working in various fields. Some of them received additional education in Sweden and some were still studying.

All participants have attended SFI (svenska för invandrare) which is Swedish language education for immigrants as a part of their establishment programme (etableringsprogrammet) and therefore they have different levels in Swedish language. In addition, they have various levels in English language. Participants´ children attend Swedish public schools and have good to advanced level in Swedish and sufficient good command in English. Table (1) (Appendix 5) presents participants demographic information. Symbol (M) will be used throughout my analysis to represent a participant mother with a number attached to distinguish between mothers and their views. Symbol (F) will be used to represent the only participant father. 5.1.3 Conducting interviews

Overall, five interviews were conducted with five Levantine Arabic-speaking parents. The estimated time for each interview was 60 minutes and virtually interviews lasted between 40-80 minutes. All interviews were conducted and transcribed in the participants´ mother tongue, Arabic language. Only extracts quoted and analysed in the current study to elaborate participants´ views were translated into English. The interview guide (see Appendix 1 for English and Appendix 2 for Arabic ) used during the interviews was sent to participants in

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advance to provide them with an appropriate insight into the topic. I have used this approach in my previous research (Attaallah, 2019) based on participants´ wish to read the interview questions before giving their consent. However, I made sure to obtain an approval from the department before sending them the interview guide. Similar to my previous research participants´ reaction, respondents of the current study expressed their appreciation for being aware and well-informed of the interview questions in advance which helped them focus on the core of the topic and minimize getting into irrelevant discussions. After introducing myself and research topic, participants introduced themselves, how many children they have, their ages, their academic and professional background, how long have they been residing in Sweden and which languages they know and use. Interviews started with an open-ended question of what they think their and their children´s mother tongue is and on what grounds did they decide that. At the end, respondents stressed the need to improve mother tongue lessons at schools and shared their recommendations.

5.2 Ethical considerations

As mentioned earlier, Arabic language has different dialects/varieties in different Arabic countries. Zaidan and Callison-Burch clarify that the term Arabic language includes Modern Standard Arabic and regional dialects (Khrisat and Harthy, 2015: 171) and these dialects differ from each other (Ibid: 256). Although some dialects may share a part of vocabularies, individuals´ ability to understand other dialects depends on their “own dialect and their exposure to Arab culture and literature from outside of their own country” (Zaidan and Callison-Burch, 2013: 173). In order to ensure the most mutual understanding between me and participants during the interviews; I have chosen to focus on recruiting participants from the Levant Arabic-speaking countries, especially Palestine and Syria, because I speak Levantine Arabic. For the same reason, participants chose to use Arabic language during interviews.

It is maybe relevant here to mention that I, the researcher, am an immigrant mother in Sweden. I personally do care about maintenance of Arabic language for my children as their heritage language, however, I let them feel free to express their willingness or resistance to learn it and encourage them to negotiate their thoughts on what time and methods they prefer. Thinking of the possibility that differences in viewpoints might appear between researcher and informants, Liebling (2001) argued that it is not impossible in social researches to recognize the merits of both sides in one studied case and that different perspectives make sense without taking a biased position for one side. (Liebling, 2001: 482). Considering Liebling´s argument,

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I am aware that researcher should carefully consider limiting his/her personal experiences and perspectives from influencing interpretation and analysis of participants´ views.

An important point to reflect on is that as interviews took place on telephone, my ability to observe the way in which participants responded to the interview questions was limited. Bryman highlights the importance of observing what and how people answer questions in qualitative interviews (Bryman, 2016: 479) because reading participants´ body language helps the interviewer “to discern such things as discomfort, puzzlement, or confusion” (Ibid: 485). However, distance mode for the interviews was prioritized to ensure researcher´s and participants’ safety during the pandemic of COVID-19.

