Qualitative, Interpretive Case Study

Qualitative case studies, the main focus of this review, typically include participants and sites that are described in rich detail. There may also be a nesting of cases: a phenomenon (e.g., language loss or shift) is studied in individuals within larger social units (a family, a classroom, an institution), which are in turn nested within and indeed constitutive of a larger socioeducational context (e.g., communities affected by immigration, colonization and decolonization, new language policies, or curriculum changes). The case, even when examined on its own in relative isolation, is therefore always in interaction with other humans (including the researcher) and other elements in its social, physical, and ideological ecology, regardless of whether those interactions and influences are acknowledged or studied. That is, researchers may refer explicitly to macro-micro or researcher-researched interactions and intersubjectivity; alternatively, the work may be presented in a more ostensibly objective, detached, and decontextualized manner, reflecting distinct epistemologies and genres of conducting and reporting research.

Most current qualitative case study research in first and second language and literacy education is interpretive as opposed to realist or positivist. It also tends to be social-constructivist Footnote ⁴ and sociocultural in orientation, paying attention to the various ways in which learning and performance are mediated, performed, and understood. It views reality and meaning as coconstructed through the dynamic processes of interacting with others and with the wider social, material, and symbolic world. The research attempts to understand the meanings underlying human knowledge, thought, and action, sometimes but not always by also explicitly seeking the insights and perspectives of case study subjects (participants) themselves or others they engage with.

Defining and Delimiting the Case

At the core of case study is the case itself—the individual entity—which, as noted earlier, for the purposes of this article constitutes one or more persons learning and using language in such settings as homes, educational institutions, community settings, virtual worlds, and peer groups, in a manner and context that is considered theoretically and descriptively interesting. But case study is more than just the description of a person or linguistic site. The main goal of case study research is to gain a thorough understanding of the phenomenon being studied, of which the case is an exemplar. Thus, the case is a case of something (Dyson & Genishi, Reference Dyson and Genishi2005)—of learning another language, code-switching, engaging in intercultural communication or language play, performing a multilingual identity—and it is that phenomenon that is being examined closely within the context of the case-in-context and against the backdrop of existing theory and research. Because case study research seeks to provide a thorough documentation and exploration of the phenomenon under investigation, it can be important to examine the interplay of linguistic, social, cultural, political, and affective dimensions of experience and performance.

The case offers both the researcher and reader a window into another person's experiences with language. Yet the case is usually presented from the perspective of the researcher, who conducts the research for a particular reason, recruits and chooses the participants, selects interview transcripts and observations to include, and decides how best to characterize the individual's situation in writing and other forms of representation, even when claiming to include the participant's emic (insider) perspective or voice. Therefore, the case study cannot really be considered complete without understanding why the study was undertaken and what it is a case of. Description, interpretation, and, in some studies, explanations are offered for the observed phenomena as well as implications for pedagogical, programmatic, or policy development and for generating more abstract conceptual insights when warranted. Whether the focus of the study is descriptive, exploratory, explanatory, or designed to develop new models by means of analytic generalization, or a combination of all of these, depends a great deal on the given study and its goals (Duff, Reference Duff2008a; Yin, Reference Yin2014).

Generating a detailed description of the case, which often includes its history and sociocultural and linguistic environment and a discussion of other individuals with whom the case interacts, is only one aspect of case study. The researcher's findings or insights based on the case might pertain to any number of possible topics (e.g., developmental processes; issues of affect, identity, culture, agency and autonomy; the role of teachers, peers and digital technologies in socializing learners; transnational migration and education; or the development of grammar, vocabulary, or other linguistic elements at very advanced levels). The presentation of cases is expected to lead to new levels of understanding, awareness, empathy, and possibly intervention, and further research on the part of readers and researchers and even among participants themselves.

Case Selection: Single Versus Multiple Cases and Other Decisions

As the studies reviewed in this article illustrate, case studies may focus holistically on just one case (e.g., a person, family, or social group), although multiple cases (e.g., 2–10) are becoming more common. Four to six cases can be ideal for doctoral research especially, permitting multiple ways of reporting the findings (e.g., in pairs, as individual cases, or according to themes that cut across the cases rather than case-by-case and cross-case analysis; cf. Duff, Reference Duff2008a; Stake, Reference Stake2006). Including multiple cases can also mitigate against possible attrition among participants. Decisions about numbers depend a great deal on the topic being investigated and whether multiple candidates meeting recruitment criteria exist and agree to participate. To some extent, the choice is therefore determined by the preferences of the researcher or writer, how much there is to report about a single case, and the existence of exemplary, willing subjects (Duff, Reference Duff2008a, Reference Duff and Chapelle2012a, Reference Duff, Mackey and Gass2012b).

