This thesis is a case-study on bilingualism and biculturalism from Somalian perspectives. The aim of the present study is to explore raising bilingual and bicultural children in Sweden from parents’ views. It focuses on three questions: 1. What are the parental policies and strategies used to maintain one’s heritage language and culture, as well as to integrate into the society of a host country by learning its language and culture?; 2. How do parents think that their choices of upbringing might shape the everyday life of children?; and 3. What challenges do parents encounter when raising bilingual and bicultural children?. Qualitative data was collected based on individual in-depth interviews with six Somali parents living in Sweden, each parent having at least one child between the age of three and thirteen years old. A thematic analysis has been applied to the collected material. The findings of the present study show that, based on the parents’ viewpoints, maintaining the language entails preserving the cultural identity. This perspective-based study also found that heritage language maintenance is a collective task between all family members when looking at parent-child interactions, and children are active agents who can negotiate language choice and use at familial settings. Parents believe that successful bilingualism is crucial for their children’s everyday lives in terms of family and community ties, understanding different people and cultures, career prospects, to name a few while, children with insufficient knowledge of heritage language are bullied and isolated within the same ethnic group. However, the study findings suggest further investigation on how gender ideologies correlate with heritage language maintenance.

Chinese as a heritage language is one of the fastest lost languages in the world. In fact, in most Chinese families that have left China, the heritage language is lost by the second generation. When people move from their homeland to a place where the primary language is different from their home language, one issue becomes whether their heritage language can be retained. The situation in Sweden is quite different from that in English-speaking countries when it comes to maintaining Chinese as a heritage language. Most Chinese moving to Sweden have no prior exposure to the Swedish language. The purpose of this study is to find out which strategies Chinese parents use to help their children learn and maintain proficiency in the Chinese language. It also investigates the progress made using these strategies. A qualitative research approach was taken and semi-structured interviews of the children’s mothers were performed. Some of the children in the study were born in China and some were born in Sweden. During these interviews, a number of strategies were identified that parents use to help their children learn and maintain the heritage language. These included, for instance, mother tongue education, watching Chinese TV and films, parents giving their children encouraging comments, and associating with other Chinese families. Some families recommended strategies that they felt would be beneficial for others, like delaying the start of daycare. According to this study, the effects from, for example, mother tongue education and encouraging comments, should have implications on how educators shape their programs, and the way they engage the parents in their children’s language training. When analyzing the various strategies and their effects on the children in the study, it became apparent that the younger sibling always shows a lower level of Chinese proficiency compared to the older sibling. This phenomenon is herein called the younger sibling syndrome. / 汉语作为承袭语言是世界上消失速度最快的语言之一。事实上，在大多数离开中国的华人家庭中，承袭语言基本上到第二代就已被遗失。当人们从他们的祖国迁移到一个主要语言与他们的母语不同的地方时，就要面对如何保留自己母语的问题。在瑞典，汉语作为承袭语言在被传承方面的情况与英语国家截然不同。大多数移居瑞典的中国人早期很少接触过瑞典语。本论文的目的是找出生活在瑞典的中国父母使用哪些策略来帮助他们的孩子学习和维持他们的中文以及使用这些策略所取得的效果。本论文采取了质量研究方法，对孩子的母亲进行了半结构化访谈。研究中的一些孩子出生在中国，一些孩子出生在瑞典。在这些访谈中，笔者归纳出了一些父母用来帮助孩子学习和保持传统语言的策略。它们包括：母语教育、观看中文电视和电影、父母给孩子鼓励性的评价，以及与其他中国家庭的交往等等。一些家庭推荐了他们认为对其他人有益的策略，比如推迟开始幼儿园的时间。根据这项研究，例如母语教育和鼓励性评价的影响，会对教育者如何制定他们的教育计划，以及他们让父母参与孩子的语言培训的方式产生影响。在分析各种策略及其对研究中儿童的影响时，很明显，与哥哥姐姐相比，弟弟妹妹的中文水平总是较低。这种现象在本文中被称为幼弟妹综合症。

This study investigates how Levantine Arabic-speaking immigrant parents´ language ideologies, i.e how they think and feel regarding heritage language maintenance, and language policies influence heritage language maintenance or loss for their children. This overarching topic is explored by examining the following questions; (1) What do parents think about maintenance of heritage language for their children? and which concerns do they have? (2)How do they talk about and describe their children´s readiness or resistance to learn/maintain their heritage language? (3) What do parents believe their role is in maintaining heritage language? (4) In which way, according to parents, does maintenance of heritage language influence children´s construction of identity and sense of belonging? In order to answer these questions, I conducted five semi-structured interviews with five Levantine Arabic-speaking immigrant parents, from Palestine and Syria, residing in Sweden and analysed recurring themes using Braun´s and Clarke´s (2006: 87- 93) thematic analysis method. The study findings show that parents attached great significance to preserving their children's heritage language due to its close relationship with their cultural, religious, ethnic, and social backgrounds as well as strengthening their success opportunities in future. Furthermore, parents stated that their children did not resist maintenance of heritage language. Instead, results show that children were actively involved in discussions about heritage language maintenance and language practices. Parents confirmed that Arabic language is their children's heritage language. In relation to influence of heritage language maintenance on constructing children´s identity and sense of belonging, parents´ views varied between emphasizing its role in strengthening children´s sense of belonging to their Arabic background, allowing them a flexible ability to belong to two different cultures or communities, and that maintenance of heritage language is not the major influencer on constructing children identity. Participants discussed the methods they use to enhance Arabic language among their children, challenges they encounter, and potential solutions.