‘I’m also trying to figure out the identity of my students.’ – teachers’ multilingual identity negotiation in the heritage language classroom

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the interplay among identity, language, and culture of six heritage language (HL) teachers at a Greek school in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. It applies the concept of participative multilingual identity construction and argues that in order for teachers to provide agency and opportunities to their students to engage in (multilingual) identity education, they first need to acquire critical linguistic awareness and sociolinguistic knowledge themselves. The study found that most teachers do not identify as multilingual despite their competences and daily social practices in multiple languages, but rather base their identifications on their first language–Greek–with certain local influences. It also demonstrated that teachers’ understanding of their role, responsibility, and position within the HL teaching context, their own migration experiences, and ideologies regarding heritage and local languages and cultures influence their teaching practices and students’ construction of their multilingual identity. This contribution advocates the institutionalisation of HL-specific teacher preparation with a focus on identity, multilingualism, and community experiences to recognise the increasing heterogeneity of twenty-first-century classrooms. It ultimately seeks to advance the normalisation of linguistic and cultural diversity, the deconstruction of pernicious language hierarchies and ideologies, and the promotion of equity and social justice.

KEYWORDS:

• heritage language teaching
• multilingual/participative identity construction
• teacher identity
• imagined communities

1. Introduction

Despite the recent ‘explosion of interest in identity and language learning’ (Norton & Toohey, 2011, p. 413), the construction, negotiation, and transformation of heritage language¹ (HL) teacher identity has rarely been addressed in the literature (Cho, 2014). In an attempt to fill the gap on this topic, this contribution adopts the concept of participative multilingual identity recently developed by Fisher et al. (2020). Fisher et al. (2020) advocate ‘using the language classroom as a site where learners are offered the agency to develop a multilingual identity’ and claim that ‘learners need sociolinguistic knowledge in order to understand and explicitly reflect on the languages and dialects in their own and others’ linguistic repertoires’ (Fisher et al., 2020, p. 449). Based on their convincing, innovative model, this contribution argues that it is essential to (also) investigate teachers’ perceptions and negotiations of their multilingual identity if they are the ones to offer ‘agency’ and to provide the needed ‘sociolinguistic knowledge’ to their students to foster their linguistic repertoires as well as their understanding thereof. This is particularly important in the context of HL learning, which is often institutionally marginalised given that other (foreign) languages are prioritised due to their perceived higher prestige and capital (Bourdieu, 1991). To counteract these institutional mechanisms reproducing such language ideologies and hierarchies, critical language awareness (CLA) for teachers and learners is crucial. As Beaudrie et al. (2019, p. 574) caution, ‘students … may enter a HL course with deep-seated beliefs about the inferiority of their language, their linguistic variety, and their level of proficiency.’

Further, Hornberger and Wang (2008, p. 7) poignantly argue that ‘the notion that there are multiple selves/identities, which are situated and contextually negotiated, contested, shaped and reshaped becomes central in the learning of a HL and HC [heritage culture].’ Since teachers are often regarded as ‘agents of social change’ (Bourn, 2015) capable of successfully promoting their students’ multilingualism (Ansó Ros et al., 2021; Haukås, 2016), analysing their multilingual identity negotiation is an important step towards establishing active (multilingual) identity education. Promoted by Schachter and Rich (2011) as ‘the purposeful involvement of educators with students’ identity-related processes or contents’ (p. 222; emphasis in original), this approach can be meaningful especially in HL contexts where learners might discover substantial parts of their identity for the very first time (Becker, 2022). In addition to explicitly being able to shape learners’ identity formation, teachers’ own identifications and perceptions have consequences for their instructional foci and practices (Kim & Kim, 2016) as well as successful implementation of language education policies (Menken & García, 2010). Given the resulting impact on students’ learning experiences, academic development, and sense of belonging, a more thorough investigation of teachers’ multilingual identity negotiation in the HL classroom is needed. The following research questions are asked to examine the interplay among identity, language, and culture:

1. How do teachers perceive and negotiate their multilingual identity in the HL classroom?

2. How do teachers’ perceptions and identifications impact students’ multilingual identity construction and HL learning?

Highlighting individual perceptions and lived experiences, these questions are embedded in a phenomenological study conducted with six teachers at a Greek heritage language and culture school in the German-speaking part of Switzerland in 2021.

