Between heritage and the here-and-now: Bangladeshi children’s multilingual ideologies in the UK

This study explores the language ideologies of children aged 5–13 years from Bangla-speaking immigrant families in the United Kingdom (UK). While prior studies in the area of family language policy (FLP) have focused primarily on parental ideologies, this study deals with children's perspectives to examine how they understand and use the multilingual resources in their repertoires – Bangla, English, Arabic, and school-based foreign languages. Drawing on data from semi-structured interviews with seven children across four families, the study identifies three key ideological dimensions shaping their language beliefs: ideologies of utility, participation, and identity. These ideologies inform how children assess the value and relevance of different languages in their lives, and reveal complex, context-specific orientations towards multilingualism. The findings suggest that children, including those as young as five, hold coherent and consequential language ideologies that influence their linguistic practices and decisions. This study contributes to expanding the scope of FLP by demonstrating the need to attend more closely to children’s ideological perspectives and their active role in shaping family language trajectories.