The consent form sent to participants was translated into their mother tongue (Arabic) to ensure their highest awareness of its content and the implications of their participation (see Appendix 3 for English and Appendix 4 for Arabic). Another reason for translating consent form into Arabic is that at that early part of recruiting process, where no detailed discussions were established yet; there was no clue of participants´ literacy in English or Swedish languages. Therefore, I translated it into the language in which we initiated our communicating on Facebook. Participants were informed about the research topic and which university supervises it in the consent form and verbally before the interviews. In addition, the consent letter which they signed included information about how their personal data and the interviews´ material will be saved and processed and how they can terminate their consent to participate if they wished to. As it is important to safeguard the anonymity of research participants and the confidentiality of information, participants´ real names were not used. Moreover, participants´ personal information, consent letters, and interview materials were saved in accordance with The European Data Protection Regulation and Swedish laws (Linköping University, 2019). 5.3 Data analysis method

In the current qualitative study, adopting a social constructivist ontological perspective and an interpretivist epistemological perspective, I aimed at finding out how parents think and feel about maintenance of heritage language for their children and how they view their role in this journey. I also discussed with them how they describe their children´s readiness or resistance to learn/maintain heritage language and how they, together, negotiate it. And lastly, I interpreted parents´ narratives and experiences of raising bilingual children to find out how they believe maintenance of heritage language influence, or not, their children´s construction of identity and sense of belonging.

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In order to answer my research questions, I applied Braun´s and Clarke´s six phases thematic analysis method (2006: 87) to the collected data to get a close overview at parents´ experiences and narratives. Thematic analysis method appears to be the most appropriate method for “identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within data” (Braun and Clarke, 2006: 79) in a flexible and interpretative way that stresses the significance of transparency “in order to ensure confidence in the findings” (Castleberry and Nolen, 2018: 808). Castleberry and Nolen stress the significance of studying “experiences of those who have directly experienced the phenomenon, recognizing the value of participants' unique viewpoints that can only be fully understood within the context of their experience and worldview” (Castleberry and Nolen, 2018: 807-808). The first phase of Braun´s and Clarke´s thematic analysis method (Braun and Clarke, 2006: 87- 93) was familiarizing myself with the collected date by repeatedly reading them “in an active way- searching for meanings [and] patterns” (Ibid., 87). The second phase included generating initial codes which consist of interesting ideas and features (Ibid: 88) and “the most basic segment, or element, of the raw data or information that can be assessed in a meaningful way regarding the phenomenon” (Boyatzis, 1998: 63). In this step, notes were taken and codes were highlighted in different colours to facilitate categorizing them relatively. The third phase involved creating potential themes by combining related codes and gathering relevant data extracts (Braun and Clarke, 2006: 89). At this step, using a mind map as a visual thinking tool helped me organizing my data set and identifying gaps and relationships between ideas. In the fourth phase, I prepared my initial thematic map in which I included only related themes towards answering my research questions and excluded other themes that seemed repeated or unrelated to research questions, even though they appeared interesting. Included themes were themes that fit the coded extracts and the entire data set (Braun and Clarke, 2006: 91). In the fifth phase, I defined and refined themes by naming them based on the core idea of each theme (Ibid: 92). This phase required accuracy to ensure themes relevance towards answering my research questions. At this stage, some themes and topics appeared to be broad, therefore it became necessary to structuring them into sub-themes. The sixth phase included the final report which presents the final valid analysis of my data supported by sufficient data extracts (Ibid: 93).

The following main themes were identified after thematically analysing the data set:

1- Parents´ perception of the significance of heritage language maintenance and raising bilingual children.

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3- Parent-child negotiation of heritage language maintenance.

4- Parents´ perception of the influence of heritage language maintenance on constructing children´s identity and belonging

The next section presents a detailed analysis of these identified themes and sub-themes.

6. Analysis

In this section, I will present the analysis of the identified themes and sub-themes; clarifying parents´ views on heritage language maintenance, and giving examples of interview excerpts and of what has been discussed. Discussing sub-themes affords a better structured and comprehended presentation of information. Included interview excerpts provide a closer understanding of participants´ points of view. Important to clarify that during my analysis of participants´ excerpts and ideas, I used the term “heritage language” to refer to the first language children heard, imitated, learned, and used in their early childhood with their native speaker parents and relatives pre-immigration and continue to use after immigrating. Participants in this study have used different terms to refer to their children´s heritage language like mother tongue, family language, first language and main language.

