‘In Ukrainian, Please!’: Language Ideologies in a Ukrainian Complementary School

Abstract

This article examines the language practices of teachers and students in a Ukrainian complementary school, and the language ideologies influencing teachers’ responses to students’ language practices in a Ukrainian complementary school. The data presented in this analysis comprise a collection of fieldnotes collected over the course of one academic year in a Ukrainian complementary school located in the Midlands, England. The analysis of these data identifies the presence of two seemingly contradictory language ideologies—separate bilingualism and flexible bilingualism—seemingly coexist in the complementary school, implied through teachers’ and students’ language practices and teachers’ responses to students’ language choice. The analysis also considers the use of Russian in the Ukrainian complementary school, thus exploring the use of a language other than the heritage language (Ukrainian) and the societal majority language (English) in this setting, highlighting the linguistic diversity within this context.

1. Introduction

In the United Kingdom, there are an estimated 3000–5000 complementary schools—voluntary institutions that teach heritage languages and cultures to young people (Evans and Gillan-Thomas 2015; Creese 2009). In teaching language and culture, complementary schools also play a role in transmitting language ideologies to the young people attending them. This function of complementary schools has been described by Çavuşoğlu (2019, p. 1), who states: ‘[A]s centres of culture and linguistic sharing, these schools are also important settings where language ideologies are reproduced through language teaching and learning’. Acknowledging that complementary schools are multilingual settings in which language ideologies are reproduced and transmitted and building on the ever-increasing body of sociolinguistic research on complementary schools in the UK (outlined below), this article examines language practices and language ideologies in a Ukrainian complementary school. More specifically, through the analysis of fieldnotes collected through observations conducted over the course of one academic year in a Ukrainian complementary school located in the Midlands (England), this article explores the language practices of students and teachers, and considers teachers’ attitudes towards these practices as well as the language ideologies informing and underpinning these attitudes. Thus, this paper seeks to address the following research questions:

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What are the language practices of teachers and students in the complementary school?

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What do these practices, and teachers’ responses to students’ practices tell us about the language attitudes of teachers?

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What are the language ideologies underpinning and influencing teachers’ attitudes towards classroom language practices?

In the next section, I outline the key theoretical concepts employed in this article. First, I discuss the concepts of language attitudes and language ideologies, and compare the two. Second, I outline two language ideologies that are central to the analysis presented in this article, separate and flexible bilingualism, and discuss the concept of translanguaging. Next, I provide an overview to the background of the study. First, I introduce complementary schools in the UK, providing an overview of existing research on such institutions as well as a history of Ukrainian complementary schools in the UK. I then outline the history of Ukrainian migration to the UK, and briefly describe the current linguistic situation in Ukraine. Following this, I describe the methodology employed in this study. I then present an analysis of the data, first focusing on the flexible bilingual practices of students and teachers, followed by an examination of teachers displaying an ideology of separate bilingualism. In the final section, I summarize the key findings of the article, and consider the wider implications of these findings.

2. Theory and Concepts

2.1. Language Attitudes and Ideologies

The analysis of data obtained through observations in the Ukrainian complementary school presented in this article explores the language practices of teachers and students, teachers’ attitudes towards these practices (as implied through their response to them), and considers the broader language ideologies underpinning these attitudes. Thus, an outline of the two concepts—which overlap in some ways, but cannot be used interchangeably—is necessary.

Commonly defined as ‘any affective, cognitive or behavioural index of evaluative reactions toward different language varieties and their speakers’ (Ryan et al. 1982, p. 7), the study of language attitudes originated in social psychology (Garrett 2010, p. 34). In contrast, the study of language ideologies originated in linguistic anthropology, but has since been applied in a number of disciplines (Woolard and Schieffelin 1994, p. 56). Consequently, a range of definitions exist for this concept, which differ in focus. One of the broader definitions considers language ideologies ‘shared bodies of common-sense notions about the nature of language in the world’ (Rumsey 1990, p. 346). A more recent, detailed definition of language ideology is that provided by Piller (2015, p. 920), who states:

Language ideologies are […] best understood as beliefs, feelings and conceptions about language that are socially situated and relate language and society in a dialectical fashion: Language ideologies undergird language use, which in turn shapes language ideologies; and together, they serve social ends, in other words the purpose of language ideologies is not really linguistic but social. Like anything social, language ideologies are interested, multiple, and contested.

