The Multilingual Adolescent Experience: Small Stories of Integration and Socialization by Polish Families in Ireland(122 Bilingual Education & Bilingualism)

This book contributes to our understanding of how older learners negotiate family internal and family external socialisation processes and thereby how parents’ ideologies and practices, peer socialisation, and language status or societal demands come together in adolescents’ lives. It integrates the sociohistorical context and adolescents’ attitudes with the parents’ role. Through the use of ‘small stories’ and ethnographic observation this book explores the social and cultural worlds of Polish immigrant adolescents in Ireland, the ways they seek membership and belonging in their communities of practice, and the ways in which they develop sociohistorical understandings across the languages and cultures they are part of. It sheds light on schooling and family communities and the role they play in the socialization processes of immigrant children.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Chapter 1. Children, Migration and Socialisation Chapter 2. Participants: Children, their Families and Socialization Contexts     Chapter 3. Power of Belonging Chapter 4. Agency and Sociocultural Mediation Chapter 5. Language Ideologies and Parents Chapter 6. Conclusion and Implications   Index

About the Author :
Malgorzata Machowska-Kosciak is a post-doctoral researcher and Project Officer in the Centre for Human Rights and Citizenship Education, School of STEM Education, Innovation and Global Studies, Dublin City University, Ireland. Her research focuses on the social, psychological and cultural challenges faced by young people from diverse backgrounds, their complex identity negotiations and the power relations inherent in society.

Review :
This critical study provides a deep interrogation of the sociohistorical and language socialisation practices of Polish young people as they negotiate the complexities of their social and family worlds. A must-read for gaining a contemporary and nuanced insight into young people's agency as they navigate the deeply embedded matrix of language, power and identity in an increasingly linguistically diverse Irish society. A fascinating study that will inspire readers to consider how young heritage language users’ stories of socialization, identity and language development are not only impacted by family factors and broader Discourses, but also by their own aspirations, providing a vivid illustration of youth agency. This study provides a close-up picture of the experience of Polish immigrants to Ireland as they traverse the teenage years juggling two languages. The range of information presented – including school observations and interviews with students and parents – and the rich theoretical analyses make a unique contribution to research on language socialisation and bilingualism. The Multilingual Adolescent Experience is a unique, critical body of work that places immigrant adolescents at the forefront of the discussion of their own needs. By interviewing students and their families about language socialization practices as they naturally occur in these students’ real lives, Machowska-Kosciak offers an illuminating and engaging view of the assets multilingual, multicultural youth could bring to the classroom if they were only given the opportunity.