6.1 Parents´ perception of the significance of heritage language maintenance and raising bilingual children

Studying participant parents´ narratives discloses parents´ attitudes and how they feel regarding heritage language maintenance and raising bilingual children. Nevertheless, by repeatedly reading the interviews material, I found that while parents placed great value and interest in maintaining their mother tongue for themselves and for their children, still, they were aware of the importance of learning languages in general, and especially mastering the society dominant language, Swedish. In the beginning, participants seemed to be confused when asking them what language they consider as their mother tongue, and what language they consider as their children´s mother tongue. My personal justification for this confusion is that they did not expect me to ask this question as I, the interviewer, share the same mother tongue with them. However, four participants out of five confirmed that Arabic language is their and their children

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only mother tongue. The participant father stated that while Arabic his mother tongue, his children have two mother tongues, Arabic and English, as they learnt them simultaneously in their early childhood. Nevertheless, participants also used different terms to refer to Arabic language like mother tongue, first language, basic language and family language.

Answering my questions of what does their mother tongue mean to them and what other things come to their minds when thinking about it, participants´ answers revealed that Arabic language is perceived as an important part of their cultural and religious identity, the main communication means with their children and between their children and their extended family members in countries of origin, a means of enriching social interaction through keeping in contact with people from Arabic community, and a reflection of their ethnic background. Informants highlighted that their great interest in preserving Arabic for their children is intended to be a positive addition and an essential asset to their future, academically and professionally. Mother2 stressed that in our globalized world, individuals need to learn more languages to facilitate communication with others in different situations and settings. Mother3 believed that languages, and education, are future keys. Therefore, she explained to her children the significance of having good linguistic skills in several languages, one of them should be their heritage language, which will open doors for better and multiple work or/and education opportunities.

Mother1 depicted an analogy between the value of the mother tongue and the value of one's own mother:

For me, a mother tongue is a culture. From its name “MOTHER tongue”: it is very important as a mother. As Arabs, we should know Arabic language. [...] Our mother tongue is connected to our origin. It is everything; an identity, a heritage culture, a religion, everything at the end.

The mother clarified that, for her, mother tongue is connected to the culture a person raised up within his/her family and still preserve. Therefore, she considered that Arabic language is related to the wide Arabic culture which is shared by people from different Arabic-speaking countries. In contrast to her extensive perception, she stated that from her husband´s point of view, the significance of heritage language maintenance for their daughters stems from his belief that it is the strongest aspect of belonging which connects them to their home country and extended family. According to the mother, the father clarified for their children that they need to speak Arabic to be able to communicate with their extended family back home. Mother1

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expressed that having these diverse views and feelings regarding their mother tongue is a way of “completing each other at the end”.

Participants also explained that they believe that maintenance of heritage language plays a significant role in creating a social network and enriching social interaction for themselves and their children. Preserving Arabic language helped them establishing friendships with people from Arabic community in Sweden, especially at times when they were still incapable of communicating with others in Swedish.

Maintaining Arabic language increased my children´s opportunities to build friendships and broadened their social network. There are many Arabic-speaking newcomers children and others who have not yet acquired good skills in Swedish. If my children were not able to communicate in Arabic they would never have a good relationship with these children.

Viewing mother tongue as a vital means of communication with children, Mother1 said that speaking Arabic language helps her daughter in situations where she needs to talk privately with her in front of others.

My daughter speaks to me in Arabic whenever she wants to tell me something without letting her friends [at school] to know it.

The mother works as an assistant teacher in the same school as her daughters and where the language of instruction in school is Swedish. This implicates that all children communicate at school with their teachers and peers in the same language, Swedish, which means that everyone understands others, with taking into account students´ different levels in using and understanding the language. However, the mother appreciatively clarified that communicating with her daughter in Arabic creates a space of privacy and freedom for the daughter to freely express herself with no concerns that others might understand her.