Thus, language ideologies are shared between members of a given society (or group); they shape and are shaped by language practices, and they ultimately have social, as opposed to linguistic, aims. Furthermore, being perceived as ‘common-sense’ ideas about language, language ideologies are often unquestioned, and individuals are not always conscious that they possess them.

Although studies of language attitudes and ideologies both explore matters related to language, in addition to the aforementioned different disciplinary origins, a range of other differences between the two concepts has been identified. These have been discussed at length by Dyers and Abongdia (2010), whose summary I follow here. One key difference is how observable the two are: language ideologies—while often unstated—can be observed through language practices and language policies, whereas language attitudes are not directly observable, but may be overtly expressed. Furthermore, language attitudes tend to be a more individual phenomenon, whereas language ideologies tend to be shared across a society or group. Crucially, language ideologies may influence the formation of language attitudes; thus, language ideologies arguably precede attitudes. The societal nature of language ideologies also implies that they are long-term and enduring, whereas language attitudes may be more prone to change.

In the analysis of the fieldnotes collected through observations in the Ukrainian complementary school, I consider the language attitudes of teachers in relation to language practices in the classroom, and the underlying language ideologies that have influenced these attitudes. Thus, overall, the article examines how language ideologies influence the language practices of teachers and their responses to students’ language use.

2.2. Separate and Flexible Bilingualism

In the analysis presented in this article, I draw on two language ideologies identified by Creese and Blackledge (2011) in their examination of language practices and ideologies in complementary schools in the UK. These language ideologies are referred to as ‘separate bilingualism’ and ‘flexible bilingualism’, and despite seemingly being somewhat contradictory, coexist alongside each other in the complementary school classrooms observed (Creese and Blackledge 2011, p. 1196).

The first of these two language ideologies—separate bilingualism—was evident in teachers’ requests for language separation and the exclusive use of the heritage language in the classroom. The presence of this ideology rests on the assumption that languages are bounded, separate entities, and keeping languages separate avoids one language potentially influencing or even damaging the other. These requests from teachers have been linked to ‘orthodoxies’ in education and language teaching which argue for maximum use of and exposure to the target language for optimal language learning (Creese and Blackledge 2011, p. 1200). Furthermore, Creese and Blackledge (2011, p. 1197) also argue that this construction of bilingualism both challenges and reproduces essentialist views of culture. Whilst the (exclusive) use of the heritage language provides a means to ‘counter the hegemony of other “mainstream” institutional accounts of nation, culture and language’, in arguing for language separation, teachers also effectively reproduce mainstream essentialist narratives in the complementary school. Overall, the presence of this ideology can be understood as teachers’ ‘response to anxiety about the potential loss of the community language, and the cultural knowledge it is considered to index’ (Creese and Blackledge 2011, p. 1206). Thus, this ideology is rooted in a desire to maintain the heritage language in a context in which it is not dominant in wider society, and therefore may be deemed under threat.

On the other hand, the ideology and practice of flexible bilingualism entails both students and teachers engaging in flexible linguistic practices in which ‘they call into play diverse sets of linguistic resources’ (Creese and Blackledge 2011, p. 1197). Such language use, in which multiple signs are combined to negotiate communication, breaks down the boundaries between individual languages and is reflective of the bilingualism of complementary school participants. It is argued that the employment of such flexible linguistic practices aids teaching and learning, as it contributes to meaning-making in ways that exclusive use of one language (separate bilingualism) does not allow for (Creese and Blackledge 2011, p. 1202). The ideology and practice of flexible bilingualism ties in closely with other terms that have been employed in recent explorations of language practices in multilingual contexts, which consider language as a dynamic set of resources as opposed to viewing languages as immobile, separate, and bounded entities (Heller 2007, p. 2; Blommaert 2010, p. 102). The term that is arguably most frequently employed to refer to such practices is translanguaging, which I draw on in the analysis of language practices in the Ukrainian complementary school presented in this article.

Initially, translanguaging was coined by Williams (1994) to refer to bilingual pedagogical practices adopted in Welsh schools from the 1980s in which different languages were used for different classroom tasks or activities. Since then, the term has been adapted and subsequently extended to refer to language practices more generally, and not just in educational contexts. In its extended use, Garcia (2009, p. 44) defines translanguaging as ‘multiple discursive practices in which bilinguals engage in order to make sense of their bilingual worlds’. Thus, the analysis of language practices from this perspective focuses on the complex linguistic resources used to communicate, and attempts not to focus on languages as bounded, separate units (Garcia and Li 2014, p. 21). This differs from a codeswitching approach, which implicitly accepts the notion of languages as separate, bounded entities, and assumes that the use of more than one linguistic resource is marked and in need of explanation (Lewis et al. 2012; Garcia and Li 2014; Bailey 2012).