The article is divided as follows: First, the study’s underlying theoretical framework including the concepts of heritage language teaching based on Polinsky’s (2018) concept of heritage languages, participative multilingual identity (Fisher et al., 2020), and imagined communities/imagined identities (Anderson, 1991; Pavlenko & Norton, 2007; Wenger, 1998) is elaborated in section 2. Section 3 describes the study’s setting and methodology while section 4 presents its findings. The final section 5 concludes this contribution by discussing the results.

2. Theoretical framework

This section discusses the concepts of heritage language teaching based on Polinsky’s (2018) concept of heritage languages, participative multilingual identity (Fisher et al., 2020), and imagined communities/imagined identities (Anderson, 1991; Pavlenko & Norton, 2007; Wenger, 1998).

This qualitative study is situated at the intersection of applied linguistics and HL education research. Given the insufficient literature on HL teachers generally and on their multilingual identity negotiation in particular, the aim is to contribute to a better understanding and a more critical discussion thereof.

2.1 Heritage language teaching

As a result of increasing transnational mobility and interconnectedness among migrants’ home and country of residence but also of greater societal awareness and acceptance of linguistic and cultural diversity, there is a growing number of HL speakers worldwide (Carreira & Kagan, 2018). According to Polinsky (2018, p. 9), a HL speaker is ‘a simultaneous or sequential (successive) bilingual whose weaker language corresponds to the minority language of their society and whose stronger language is the dominant language of that society.’ Importantly, as Polinsky (2018) points out further, in society as much as in empirical studies, HL speakers have been compared to ‘monolingual’ speakers of either language in which the HL speakers are competent to varying degrees often to answer the essentialist question of whether HL speakers ‘qualify as native or as non-native speakers’ (Polinsky, 2018, p. 10).

In fact, much research has focused on HL acquisition (Polinsky & Scontras, 2020), and while further empirical investigation is undoubtedly necessary, Hitchins Chik et al. (2017) convincingly argue that ‘in order for HL programmes to become firmly rooted in an educational system, they need to become institutionalised.’ The institutionalisation of HL programmes necessarily involves specific curricula, teaching materials, methodologies, and teacher preparation and therefore directs the attention to educators who negotiate the policy framework and thus influence its implementation based on their understanding and perspectives as well as their attitude towards the HL. As Garrett (2010, p. 2) points out with regard to individuals in general, which is of an even more concrete relevance for teachers, ‘people hold attitudes to language at all its levels: for example, spelling and punctuation, words, grammar, accent and pronunciation, dialects and languages. Even the speed at which we speak can evoke reactions.’

Gironzetti and Belpoliti (2021, p. 1191) have established core competences for Spanish HL teachers based on recent literature in the field, which are summarised below and adjusted to the wider HL teaching context:

Applied linguistics/sociolinguistics knowledge

• Second language acquisition (SLA), language processing theories, critical awareness, social justice approaches

• Bi-/multilingual communities, languages in contact

• Attitudes towards and ideologies of (HL) variation and change

HL speaker and community knowledge

• Multifaceted profiles/backgrounds (socio-affective, cultural, linguistic, educational)

• Awareness and critical knowledge of historical, socio-political, cultural, and linguistic realities

Pedagogical knowledge/know-how

• Language Arts approaches

• Error-and needs-analysis in productive skills

• Content-based and experiential learning

• Differentiated instruction for mixed classes, HL/L2 collaboration

• Self-reflection on background, experience, identity, ideologies, and beliefs

The authors specify, however, that these core competences are guidelines for successful HL teaching; they are not (yet) implemented as such in existing (HL) teacher preparation programmes. Further, despite the similarities of HL and L2 education, HL-specific modules and programmes are very sparse although particularly community and cultural knowledge is a (more) essential component of HL education. What becomes apparent, though, is the complexity of knowledge and tasks expected of HL teachers who are often ill-prepared, underpaid, and unwelcome compared to their public-school colleagues (Becker, forthcoming). As Cho (2014) remarks poignantly,

HL teachers must be alerted to critically examine their own beliefs and dispositions about HL education so as to explore the multiplicity and complexity of HL teaching, … to understand dominant discourses in HL laden with power relations. It will help them conceptualize HL learning as a site for struggle, rather than simply as steady and smooth development towards the attainment of the target rhetorical features. (p. 191)

The institutional and socio-political conditions in which HL teaching is embedded are thus part of social reality and influence educational actors’ construction of meaning, knowledge, and identity (Heller, 2008). The classroom as a space of participation and identity construction is elaborated in the next sub-section.