Mother2 highly stressed the significance of maintaining heritage language on strengthening parent-child relationships and ensuring good communication and mutual understanding. In her opinion, heritage language should be preserved for immigrant children because it constitutes the best communicating medium where parents can understand their children´s thoughts, feelings and needs. Further, she emphasized that children´s competitive acquisition of societal language surpasses their parents´ acquisition of the same language which affects parents´ attitude towards preserving home language. She recalled an example of her

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friend who neglected teaching her youngest daughter her mother tongue, meanwhile, the girl acquired strong skills in the Swedish language. The little girl became unable to communicate with her mother in Arabic, while the mother had no sufficient command in Swedish language to understand her daughter. As a result, the girl continuously needed her siblings´ help while communicating with her mother: “would you please explain to my mom what I want/mean”.

Another value attached to heritage language is its connection to participants´ religious identity. All of the participants mentioned that they are Muslims. Mother 2 explains:

Arabic language is the language of my belief. How can I teach my child about my religion and my holy book if s/he does not have sufficient skills in Arabic language?

Mother3 also referred to the same idea:

For us as Muslims in the West, our mother tongue, Arabic, is closely linked to religion. So, in order for our kids to understand and integrate into our religious context, they need to preserve Arabic language.

From parents´ point of view, they believed that the best language for explaining and integrating religious ideas and foundations to their children is Arabic, which is the language of Muslims´ holy book Quran and through which they themselves understood and learned religion.

6.2 Maintenance of heritage language: A priority, yet a challenge

Participant parents viewed maintenance of heritage language for their children as a priority and yet a challenge. They emphasized their intention to preserve their children´s heritage language by strengthening it or at least preventing the loss of what they already know or have acquired. For this, they expressed their concerns and identified factors affecting maintenance of heritage language for their children. On the other hand, we discussed the efforts they exert to preserve their children´s heritage language

 Factors affecting maintenance of heritage language

Participants agreed that before immigrating they had no fears of losing Arabic language due to the existence of their extended family members and raising their children in Arabic-speaking communities. Accordingly, the absence of their relatives and the lack of communication with

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an Arabic community had minimized children´s opportunities to practice Arabic language. Other challenges recognized by the participants´ were feasibility of mother tongue lessons at schools ´modersmålundervisning´ and influence of peers.

Mother tongue education was given special attention, as participants anticipated big benefits from it. All of the participants´ children attend or have attended mother tongue lessons at schools. These lessons are available for all children in Sweden who have different mother tongue than Swedish or other national minority languages. Participation in mother tongue lessons is optional and are usually given before or after ordinary school days. Participants mentioned that these lessons are given once a week for 50 to 60 minutes which is according to parents “very little time to achieve its purpose”. Informants mentioned that at the beginning their children had not expressed any objection regarding participation, however, some of them have later stopped attending lessons. Mother1 for example said that her children had withdrawn from mother tongue lessons after attending for two years without any advantages added to their language skills. Instead, these lessons became a heavy burden for her children because their friends were joining other after-school leisure activities at the time of mother tongue lesson. In addition, as the mother explains:

Teachers who were teaching Arabic language lesson to my children did not have Arabic as their mother tongue! How would they be able to efficiently teach Arabic to children?

Mother1 shed lights on two important factors affecting her children´s attendance in mother tongue lessons. First, as these lessons take place during children´s leisure time at school, the timing affects children´s enthusiasm to attend the lesson because it minimizes their opportunities to join other activities and to socialize with other students. Second, according to the mother, lessons were taught to her children by teachers who were not native speakers of the language. Mother3 shared related concern regarding the incompetence of teachers as her children´s teacher was using her own dialect, instead of Standard Arabic, which was not shared by all students in the class and was hard for them to understand. From her experience as a teacher in Swedish schools, she emphasized that most of mother tongue teachers who she met during her work and who taught her children did not hold any academic degrees that qualify them to work in this vital field, and they got hired only for having good command in Swedish language.