Some research lends itself better to the study of a single intriguing case, whether relatively typical or atypical, rather than multiple cases. Besides being logistically less complicated (usually) than dealing with more than one site or participant concurrently, single-case studies permit elaboration on the complexity and characteristics of that one case, much as biographies allow readers to understand the fullness of a single subject's life.

The space available or word limits (e.g., in a short journal article vs. a dissertation or book) is another factor influencing the number of cases that can be included in a report, as two recent book-length accounts of L2 Japanese language learning illustrate. Pasfield-Neofitou (Reference Pasfield-Neofitou2012) examined the online communication and social networks of learners of L2 Japanese supporting their language learning and relationship-building. The study included as many as 12 Australian focal participants and their Japanese interlocutors. The learners’ computer-mediated Japanese-based communication was investigated longitudinally for frequency of use of various electronic communication tools, and for the nature of their language choice, code- and orthography-switching, translation, and medium choice (e.g., email, Facebook, MSN). Using discourse analysis and frequency counts, the analysis of messages was supplemented with several interviews per participant over the multiyear study. Perhaps most reflective of typical L2 case study reporting, one chapter then provided a detailed analysis of just two participants, a 19-year-old male student and a 28-year-old female student (the latter more proficient in Japanese), and considered important contextual information about each one.

In another related Australian multiple-case study of L2 learners of Japanese, Kurata (Reference Kurata2011) examined the informal social networks that helped support six students’ learning and use of Japanese over a 9-month period. She analyzed the different means and languages by which they communicated with members in their bilingual networks, both in Australia and Japan. Having six cases meant that Kurata could devote more space to each one than in a study with twice as many cases, and this too was likely only feasible in a book-length monograph.

A related matter in multiple-case studies is the research design issue of whether cases are to be selected and researched more or less concurrently or, rather, sequentially, meaning that the research on subsequent cases (e.g., obtained through snowball sampling) will be informed by research on prior cases. There is often some flexibility in case study research as compared with more experimental and controlled research, but a recruitment strategy should be planned in advance and then modified as needed.

In addition to providing details about the number and characteristics of the cases (participants), information about how cases were selected (e.g., for typicality or representativeness, for maximum variation or diversity, or as critical, extreme or deviant cases), and over what time period, and how data were obtained and analyzed becomes very important in helping readers interpret findings judiciously and consider their relevance, significance, and transferability to other contexts (Duff, Reference Duff2008a).

Duration of Case Studies and Timescales

Many qualitative (and quantitative) case studies, including several studies described above and in what follows, are longitudinal, tracking the cases over time, particularly when the object of study is development or change (e.g., in skill areas, identity formation, migration, and learning trajectories). Attention to transformations in dispositions, thinking processes, and practices also presupposes a longitudinal perspective across different possible timescales (Duff, Reference Duff2008a, Reference Duff, Mackey and Gass2012b; Harklau, Reference Harklau, Ortega and Byrnes2008).

However, not all case studies involve active, systematic, longitudinal data generation and analysis. Studies may instead involve intensive interviews, observations, or other sources of data at one primary point in time or within a fairly limited time frame, or may include retrospective life history interviews or written narratives, or earlier documents to obtain a sense of learning development or pathway or changes in language use. Such texts may then be complemented by the analysis of other kinds of data, from policy documents, tests, participant journals, or observations, for example. Because of the nature of language learning (being a process that unfolds over time and across different social and geographical spaces), a longitudinal perspective on the person's life or trajectory (past, present, and future) is often apparent or assumed, if not part of the research design itself.

Critical Reflexivity, Positionality, and Ethics

It is now expected that in reports of interpretive qualitative case study, scholars will include some evidence of reflexivity and positionality (Pillow, Reference Pillow2003) with respect to various aspects of the research, such as their roles and involvement in the study, their relationship to participants and the wider community and context (language, culture, institution), and to the phenomenon under investigation, as well as their ways of managing ethical challenges and other practical decisions prior to, during, and after the study (e.g., issues connected with protecting the privacy and identity of participants; Duff & Abdi, in press).

