Making children multilingual: language policy and parental agency in transnational and multilingual Moroccan families in Spain

The main aim of this paper is to analyse the role of family micro-Language Policies (LP's) in the context of the Moroccan Diaspora in urban and semi-urban areas in Spain by examining and contrasting different cases of language transmission within transnational migrant families of Moroccan origin. The paper answers the following questions: How are heritage languages constructed by transnational Moroccan families and in what context and under what sociolinguistic regime(s) are families' LPs developed, negotiated and decided upon? How can LPs develop a functional and practical status of heritage languages or linguistic varieties as well as increase children's opportunities to construct multilingual repertoires? What proactive agency do parents display for these purposes? Data were collected in three projects using a qualitative, ethnographic sociolinguistic approach.