Monikielinen perhe ja koulu

Abstract

Increased migration and mobility have had a significant impact on (multilingual) family lives and led to the influx of multilingual children in schools in Finland. This article approaches the home-school space as an interflow of discourses and identities. It focuses on processes and discourses circulating through and around multilingual families – on the meso level of social activity. The article illustrates how the meso level (i.e., family and school) is shaped by and connected with the macro and micro levels, such as a representation of multilingual families in the Official Statistics Finland and teacher/parent-child interaction. The article introduces two theoretical approaches in the research of family multilingualism and discusses how multilingualism can be approached in the fluid and interconnected domains of family and school. It concludes by illustrating some gaps between home and school in relation to family multilingualism and provides some suggestions as to how to overcome them.