2.2 Participative multilingual identity

This sub-section draws primarily on Fisher et al.’s (2020) multi-theoretical conceptualisation of participative multilingual identity construction in the languages classroom, whereby a specific focus is put on teachers instead of learners and the HL learning context instead of an institutionalised foreign language classroom.

According to Norton and Toohey (2011) and Preece (2020), the predominant stance towards identity in SLA and applied linguistics research has been a poststructuralist one. In a poststructuralist approach to identity research, the idea of a single core identity or self is rejected; rather, the individual is in a state of constant becoming (Zembylas, 2003) within a dynamic, non-linear development of self-transformation, which results in an identity that is nevertheless socially constructed and historically situated (Fawcett, 2012). Fisher et al. (2020) rightfully point out, however, that such a complex, multifaceted, and multi-dimensional construct as identity is better captured if multiple theoretical perspectives are combined. In addition to the poststructuralist element, they therefore also draw on the psychosocial and sociocultural perspectives to arrive at a more complete and holistic representation of identity. One of the major differences of the psychosocial to the poststructuralist approach is the existence of a core identity. Differentiating between the self and identity, the psychosocial perspective considers the latter ‘a long-term, developmental process that progresses through a number of stages’ (Fisher et al., 2020, p. 450), while this development is continuously shaped by sociocultural and temporospatial factors (Oyserman & James, 2011).

These external determinants are much more accentuated in the sociocultural perspective highlighting the influences experienced through interaction, the environment, and the community (Block, 2007; Norton & Toohey, 2011). For Lave and Wenger (1991), participation in communities of practice is inextricably intertwined with one’s identity and learning since it is about finding one’s place and learning how to become a successful community member. As they put it, ‘ … [learning] implies becoming able to be involved in new activities, to perform new tasks and functions, and to master new understandings’ (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 53). Thus, constructing one’s identity through and within communities of practice can in fact be viewed as a profound and necessary learning process. As a result of these ‘multiple relations through which persons define themselves in practice’ (Lave & Wenger, 1991, pp. 53–54), the sociocultural perspective defies the concept of a core identity. Rather, the multiple identities are ‘socially-constructed … , mediated, relational and situated’ (Fisher et al., 2020, p. 451).

Focusing on the intersections among the three theoretical perspectives, Fisher et al. (2020, p. 453) summarise that

• Identity is both an individual and a social phenomenon;

• Each contains a focus on identification as a process rather than a fixed condition;

• As such, there is the possibility that at least some aspects of identity are subject to change and we are able, at least to some extent, to actively create our identities.

Based on this multi-perspectival understanding of identity and on what has been described as ‘language-identity nexus’ by Joseph (2004, p. 12) alluding to the inseparable relationship between language and identity, Fisher et al. (2020) situate the multilingual identity at the intersection of these three perspectives. They posit that

… a person’s different linguistic identities … differ in their expression, not only through language, but across a range of semiotic resources in different contexts and at different times. Each language in one’s multilingual repertoire is subject to adaptation and movement … depending on a range of factors including migration or social networks. Arguably therefore, while identities associated with different languages in our multilingual repertoire might change spatio-temporally, an identity as a multilingual might remain ‘core’. (Fisher et al., 2020, p. 454)

As a result, they provide a conceptual framework for participative multilingual identity construction which relies on the following features:

• Identity construction takes place over time through developmental stages and lived experiences as member of a community (e.g. schools).

• Semiotic practices and interactions through language embedded in sociohistorical contexts shape relations and therefore one’s identity.

• (Multilingual) identity construction is an active, participative process although certain features of the self remain ‘core’.

• Reflection about the (multilingual) self precedes identification.

Fisher et al. (2020) conclude that the languages classroom can be actively conceived and utilised as an important space for students to engage in participative multilingual identity construction. To this end, these authors have developed a multi-stage model ranging from developing sociolinguistic knowledge and awareness of one’s linguistic identity through reflexivity to potential self-transformation and investment in (future) language learning experiences to be employed by language teachers.