There is also growing recognition in qualitative research that data are coconstructed (not simply collected), particularly in case studies using interviews, observations, and other approaches where the researcher's presence and role in the study is not only visible but also shapes the data in very obvious discursive and symbolic ways (e.g., Talmy & Richards, Reference Talmy and Richards2011). The qualitative researcher is therefore sometimes referred to as a kind of research instrument, that is, a mediating coparticipant or actor in the research process with a certain amount of power. Thus, case study researchers should reflect carefully on the social, situated process of generating meanings and insights. This is often done through researchers’ journals or logs documenting the research process, decisions made, issues or questions that arise, or areas for potential follow up. It is also done by means of careful, nuanced reporting.

Diary studies involving narrative inquiry into researchers’ and others’ language learning experiences have been used in qualitative case studies in applied linguistics for generations. They have often contained candid reflection by the participants and researchers about their stances, motives, dilemmas, misgivings, challenges, and in some cases triumphs. With the rise in auto-ethnographic research in our field resulting in lengthy memoirs of individuals’ language learning, as in Simon-Maeda's (Reference Simon-Maeda2011) auto-ethnography of her 35 years of learning and using Japanese in Japan in a variety of social roles, in Duff et al.'s (Reference Duff, Anderson, Ilnyckyj, VanGaya, Wang and Yates2013) study and narratives of five focal participants’ learning of L2 Chinese, and in indigenous research presented in the second half of this article (in the section on Case Studies of Contemporary Language Learning in Multilingual Contexts), reflexivity and positionality are often foregrounded.

Explicit Discussion of Analysis Protocols, Techniques, or Principles

A common weakness in qualitative case study research, from the proposal stage to eventual publication, can be a lack of information about how the researcher has engaged with data, the logic of decision-making and data analysis, the overall corpus of episodes or instances or participants, how or why particular cases or examples were selected for fuller discussion, and the representativeness of observations (as reflected in excerpts of interviews, classroom language use, or discourse in other oral, written, or multimodal contexts). Case study research proposals or articles often state that the case study data are (to be) analyzed iteratively or using the constant comparative method, for example, with no elaboration of what the analysis entails operationally.

There are now many resources to guide case study data analysis and many published models. Methods for systematically conducting case studies and for analyzing data and for presenting and writing up findings are outlined by a number of qualitative researchers in applied linguistics (Casanave, Reference Casanave, Paltridge and Phakiti2010; Duff, Reference Duff2008a, Reference Duff and Chapelle2012a, Reference Duff, Mackey and Gass2012b; K. Richards, Reference Richards2003, Reference Richards and Hinkel2011), as well as in nursing, education, political science, management, and other fields (e.g., Bryman, Teevan, & Bell, Reference Bryman, Teevan and Bell2009; Flyvbjerg, Reference Flyvbjerg, Denzin and Lincoln2011; L. Richards, Reference Richards2009; Yin, Reference Yin2014). In interpretive case studies, data may include (a) L1 or L2 narratives and life histories produced by research participants themselves (e.g., through journals, diaries, or memoirs, as noted earlier) with limited direct involvement by researchers; (b) narratives or accounts elicited interactively through interviews with researchers; (c) nonnarrative data elicited by interviews, questionnaires, researcher logs or journals, tests, observations (digitally recorded or not); and (d) other documents and media (e.g., tests, census data, homework assignments). Each data source needs to be managed and analyzed and then integrated appropriately with other sources of data and analyses.

L. Richards (Reference Richards2009) provides advice to researchers about keeping good records of their data (i.e., records that are accurate, contextualized, detailed, useful, and reflexive); suggestions for data reduction; and methods for coding, modeling, and then theorizing or drawing analytic generalizations or insights from the analysis of data, particularly in content or thematic analyses. Saldaña (Reference Saldaña2009) also illustrates many options for memoing and coding textual data, using both manual and digital tools, and provides advice about how to proceed from coding with prewriting strategies and finally producing a written report of findings. Similarly, Bryman et al. (Reference Bryman, Teevan and Bell2009) provide details about multiple approaches to coding or indexing textual data by means of computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) such as NVivo, and some of the pros and cons of using such tools (see also Dörnyei, Reference Dörnyei2007). Finally, numerous reference materials exist for narrative and discourse analysis in applied linguistics (e.g., De Fina & Georgakopoulou, Reference De Fina and Georgakopoulou2012; Paltridge, Reference Paltridge2012).