Informants also complained that teachers do not use a clear methodology in teaching the language. More specifically, they criticized teaching all Arabic-speaking children in one lesson with no consideration to their different ages and linguistic skills levels, using materials

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printed from the internet, using their own dialects instead of the standard Arabic as well as the failure to use encouraging and more engaging methods. Moreover, Mother2 criticized using lesson time to discuss unrelated topics such as religious affiliations.

Mother2 Unfortunately, on many occasions, my children´s mother tongue teacher had

discussed with them issues about our religion in a bad and negative way. Since she is doing that, this means there is no supervision from the school or skolverket. Consequently, she will be negligent in performing her duties. The last identified factor affecting families´ language management was the influence of peers. Mother1 asserted that her children always remind their friends, who speak Arabic, to speak Arabic whenever they visit them at home. Mother2 mentions that her children always communicate in Arabic with their peers from Arabic-speaking countries. However, Mother3, Mother4 and Father1 notice that their children shift unconsciously to use Swedish in their conversations with their peers.

Mother4 I see that my children tend to feel more comfortable using Swedish when talking

with their friends, especially when they are so excited or angry!

Considering this point, I relate her notice to the fact that some immigrant children acquire stronger vocabularies in the societal dominant language rather than their own heritage language. Parents think that this bigger vocabularies in the dominant language qualify their children to feel confident, powerful and in-control in different situations.

 Efforts exerted to preserve children´s heritage language

According to parents, their efforts and strategies carried out to preserve heritage language for their children varied taking into consideration their ages, linguistic skills levels, and their interest in preserving language. Mother4 emphasized parents´ responsibility for teaching children, as early as possible, correct pronunciation of letters and simple words through songs, role play, storytelling, and connecting words with real objects. She pointed out that parents should not rely on teachers of the mother tongue class at school because they usually speak their dialects not the standard Arabic. Mother3 recalled that her son produced his first words after his third birthday and he, five years old at the time of interview, still cannot pronounce some letters. She stressed the significance of implementing good approaches in teaching mother tongue at schools starting with teaching correct pronunciation. Mother1 said that she pays more attention to her youngest daughter because she did not receive any education in Arabic before

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immigrating. For this reason, she is trying to spend longer time reading stories for her, spelling simple words or writing them, and assisting her to learn shapes of Arabic letters and how to pronounce them correctly,

In addition to participating in mother tongue classes at schools, some of participants´ children join language classes at weekends. These lessons are organized by cultural and social associations for Arabic-speaking immigrants where children get an opportunity to socialize with people speaking Arabic, participate in trips, competitions, and cultural and religious celebrations. Mother1 is the founder of one of these associations. She remembered that her and her husband´s awareness of the urgent need to teach their children the Arabic language prompted her to establish an association to teach Arabic lesson to immigrant children in cooperation with an immigrant Arabic language teacher. Dozens of children later joined the lesson. The mother stated that, since last year, her children stopped attending mother tongue lessons at school and instead committed to the association´s lessons because they liked them more.

From the experience of Mother1, Mother2 and Mother4; the presence of relatives in Sweden contributed to the formation of a close Arabic community for children, which encourages them to practice Arabic language in addition to enhancing their belonging to Arabic culture. Mother3 encourages her children to text their relatives living outside Sweden in Arabic to keep practising it and stay in contact with them. She explains:

My children live now in Sweden and speak Swedish, and they have relatives in Syria who speak Arabic, relatives in Germany who speak German, and relatives in Turkey who speak Turkish, so in which language will they communicate if they did not preserve their basic language which is Arabic?!

The participant father has a different experience with his children who were not encouraged to attend mother tongue lessons at school. Due to the family´s narrow social life in Sweden; where they have no extended family members and there were no other Arabic-speaking families in their vicinity, his children became hesitant about the need to preserve Arabic language for the sake of socializing. Children´s mastery of English and Swedish facilitated socializing with Arabic-speaking children and others at schools in Swedish. After some attempts to convince them, children agreed to attend mother tongue lessons.