2.3 Imagined communities/imagined identities

Unprecedented global mobility and migration of complex physical and virtual dimensions have called into question modern constructs such as the nation-state and have in some areas of the world been replaced with ‘cosmopolitan belonging’ (Jones et al., 2014). This entails complex emotions and identifications with multiple locations, which, as was noted by (Cohen, 1995) already, ‘to some degree, [can] be held together or re-created through the mind, through cultural artefacts and through a shared imagination’ (p. 516). This ‘imagination’ is also a central feature of Anderson’s (1991) definition of nation since, as he argues, ‘members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion’ (p. 6). According to him, what rendered nations distinct and in fact imaginable were (sacred, i.e. powerful) languages which restricted the access of imagination and thus identification with a certain community to the speakers of those languages while others may have been deprived of the membership.

Wenger (1998), building on the concept of legitimate peripheral participation introduced earlier by Lave and Wenger (1991), views imagination as ‘a mode of belonging that always involves the social world to expand the scope of reality and identity’ (p. 178). That said, he cautions that imagination ‘can also be disconnected and ineffective. It can be based on stereotypes that simply project onto the world the assumptions of specific practices’ (Wenger, 1998, p. 178). For Wenger (1998), identity is constructed through negotiated experience, community membership, learning trajectory, nexus of multimembership, and the relation between the local and the global.

These concepts with an emphasis on their relationship to identity were first applied to the SLA context by Norton (2001) and have since been expanded with ‘a focus,’ as Norton and Toohey (2011, p. 422) summarise, ‘on the future when learners imagine who they might be, and who their communities might be, when they learn a language.’ As Pavlenko and Norton (2007) convincingly argue, membership in such imagined communities can shape learners’ identities as significantly as physical participation, and, as illustrated by Jenkins (2007) for English as a lingua franca, can even exceed such impact. This study argues that identification with such imagined communities is not only relevant for learners but also for teachers, especially in a HL context, where most are directly affected by migration experiences and often less familiar with the local culture and language than their students.

3. Study, methods, and field

The study is embedded in a phenomenological research design zooming in on teachers’ identity negotiations, perceptions, and lived experiences. It explores how teachers perceive and negotiate their multilingual identity in the HL classroom and how their perceptions and identifications impact students’ multilingual identity construction and HL learning. In order to do so, it employs a double hermeneutic interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) (Smith et al., 2009), in which ‘the researcher is trying to make sense of the participant trying to make sense of what is happening to them’ (p. 3). According to Smith et al. (2009), sample sizes are typically small and rather homogeneous; they allow for a detailed examination of similarities and differences and of how the studied phenomenon affects personal and professional perceptions and practices of the individual and the group.

The participants² were six in-service HL teachers (1 male and 5 female) who were Greek nationals, had lived in Switzerland for several years, and had Greek as their first language with advanced knowledge of (at least) English and German. Their participation in the study was voluntary. The Greek HL school by which they were employed offers weekend-classes from kindergarten through secondary education and was founded by a parental association keen on transmitting the Greek language and culture to their children. Teachers’ salaries are funded through tuition fees paid by the parents whereas infrastructure and transportation are subsidised by the canton.

In line with IPA, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted in English or German, virtually on MS Teams, Zoom, Skype or over the phone, and lasted between 45 min and two hours. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, in-person interviews and classroom observations, which had originally been envisaged, were not possible. The interviews contained 14 questions regarding biographic/demographic aspects, (teacher) identity, migration experiences, pedagogical objectives, policy framework, societal recognition, and working conditions. Despite the fact that the structure was established through pre-formulated questions, participants were given time to share other personal accounts and elaborate more extensively on their daily practices and experiences as Greek HL teachers in Switzerland. The interviews were recorded and then transcribed verbatim by the author based on Lamnek and Krell’s (2016) transcription conventions. The data were analysed using IPA. The transcripts were read at least three times and broad and narrow themes were determined. A more detailed analysis of codes served to compare each of the transcripts within and among them. Due to lack of space and the relevance to the present research questions, this article will only present findings related to one of the three overarching themes: languages, cultures, and identities.

4. Findings

This section presents the study’s findings and is divided into two sub-sections. The first one (4.1) focuses on teachers’ perceptions and negotiation of their own identity whereas the second one (4.2) deals with teachers’ perceptions and identifications and the impact on their students’ identity construction and HL learning.