Triangulation

Triangulation usually entails bringing together multiple sources and types of data for analytical purposes (Denzin, Reference Denzin1970), including, potentially, multiple participants, researchers, time periods, and conceptual frameworks; interviews, observations, researcher and/or participant journals, archival or documentary data, assessments, and other information that is relevant (e.g., feedback from participants on transcripts or early drafts and interpretations, known as member checks) (Duff, Reference Duff2012c). Triangulation is generally felt to enhance a qualitative case study when it is conducted and reported well and when the relationship between data and interpretations is made clear and is well warranted. Although not all data or analyses will lead to the same interpretations or findings, triangulation involving multiple sources can add to the texture and multidimensionality of the study, providing different vantage points from which to consider the phenomenon in question. In many short articles reporting on case studies, however, and in mixed-methods research, even with considerable triangulation and multiple cases, researchers may simply provide summary profiles of a small number (1–3) of focal cases exemplifying the phenomenon being investigated and may not be able to incorporate many additional types of data or cases due to space constraints.

Generalizability and Theory Building

The degree to which one can or should arrive at general principles or knowledge of wider significance based on case studies continues to be hotly debated in literature on research methodology (e.g., Duff, Reference Duff2008a; Ercikan & Roth, Reference Ercikan and Roth2009; Flyvbjerg, Reference Flyvbjerg, Denzin and Lincoln2011; George & Bennett, Reference George and Bennett2005). Many (but certainly not all) qualitative researchers believe that some degree of generalization may be both warranted and desirable in case studies under the appropriate conditions (Duff, Reference Duff2008a; Eisenhart, Reference Eisenhart, Ercikan and Roth2009). Yet case study research is often misconstrued by researchers from other methodological traditions (and even by case study researchers themselves), and especially by those seeking universal laws or truths and predictable outcomes deriving from the manipulation of particular variables. There may be undue emphasis on the impossibility of statistical generalization of findings to wider populations even from carefully selected and representative samples (cases). For some researchers, this is considered a fatal weakness of case study. For them, case studies are merely exploratory, comparable to pilot studies whose primary function is to generate hypotheses for future larger-scale research. Another common critique is that case studies are too subjective and biased toward the verification of researchers’ own beliefs, and too limited in number, to have any validity or to be able to contribute to general theories or models. Statements of this sort—and interesting refutations—are found in Duff (Reference Duff2008a), Eisenhart (Reference Eisenhart, Ercikan and Roth2009), and Flyvbjerg (Reference Flyvbjerg, Denzin and Lincoln2011).

One response to such concerns is that it is only natural for researchers and readers to draw inferences from studies and to consider their wider relevance, a process described as analytic (or theoretical) generalization as opposed to statistical generalization. As Yin (Reference Yin2014) notes, generalization in relation to a case is “the opportunity to shed empirical light about some theoretical concepts or principles . . . that go beyond the setting for the specific case” (p. 40). Simply put, this kind of generalization refers to the “lessons learned” (p. 40). These inferences or insights, according to Yin, may involve “(a) corroborating, modifying, rejecting, or otherwise advancing theoretical concepts that you referenced in designing your case study or (b) new concepts that arose upon the completion of your case study” (p. 41).

Flyvbjerg (Reference Flyvbjerg, Denzin and Lincoln2011) also addresses such misconceptions about case study, emphasizing that the status of “context-dependent knowledge and experience” (p. 303) associated with case study is often contentious and thus downplayed or dismissed in conventional (quantitative) research approaches. He argues that this represents a serious disservice to the development of research, researchers, knowledge, and practitioners in the social and natural sciences. Case study has, in fact, been highly influential in the past, notwithstanding such concerns, both in generating theory and critiquing, contesting, or falsifying theory (e.g., by finding deviant or nonconforming cases, that is, those at odds with existing principles or observations; Duff, Reference Duff2008a). Echoing George and Bennett (Reference George and Bennett2005) and others, Flyvbjerg argues that “formal generalization is overvalued as a source of scientific development, whereas ‘the force of example [i.e., cases]’ and transferability are underestimated” (p. 305). He encourages critical reflexivity among researchers, whatever their approach, in confronting their biases, and suggests that the risks of unacknowledged subjectivity are no greater in case study than in other work. Cases that offer contradictory or disconfirming evidence or otherwise seem problematic can be valuable precisely because they reveal the complexity of the phenomenon being studied and the multiple possible interpretations that may exist or the inadequacy of existing theory to account for such cases.

