Participation and Nonparticipation in Heritage Language Learning: The Role of Imagined and Envisioned Communities

Abstract The current study explored the fluctuating investment of three children of immigrants in learning Korean as a heritage language within a community-based weekend school, drawing on investment theory (Norton, 2000). Through cross-case and constant-comparative analyses of student and teacher interviews and classroom observations, distinct patterns were identified in how the children navigated their immediate and imagined ethnolinguistic communities of practice. Within the Korean school, where the teacher’s and students’ historical perspectives intersected, the children’s investment underwent meaningful shifts. These changes in participation and nonparticipation were shaped by the teacher’s recognition and support of each child’s communities of practice, alongside her own investment in envisioned communities. Informed by her history as an educator and an immigrant, as well as her relationship with the school community, the teacher co-constructed envisioned communities to support the students. The findings underscore teachers’ critical role in fostering students’ heritage-language investment by engaging with their evolving identities.