4.1 Teachers’ perceptions and negotiation of their (multilingual) identities

The data analysis revealed that identity plays a most central role in teachers’ understanding of being a HL teacher and in their positioning within the Swiss society. Transmitting Greek identity, values, and traditions is an essential element in their professional identity and an important curricular objective. In order to achieve this, all except for one teacher, who is rather against using such categorical terminology, identify as Greek. Georgia, for instance, says ‘I am totally Greek.’ Despite her core identity being Greek, she concedes to ‘have become more Swiss in a lot of parts of life.’ Similarly, Sophia, as a speaker of several languages, believes to have multiple identities which are associated with different languages and cultural contexts. Thus, when saying ‘I am a Greek who has been living in Switzerland for ten years,’ she alludes to local influences on her Greek core identity. Angela reports that for her, there is a very clear distinction between her Greek and Swiss identities and what she associates with them: while Greece is ‘my home, [my] everything; … Switzerland is the opportunity to have a better life and learn … it’s kind of stressful but also very positive experience,’ justifying her stay very pragmatically. Yet, on an emotional level, she feels differently: ‘I’m not the same person when I interact with the Swiss people and when I interact with my family [or friends] in Greece. There I’m different. I can’t use the same jokes … in Switzerland. We don’t have this connection.’ Interestingly, later on in the interview, the distinction becomes less clear since she mentions that her living in Switzerland in fact impacts how she views Greece: ‘I see Greece in a very different way now … It’s a whole new world.’ This is in part also due to the (Swiss) Greek community, in which she is actively involved and of which the Greek school is the centre. Her experiences as a Greek HL teacher there have changed her personality, as she believes, and the school is ‘a big part of [her] heart.’ Angela is very aware of her strong (personal) connection to the school and the community and even specifically says that ‘I’m really attached to this, emotionally attached to this school.’ The fact that everyone knows everyone, the fact of having a small community to be part of, to have familiarity with an unknown place, is reassuring, as she reports.

For Katerina, moving to a different country, being exposed to a new language and culture ‘was really, really hard.’ Being welcomed and taken in by the local Greek community and given the opportunity to work in the Greek school ‘was a break for me because it was my mother tongue. I didn’t have to think twice for one sentence.’ She goes on to say that ‘Greek is my emotional language. The others are foreign languages … ,’ indicating a strong link among language, identity, and belonging. Foreign languages, as in this case the local language (Swiss) German, are considered as such since they deprive speakers of emotions they otherwise feel and are now unable to transmit partly because communicating in them is so difficult. Even Dimitra, who does not want to use categories of a certain nationality to define herself, similarly reports that ‘I miss speaking Greek … it IS important when you can express yourself in your mother tongue,’ alluding to the fact that speaking Greek in Switzerland is only possible within this restricted space of the HL community. On the other hand, Angela in fact considers this a disadvantage. She thinks that it ‘is not helpful … [that] when we meet, we speak in our own language, and we don’t use German. We should speak in German, but we don’t [laughs].’

4.2 Teachers’ perceptions and identifications, students’ multilingual identity construction, and HL learning

In addition to constructing their own multilingual and multicultural identities in the classroom, the interviewed teachers’ perceptions and identifications influence how many learning opportunities they provide to their students to acquire sociolinguistic knowledge and how much agency they grant them to construct their own multilingual identities. Further, the teachers’ understanding of their role, responsibility, and position within the HL teaching context, their own migration experiences, ideologies and beliefs towards the heritage and local languages and cultures were found to influence HL learning.

Katerina, for instance, seems to be very aware of her influence on her students’ identities and of the potential discrepancies given the different socialisation processes and cultural settings: ‘I’m also trying to figure out the identity of my students. It’s not the same as my identity. I grew up in Greece and I feel Greek, to be honest … ,’ while she acknowledges that her students are likely to feel (more) Swiss. Therefore, as she explains, ‘[she is] trying to use a kid as a mediator’ since they can often relate to both languages and cultures, especially in the case of newly arrived teachers. For Yiannis, being a linguistic and cultural mediator is one of the most important skills to have as a HL teacher. To him, it would be impossible to successfully teach Greek as a HL were it not for his local linguistic and cultural knowledge and a certain reflexivity: ‘ … I could speak quite some German, I knew the mentality of Switzerland because I’m already around 10 years now. I found this a very, very helpful setting. If I came yesterday from Greece … I would not really understand what is my role.’