Father I asked them: how will you be able to talk with your grandparents, uncles, aunts

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Thankfully, we have strong relationships with the family back home and therefore my children miss them and love to stay in contact with them.

The father added that at home he is keen to afford interesting cartoon programs and movies in Arabic for his children to provide them with an enjoyable and pleasant learning environment.

6.3 Parent-child negotiation of heritage language maintenance

Exploring how parents negotiate preserving heritage language with their children, informants´ attitudes and views can be sorted into two models: a rigorous model and a flexible model. First, representing a rigorous model, all participant mothers clarified that using Arabic language at home as the only communication language between family members is one of the “home rules” that everyone should follow. Nevertheless, they described that they were stricter applying this rule in the early period upon their arrival in Sweden. They also added that applying this “rule” resulted in preserving Arabic language for their children in addition to children´s current confidence and satisfaction of using Arabic at home and with relatives in origin countries. The second model, the flexible one, was represented by the participant father´s strategy of granting his children greater flexibility and freedom in deciding over the communication language they feel more confident using. The father explained that in his children´s early childhood, the family had no plans of immigrating. This eliminated any fears of losing Arabic language and therefore he and his partner planned to integrate English language for their children to become bilingual and increase their future success opportunities; academically and professionally. However, after immigrating, he anxiously confirmed that his children who became multilingual- speaking Arabic, English and Swedish- started facing difficulties in using Arabic language.

Taking an example from the first model, Mother1 mentioned that upon their arrival to Sweden, she agreed with her husband and daughters that Arabic will be the only communication language used at home between family members and even with their visitors who share the same language. She emphasized that her daughters agreed on the new “home rule” and attributed their acceptance to the fact that her daughters had known and used only Arabic language before immigrating. In addition, her two older daughters had joined schools in their home country, which helped them gain basic knowledge in reading and writing in Arabic. Meanwhile, her third daughter, 3 years old upon immigrating, had not started schooling yet but wanted always to imitate her sisters in learning and using Arabic language. She told me that

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her daughters were happy with the language choice at home. They even started to apply this rule with their Arabic friends when they visit them at home:

Mother1: Some of my daughters´ Arabic-speaking friends tend to speak Swedish when

they visit us even though they know Arabic. My daughters directly ask them to shift to Arabic, because they [her daughters] like that, and I like what they do.

Israa: Why do you think they do so?

Mother1: Because as I see they understand and appreciate the value and importance of

the language.

Despite her desire to apply this rule inside and outside home, Mother 3 explained that in some situations she found herself obliged to speak to her children in Swedish; like for example in school meetings, where the presence of the teacher requires using a language that is understood by the child, the mother and the teacher, which is Swedish in this case.

On the other hand, the father asserted that the awareness of his children´s limited ability to utilize Arabic language, makes him always patient and flexible with their language shift and language choice:

Father At some points, I felt that my children will totally lose Arabic language. To be

honest, inside of me I was scared of that. It was not their fault neither ours. I and my wife wanted our kids to feel comfortable and courageous to discuss everything with us without the language being a barrier between us. We told them that we will always understand each other.

Israa What makes you think that they might be worried about the language barrier?

Father Because they frequently ask if they can or cannot speak English with their

grandparents back home. They are worried of not being able to speak Arabic with them. Sometimes in the middle of a conversation with their grandparents, they ask us: how to say this word or that in Arabic? I do see and know that my children are trying their best to preserve Arabic. I have to help them but I would never blame them of not mastering it!

The father clarified that his and his wife´s fluency in English and the advance level of Swedish language they have acquired facilitated understanding and accepting their children´s language usage and language shift. He said that in some discussions “you would hear us using three languages at the same time”. The father stressed the importance of not highlighting children´s shortage of vocabularies in their mother tongue so that their self-confidence is not shaken.