The Arabian Peninsula possesses a relatively high profile in world affairs. Headlines converge predictably on oil production rates, sectarian tensions, political alignments in the region, and more recently, armed foreign interventions. Concomitantly, the region's soft power is variously projected through a dynamic media industry, sporting spectacles, religious leadership, a reputation for avant-garde architecture and shopping extravagance. The casually superficial nature of much English-language media coverage, and the over-represented focus on the spectacular, leads inevitably to what is often a cursory, partial and essentialised view of dynamic, complex and multi-layered societies. In contrast, the share of academic research on the region and, in particular, fieldwork on societal issues, is meagre. Sustained investment in education and infrastructure, coupled with policies targeting low income families and women have brought far-reaching social changes to the Peninsula in the late 20th century, examples of which include the increased salience of women in public spheres and, in line with global trends, a growing commitment to life-long formal educational opportunities (see for instance, Al-Barwani & Albeely, 2007; Samier, 2015; Schvaneveldt et al., 2005). Attained in just a few decades, this progress is remarkable considering the paucity of universal education and the widespread functional illiteracy prior to the commencement of a socioeconomic development paradigm dependent on extractive industry revenue. Arab Peninsula societies, with the exemption of Yemen, have become highly networked, literate and mobile, and they display an increasingly widespread bilingual (or multilingual) profile. Academic disciplines have been slow to recognise the need to better understand the daily lived realities of the Peninsula's inhabitants, whether citizens or non-citizen residents. As a contribution towards this emerging area of study, the chapters in this collection examine the urban multilingual realities of inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula in the early 21st century in private and public spheres, and from the perspectives of learners, teachers and researchers.

Far from being culturally homogenous, the Arab Peninsula States display considerable variation in governance, demographics, topography, socioeconomic indicators and cultural practices.