That said, being a mediator is not an easy task and newly arrived teachers do not always have much time to prepare and familiarise themselves with the local linguistic and cultural setting prior to their appointment. Georgia’s experiences and difficulties as a new HL teacher in Switzerland exemplify this very well:

It took me a couple of months to adjust, to understand, to realise that I’m not in a Greek school in Greece [laughs]. Because once I asked, ‘where are you from [in] Greece?’ They were looking at me and didn’t understand. They [come] from Switzerland … I am learning the Swiss culture now. I am new to that … I know very well the culture and language from Greece so of course I know many things that I can transmit to them … For them, Greece is a visit, in the best case, grandma and grandpa.

This extract demonstrates that she is in fact herself a learner in the HL situation and that teachers’ and students’ different identifications with languages, cultures, and spaces can have a significant impact on (students’) learning objectives, outcomes, and investment. These can vary enormously also depending on the students’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds, their identification with Greek as a HL, and family involvement in the learning process. Georgia says to be ‘really impressed’ with how well Greek is maintained given the HL setting and its low significance in Swiss society: ‘I really respect the people that live there in the 2nd, 3^rd, 4^th generation. I also have parents who are 4^th generation, and they still speak Greek. For me, this is amazing.’

Importantly, for the students, the HL community is not restricted to the school context, which becomes particularly manifest when teachers organise extracurricular activities on the Greek language and culture (e.g. plays) and celebrate Greek holidays and traditions to which their families are invited to participate (also virtually). The teachers reported that the last event had been a great success and reinforced the (virtual) community links. Sophia says that it was ‘touching … there were grandparents crying, everybody was so happy to see the little kids on the screen. It was AMAZING.’ The parents generally appreciate the lived authenticity and the integration of the home context, which is often represented by grandparents living in Greece, to foster their HL and culture through communication and emotions. Angela, for instance, has received very positive feedback from parents, ‘and they always tell me how important it is that their children speak to their grandparents in Greece, that they send them mails, that they write them letters and they see the change in their children.’

That said, Katerina points out that it should not be the goal to create an exclusive, Greek-only community, since she thinks that this would be detrimental to students’ development and integration: ‘We want children to be integrated in society, in Swiss society. This is only my fear. I don’t want to create schools for immigrants.’ It becomes clear that these dichotomous categorizations of Swiss and Greek, immigrant and local, are of great relevance to this specific setting and influence teachers’ and students’ negotiation of identity. Teachers continuously assess and produce identifications of their students. Sophia, for instance, when talking about one of her students, says, ‘ … he’s more Swiss than Greek. I have kids who are much more Greek than Swiss.’

What is missing in some of the accounts is the awareness of students’ non-linear and changing multiple belongings and identifications. That is, similar to the teachers’ multifaceted identifications with Swiss, Greek, and other cultures and languages, varying to different degrees on a continuum, students’ identities might very likely be strongly influenced by (2nd, 3rd, 4th generation) migration and HL-related experiences. What is however present in all interviews is the strong connection among language, identity, and space. As shown in the following quote by Sophia, a link to the home context of the HL also functions as a legitimator for students to appropriate the HL and fully engage in the learning thereof: ‘As long as their parents or grandparents talk to them in that language, as long as they have a place to visit, there is a village somewhere, where grandpa comes from, that means that they are not only Swiss.’

5. Discussion

The analysis of teachers’ perceptions and negotiation of their multilingual identities in the HL classroom has shown that although some critical awareness of essentialist categories based on the imagined construct of the nation-state exists, most teachers identify as Greek because they speak Greece’s national language as L1 and were socialised there. While language seems to be the most influential element to shape their Greek identity, the rich shared history and culture, but also less graspable mentalities, worldviews, and social norms seem to define them. Interestingly, especially the latter appear to have become a strong indicator of some participants’ ‘Greekness’ ever since they moved to Switzerland and started comparing themselves to the local population, their value and beliefs system, and social norms. As Vertovec (1999, p. 450) formulated poignantly, ‘the awareness of multi-locality stimulates the desire to connect oneself with others … who share the same “routes” and “roots”’.