Generation 1.5 Linguistic Minority Students and Higher Education

Immigrant children and young adolescents who arrive in another linguistic milieu with their first-generation-immigrant parents, often after receiving some education in their first language (L1) and country of origin, and then go on to receive the remainder of their education in their L2 in their postimmigration setting, are referred to as generation 1.5 (G1.5) students. As a group, G1.5 students may share certain features with generation 2.0 peers (i.e., those born in the country of settlement after their parents’ immigration). Similarities may include L2 oral (especially vernacular) fluency and aspects of L2 and cultural identity, especially if they arrived as young children. They may also share linguistic and cultural features with generation 1.0 (G1.0) members (their parents’ generation), again depending on the age of their immigration, their cultural and educational background, and their proficiency in their L1 and L2 prior to immigration. G1.5 is thus a contested category that tends to essentialize or categorize together as homogeneous a population that is extremely diverse in terms of histories, investments, resources (e.g., social and economic capital), and achievements. Furthermore, the label often betrays a deficit perspective regarding the students’ knowledge, capability, and L2 proficiency. However, case studies of G1.5 students can help illustrate the diversity and heterogeneity behind such a label.

The term linguistic minority (LM) students, a broader label, is used by some scholars instead (e.g., Kanno & Harklau, Reference Kanno and Harklau2012) to refer to students who speak a societally nondominant language at home yet may be highly proficient (even native speakers) of English, possibly generation 2.0. Their educational trajectories are often vastly different from one another as well. G1.5/LM students nonetheless represent a surging demographic in high schools and universities in many immigrant-receiving countries that tend to be ill-equipped and underresourced to attend to their specific needs, abilities, and histories.

Some aspects of the G1.5/LM students’ linguistic and literacy development, challenges, experiences, needs, and identities have been examined through case studies of their academic writing, which may bear traces of vernacular oral language and genres. Studies also examine how language ideologies cultivated in their homes and classrooms may be contradictory, or how speaking one or another language (or dialect) is valorized or shunned, with particular social and affective consequences.

Several recent volumes in Canada and the United States include case studies of G1.5 students, underscoring how they differ both from one another and from (traditional) international and domestic students (e.g., Frodesen, Reference Frodesen, Roberge, Siegal and Harklau2009, and studies in Kanno & Harklau, Reference Kanno and Harklau2012, and Roessingh & Douglas, Reference Roessingh and Douglas2012). Kim and Duff (Reference Kim and Duff2012) in the latter-mentioned collection, for example, described the experiences of two Korean-Canadian G1.5 women (from a larger set of seven students) who, over a one-year period, narrated and reflected on their histories of negotiating bicultural and bilingual (Korean and English) practices, identities, and communities in English-Canadian high school and university settings. There they straddled the distinct cultures and expectations (social, cultural, and linguistic) of their Korean-Canadian peers and family members, and those of the English institutional mainstream. Close affiliation and engagement with one linguistic community seemed to take a toll on their (perceived) proficiency in the other language, their social networks, their pop cultural knowledge, and their academic performance. This then had an impact on their imagined future possibilities.

Three of the chapters in Kanno and Harklau (Reference Kanno and Harklau2012) also feature case studies of LM students in U.S. postsecondary institutions. Those studies focus especially on the enactment of individual students’ agency to attain college admission, mediated by key mentors and resource people in their social worlds, and various other forms of capital at their disposal. Each documented the perseverance and resilience of the focal participants to complete high school successfully despite a host of obstacles (e.g., transnational and within-state migration, family instability, limited income). One of the studies, by Harklau and McClanahan (Reference Harklau, McClanahan, Kanno and Harklau2012), followed a young Latina named Paola over 4 years (through 35 interviews, the collection of Paola's schoolwork, class observations, and researcher field notes), documenting her progress and constraints from the eighth grade through to successful graduation from high school, college admission, and the completion of an associate degree from a community college.

Varghese (Reference Varghese, Kanno and Harklau2012), in the same volume, takes a discursive approach to examining a Somali student's narratives of her own agency, her personal resources (especially her family), and her self-efficacy in relation to her educational journey against the backdrop of her status as being “disadvantaged” (i.e., a low income racial minority), from the institution's perspective. This case was drawn from a larger study by the author and her colleagues of 33 immigrant and freshmen in their first year at a U.S. university who were taking English as a second language (ESL) courses.

Finally, using narrative inquiry, Fuentes (Reference Fuentes, Kanno and Harklau2012) describes the linguistic and educational experiences of an Azeri student named Nasim at university following her immigration from Iran. Fuentes especially noted Nasim's resentment of the heavy emphasis on English at the university and her oppositional stance to other aspects of her education there. The researcher collected many kinds of data related to Nasim's perspectives, from interviews accounts, observations in and out of class over a 1-year period, and from other documents and personnel. Despite experiencing some social isolation at university, Nasim's agency (in the form of resistance) was, according to Fuentes, one reason she succeeded in obtaining her bachelor's degree.

