Positioning languages in schools: Negotiating policy, perceptions and practices across three dimensions of language

Language plays a fundamental role in education, yet is rarely conceptualised as a cohesive policy issue. In multilingual schools in England, language operates across three interrelated dimensions: English as the dominant medium of instruction, modern languages as curriculum subjects, and students’ home, heritage and community languages. Despite the importance of these languages for everyday school life and learning, policy guidance at national and school level remains limited and fragmented, and little attention has been paid to how they are positioned in relation to one another. This study, therefore, investigates how these language dimensions are positioned in school-level policy (both explicitly and implicitly), perceived by teachers and students, and enacted in classroom practice. To address this, a qualitative, instrumental multiple-case study was conducted in three secondary schools in England, drawing on policy documents, focus group interviews with 15 teachers and 39 students, and observations of 45 lessons. Findings across the three cases suggest that language policy is neither absent nor linear; rather, it operates as a constantly negotiated process in which shared or contested perceptions shape practices, irrespective of the presence of formal policy documents. This was associated with the emergence of relational linguistic hierarchies, with English positioned as dominant, modern languages as credentialised and home languages as contested and paradoxically associated with discourses of both inclusion and exclusion. Overall, the findings have implications for developing more cohesive approaches to multilingualism across policy and practice in schools.