The data further demonstrate that most teachers have a Greek core identity with influences from the Swiss culture and (Swiss) German as the dominant local language, as described in Fisher et al.’s (2020) model of participative multilingual identity construction. They thus refute the poststructuralist stance predominantly advocated in recent literature on identity and language, which rejects the idea of a core identity, but rather positions individuals as constantly becoming (Zembylas, 2003). Surprisingly, despite teachers’ daily social practices in multiple languages and their HL teaching and migration experiences, they do not necessarily view themselves as multilingual. Conversely, as expressed by Katerina, other languages than Greek are ‘foreign,’ thus not part of the identity or linguistic repertoire or, even more extremely, as in Angela’s case, likely to change her personality and linguistic performances altogether. Arguably, this might be due to restrictive native-speaker ideologies delegitimatising ‘non-native’ speakers and depriving them of opportunities to identify as successful multilinguals. This is concerning given that language teachers are supposed to foster their students’ multilingualism and multilingual identity construction through agency and institutional recognition (Becker & Knoll, 2021; Cummins, 2005; Fisher et al., 2020). Before this can be achieved then, awareness needs to be raised also among HL teachers of their own multilingual identity, their multilingual competencies, and the myths and futility of native-speaker standards. As Fisher et al. (2020) mention, multilingual identity construction necessarily depends on individuals’ active participation in the process.

Further, as suggested by Gironzetti and Belpoliti (2021), Leeman and Serafini (2016), and Beaudrie et al. (2019), teacher education programmes urgently need to include (more) modules on sociolinguistics knowledge and CLA given the specific underlying ideological and power dynamics in HL settings. Problematically, some teachers’ perceived lacking legitimacy of (Swiss) German or of their multilingual competency tout court is partly compensated by their prioritising interactions in Greek and social relations within the HL community although, as Angela acknowledges, speaking the local language would likely enhance integration and career prospects. Therefore, as argued by Wenger (1998), fixating on an imaginary community and thus limiting one’s social world and identity exacerbates the reproduction of stereotypes and exclusive memberships. Importantly, this is not to say that HL-speaking individuals should no longer rely on these relations which crucially provide them with belonging and security, but rather that inclusive, welcoming, and supporting infrastructure on the part of the country of residence needs to be created, in which linguistic and cultural diversity can be celebrated and multilingual identities constructed. A first step towards this would be the institutionalisation and formal recognition of HL education (and, importantly, their students and teachers) in teacher preparation programmes, public schools, and language education policies. That said, CLA and critical HL community knowledge should be an important (educational) objective for every active participant in our diverse twenty-first-century society to achieve a more profound mentality change needed for equity and social justice.

According to Gerver (2014, p. 3), ‘schooling [should] … prepare them [students] for the challenges of the future and to help them develop the skills and behaviours that will see them flourish in the middle of the twenty-first-century and beyond.’ With unprecedented global mobility and migration, increasing linguistic and cultural diversity and existing inclusive education policies, the normalisation of heterogeneous classrooms needs to be advocated and teachers and other school staff adequately prepared. As this study has shown, some teachers project their understanding of students’ identifications as Swiss or Greek onto themselves and thus influence how they use the HL classroom to construct their multilingual identity. Drawing on the students’ bilingual and bicultural knowledge to mediate between the local and the heritage context, as some teachers do, is a nice example of how to raise awareness of their rich repertoires and potential. Showcasing their skills and relying on their competences to bridge the two languages and cultures, teachers can create meaningful learning experiences and improve challenging HL learning conditions (e.g. language hierarchies, institutional marginalisation, lacking recognition). It is up to the teachers to provide them with opportunities to appropriate their heritage identity, to discover themselves through the heritage language and culture, and to claim their membership and voice within the community. Critical HL education cognisant of the underlying power dynamics and ideologies can thus enable students and teachers to construct a participative multilingual identity together as a community of practice (Wenger, 1998) and do away with dichotomous and restrictive categorisations of individuals unable to capture the multidimensional and multifaceted nature of people.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the six teachers and especially one of our university students who initiated contact with her colleagues for me to talk to and learn from them. Ευχαριστώ πάρα πολύ!.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 I agree with Hornberger (2005, p. 608) that the term heritage language is not neutral, but rather ‘contested and ever-shifting in meaning’ as much as the associated cultures, identities, knowledges, and traditions allowing HLs and their speakers to develop the necessary flexibility and fluidity to adjust to often restrictive societal/educational forces.

2 To guarantee participants’ anonymity, all names have been changed.