In the area of academic writing more specifically, Riazantseva (Reference Riazantseva2012) described circumstances and dispositions demonstrated in the academic English writing of three middle-class G1.5 Russian college students who, despite not being excellent academic writers in English, did well because of what was described as their “assertiveness, self-confidence and ambition”—again, manifestations of agency and self-efficacy.

In a case study of a Somali generation 1.5 student who had arrived in the United States 2 years earlier at an American university, Bloch (Reference Bloch2007) reported that blogging proved instrumental in helping him bridge oral vernacular and academic print literacies, providing a social and textual forum for developing rhetorical strategies, generating ideas, and displaying and internalizing the identities of blogger and writer.

Collectively, therefore, these studies and many others now being undertaken emphasize the linguistic, social, and textual challenges and resources of G1.5/LM students, particularly those who may be struggling at the outset of the studies. They also examine the learners’ (and their mentors’) agentive behaviors and stances. Less commonly studied perhaps are the academically high-achieving and highly proficient bilingual or multilingual G1.5 students who excel educationally and are socially and culturally well-adjusted and integrated.

Heritage-Language Learners

Heritage language (HL) learners, as multilingual research subjects and students, are currently receiving considerable attention in applied linguistics (e.g., Brinton, Kagan & Bauckus, Reference Brinton, Kagan and Bauckus2008; He & Xiao, Reference He and Xiao2008; Trifonas & Aravossitas, Reference Trifonas and Aravossitas2014; and the Heritage Language Journal). HL learners often have some latent (inactive) knowledge of their ancestral languages from having heard them in the home when younger or from having taken formal coursework in the HL in after-school or weekend programs as children or young adults. Many report rejecting the HL in late childhood and shifting to the dominant language of mainstream education and society, even at home, but later may return to the formal study of their HL at university or use of the language in other contexts (Duff, Reference Duff, Brinton, Kagan and Bauckus2008b; He, Reference He, He and Xiao2008; Li & Duff, Reference Li, Duff, He and Xiao2008). Issues of identity, multilingual socialization, ideologies, and the positioning of HL speakers by themselves and by others (e.g., as ethnically authentic, “legitimate,” and proficient) in their social worlds at home, at school, and in the wider community have been investigated in relation to the learners’ HL development, life pathways, identities, code-switching, and language retention and use (e.g., He, Reference He, He and Xiao2008). Because a HL is often nurtured within homes, the case is often a family with one or more children negotiating family language policies. As in studies of G1.5 (LM) students and their experiences, the case studies of HL learners demonstrate a wide range of home languages, practices, experiences, and outcomes that are far from homogeneous.

Fogle (Reference Fogle2012) conducted an illuminating study of Eastern European children adopted by American parents, identifying bidirectional socialization strategies in their new adoptive families (i.e., children socializing parents into their preferred language/discourse practices; and parents socializing children into theirs). Three families and their respective children were selected to illustrate different ways in which language socialization, narrative activity, and code-switching in Russian and English occurred or were resisted by certain family members (especially children). The children's agency (capacity to take actions or adopt dispositions exerting some degree of discursive control) was very salient, as it often is in HL research (and in the G1.5 research in the previous section), where there may be ambivalence or opposition on the part of youth toward HL retention, use, and cultural identities and routines associated with older generations.

Guardado's (Reference Guardado2009) study also featured the family (and community group) as a unit of analysis in an examination of HL use among children in Spanish-speaking homes and community groups in Canada. From his larger qualitative study involving multiple families in distinct community cultural groups, he focused in that article on the language ideologies and practices inculcated within a Spanish Scouts group and, more specifically, within one family whose children participated in the group.

Torrez's (Reference Torrez2013) case study of rural farmworkers of Mexican descent in rural Michigan and issues of Spanish language (and especially Mexicano) retention, bilingualism and biculturalism, and identity also takes the family as the unit of analysis. Torrez examined three focal farmworker families’ experiences and concerns (and her own auto-ethnographic historical narrative) about the loss of language, culture, a strong sense of family (familia), and other aspects of collective and personal identity. Framed by language socialization and Latina/o critical race theory, Torrez drew upon oral history methods (interview-generated narratives) and observations over a five year period.

In another case study of Spanish HL learners, Abdi (Reference Abdi2011) focused not on families but on individual students in Canadian high school Spanish courses comprising both HL and non-HL students. She observed that the (non-Hispanic) teacher and other students made assumptions about their classmates’ heritage and proficiency in Spanish and thus their legitimacy as linguistic models, illustrated by her case study of Pat, one of four focal participants in Abdi's larger study. Thus, students who were identified–sometimes erroneously–as HL speakers were conferred a privileged status in the course as role models. However, students such as Pat not recognized as such (but from a HL background) were denied opportunities to validate their abilities and backgrounds and chances to speak more Spanish in class.

Several HL case studies on Chinese language and literacy socialization and learning (or nonlearning) have been conducted in recent years as well (see reviews in Duff, Reference Duff, Curdt-Christiansen and Hancock2014; Li & Duff, Reference Li, Duff, Curdt-Christiansen and Hancock2014). These make salient the many options for “being Chinese” and participating in Chinese language/literacy education and negotiating discourses of “Chineseness” in relation to non-Chinese languages, identities, and cultures (especially those connected with English).

Japanese and Korean heritage languages and contexts have also been the focus of case studies of HL learning and socialization. Examples include Doerr and Lee (Reference Doerr and Lee2013) for Japanese, and Kang (Reference Kang2013) for Korean. The former was a multiyear study of a weekend Japanese language school for children in the United States (for both “native” and “heritage” learners of Japanese, both contested categories); and the latter examined eight (second-generation) Korean American college students’ negotiation of languages and identities in their Korean foreign language courses over the period of a year.

The HL case studies reviewed here, and many others, bring to the fore tensions related to (multicultural or hybrid) identities, bi- and multilingual proficiency (or language rejection and loss), and community affiliation (or disaffiliation) often experienced by HL youth in diaspora contexts.

Indigenous Language Learning and Revitalization

Although some scholars place indigenous language learning under the umbrella category of heritage or community language learning, there are major contextual differences worth noting. First, HL learners are usually situated in diaspora postimmigration contexts with vital communities of speakers of their HL somewhere in the world, possibly in their country or region of origin, if not in the immediate diaspora environment. For indigenous learners, conversely, there may be relatively few living fluent speakers of their languages due to devastating legacies of colonization, oppression, and assimilation. The languages are often vulnerable to obsolescence when intergenerational transfer declines or is forcibly obstructed.

Making matters even more complicated, the indigenous language being learned may not have a written form and there may be limited documentation of it, few teaching materials or trained, certified, and proficient teachers, and limited opportunities for people to hear, learn, or use it. Multiple dialects of the language spoken in different communities may further confound people's attempts to learn the language.

Against this very challenging and sometimes traumatic recent history, informative case studies are now being undertaken of indigenous language learning, socialization, and revitalization or reclamation on the part of individual learners and their families. Some of these studies are auto-ethnographic, conducted by Indigenous researchers studying their own language and culture learning. Others are conducted by university researchers in partnership with local community members or learners. Here I describe four such studies, two conducted in Canada and two in the United States.

McIvor's (Reference McIvor2012) auto-ethnographic study documented her history and her attempts to (re)learn Cree, her maternal language, by means of the master-apprentice model, self-study, and other activities. Similarly, Rosborough (Reference Rosborough2012) reflected on her own engagements with and strategies for learning her ancestral language (Kwak’wala) in the same province (British Columbia), also over many years. Both provided poignant narratives of the experience. Embracing Indigenous research methodologies and narrative devices, they described and analyzed their learning cycle using culturally significant metaphors and symbols, such as those of a six-pointed star blanket and corresponding seasons in Cree, and those connected with making button blankets for ceremonies among the Kwakwaka’wakw people. Despite their strong motivation and access to indigenous resources and supports, however, both encountered various obstacles to developing more proficiency in their respective ancestral languages (reporting rather modest gains in conversation, formal greetings and prayers, and songs). And yet they found the process itself profoundly worthwhile and rewarding and remained committed to the cause.

Case studies by researchers not investigating their own but rather others’ indigenous language learning include those by Hermes and King (Reference Hermes and King2013) and Basham and Fathman (Reference Basham and Fathman2008). The former explored Ojibwe (or Chippewa or Anishinaabem) language revitalization in the Minnesota area in eight families with school-aged children. Two of the families were described in depth in their article. The researchers were especially interested in exploring the affordances of multimedia technology creating a “simulated language-immersion experience” (p. 128) through short movies, computer flash cards, games, and other interactive tools for the purpose of language revitalization among interested urban families. The study lasted 8 weeks, during which researchers visited the homes, interviewed participants, recorded (and also had families record) their use of the software and language, and also captured the dynamics of how mothers and their sons in both families engaged with, and also demonstrated and discussed, their use and views of the media. Most of their observed discussions, apart from when they interacted directly with the software, were heavily managed by the mothers and English was the main language used. Their use of Ojibwe tended to be formulaic, based on the software phrases, with limited extension to everyday communication in the home. However, the members of the two families who had most successfully instilled a disciplined and planned approach to use of the materials maintained positive attitudes toward continuing to learn the language, whereas many of the other families initially participating in the study dropped out before the end, an outcome certainly not unique to indigenous language learning.

Basham and Fathman's (Reference Basham and Fathman2008) study involved indigenous adult learners in Alaska seeking to revitalize endangered Athabascan languages. The first phase of this 2-year, two-phase study was a case study of two so-called latent learners (who had heard the indigenous language when growing up but were not speakers of the language until later in life), each with high levels of education and metalinguistic knowledge, who now had proficiency in their ancestral language. The second phase included 15 beginning-level adult learners. Data included a language use survey, language autobiographies, individual interviews, and formal oral assessment of receptive and productive skills (for a subset of participants).

The first two cases (of latent learners) were exceptional in many ways, principally because of their linguistic training and success in first learning and then teaching the languages. Unfortunately, readers do not gain a very vivid, complete sense of the first two cases (or the other participants), perhaps because of the way the data are represented and the small number of excerpts from interviews or autobiographies, and limited narratives of their lives. This is sometimes a shortcoming in other case studies as well. Nevertheless, decolonizing language revitalization work such as this can be very significant for participants and for program developers, and case studies can reveal possible avenues for further research and education.

Transnational Sojourners’ and Migrants’ Language and Literacy Learning

This final section concerns the experiences of immigrant and migrant transnational adults, families, and youth, including their settlement, educational and employment opportunities, integration into new (L1 and L2) communities, and their language and literacy practices. Abundant research is being conducted on this now, but several case studies of note include those by De Costa (Reference De Costa2010), Han (Reference Han2009, Reference Han2012), King (Reference King2013), Ricento (Reference Ricento2013), and Song (Reference Song2012). A number of these studies explore the ideologies and identities circulating in participants’ own ethnolinguistic communities as well as in the target-language and host communities that influence their experiences of gaining proficiency and status in the communities.

Ricento (Reference Ricento2013), for example, in a special issue of the Journal of Language, Identity, and Education on dis-citizenship, described the case of one middle-aged (G1.0) Hispanic refugee to Canada, Fernando, a Colombian pediatric surgeon who had fled his home country due to kidnapping and extortion experiences. Postimmigration, however, he encountered significant downward professional and social mobility due to English language and professional licensure issues. As a result, Fernando experienced severe challenges in terms of his employment, meaningful citizenship, social participation, and dignity. Ricento's larger multiyear study involved 30 families, comprising 120 refugees, from which six focal families from different geographic and linguistic source countries were chosen for closer study, one of which was the aforementioned Colombian family.

In immigrant contexts in which transnational youth are the focus there is some overlap with issues taken up in generation 1.5 studies. Most of the articles in Warriner's (Reference Warriner2007) special double-issue of Linguistics and Education on transnationalism and language learning and use feature case studies of immigrant and transnational youth in U.S. communities, and exemplify the phenomenon in question with one to three cases.

With respect to studies of L2-learner sojourners, Yi (Reference Yi2013), from a larger study of five such learners, reported on a 2-year study of one Korean adolescent international student. The student was an educational sojourner abroad (sometimes referred to as a satellite or parachute kid in research literature and media) whose parents remained in their home country (Korea). The student, Hoon, appeared to be reasonably strong academically but was required to repeat his advanced ESL literacy class three times. According to Yi, he felt stigmatized and distressed because of his precarious and face-threatening ESL status, a common complaint among longtime sojourners and immigrant students alike. To compensate, he worked hard to achieve a high academic grade point average by taking various electives with light literacy requirements and by enrolling in summer courses with cooperative Korean peers, which did little to advance his own academic literacy skills.

In a related case study, Song (Reference Song2012) examined the experiences and perspectives of the mothers of two much younger Korean boys (age 5) in an early study-abroad context in the United States over a 1-year period. She analyzed the linguistic practices cultivated in the home and the rationale for those practices. The mother attempted to keep the children's transnational and bilingual options and community memberships open for the future, as they anticipated a return to Korea. Indeed, reverse migration and transnational migration to other destinations for educational and other purposes is an increasingly common phenomenon in society and one that obviously influences individual and familial investments in multilingualism and multiliteracy.

In summary, case studies in this section underscore the indeterminacy of transnational language learners’ experiences and life pathways, and the constraints and affordances associated with their migration and success with English (and other) language learning and social participation.