Given that the extended meaning differs somewhat from the original meaning of translanguaging, Cenoz and Gorter (2017) have distinguished between the two, referring to them as ‘pedagogical translanguaging’ and ‘spontaneous translanguaging’. The former refers to language use that ‘embraces instructional strategies that integrate two or more languages’ and includes all pedagogical strategies that involve multiple languages (Cenoz and Gorter 2017, p. 904). Spontaneous translanguaging, on the other hand, ‘refers to the reality of bi/multilingual usage in naturally occurring contexts where boundaries between languages are fluid and constantly shifting’ and can take place both inside and outside of the classroom (Cenoz and Gorter 2017, p. 904). As the analysis presented in this article will demonstrate, language practices in the Ukrainian complementary schools could be interpreted as varying in terms of how spontaneous or intentional they appear to be, but nonetheless involve the simultaneous use of various linguistic resources for meaning-making.

3. Research Context

3.1. Complementary Schools in the United Kingdom

Complementary schools are voluntary-run schools serving specific ethnic, linguistic, religious or cultural communities that focus on teaching the heritage language and culture (Creese and Martin 2006; Creese and Blackledge 2008; Creese 2009). These schools operate outside the normal school day, at weekends or on weekday evenings, and are often set up by community members or the parents of students attending them, in response to a lack of support for bilingualism in the mainstream education system (Creese and Martin 2006; Li 2006).

Over recent years, an increasing amount of sociolinguistic and educational research has been conducted on complementary schools teaching a broad range of languages to young people in the UK. Such research has examined a range of issues in relation to such institutions, including matters related to teaching practices, identity, and motivations for attendance (Archer et al. 2008, 2010; Blackledge and Creese 2010a; Martin et al. 2006). Additionally, the language practices of participants (staff and students) and the language ideologies exhibited in relation to these practices have been examined in a range of complementary school contexts in the UK. For instance, research conducted in complementary schools teaching Bengali, Chinese, Gujarati, and Turkish across four UK cities found that the seemingly contradictory ideologies and separate bilingualism and flexible bilingualism (discussed above) simultaneously coexisted in the classroom (Blackledge and Creese 2010a; Creese and Blackledge 2011; Creese 2007). In later research conducted in a Chinese complementary school teaching both Mandarin and Cantonese in Birmingham, Huang (2020) also identified the ideologies of separate and flexible bilingualism as forming part of the ‘stratified ideological ecology’ of the school. Here, the ideology of separate bilingualism was observed among a group of Cantonese teachers, one of whom justified her calls to the students to speak only Cantonese in the classroom on the grounds that it is the only place they can use and practice the language (Huang 2020, p. 6). In contrast, the ideology of flexible bilingualism was observed among a group of Mandarin teachers, who believed it would be unrealistic to expect students to use no English in the classroom, because (as a result of living in the UK) it is effectively their first language.

In addition to examining teachers’ language ideologies in relation to the use of English and the heritage language, a number of studies have also explored intra-linguistic variation and have identified the presence of a standard language ideology (Milroy and Milroy 1985) in complementary schools.1 For instance, studies have identified complementary school teachers expressing preferences for Bengali over Sylheti (Blackledge and Creese 2010b; Creese 2007), Mandarin over Cantonese (Huang 2020), Standard Turkish over Cypriot and other regional varieties of Turkish (Çavuşoğlu 2019; Lytra 2012), and Standard Modern Greek over Cypriot Greek (Karatsareas 2018, 2020), despite the fact that the non-standard varieties of these languages are intergenerationally transmitted and spoken in the family.

Examining the language practices of teachers and students in the Ukrainian complementary school, and the language ideologies implied through these practices and teachers’ reactions to them contributes to this existing body of research on such matters both in UK complementary schools and ethnic minority communities more generally.

Ukrainian Complementary Schools

The history of Ukrainian complementary schools in the UK dates back to the 1950s, when members of the Ukrainian community (who migrated to the UK after World War II; see below)—in towns and cities such as Bolton, Wolverhampton, Oldham, Bury, and Derby started to organize such schools to teach Ukrainian language and culture to their children (Skrypka 2015, p. 141). These schools ran on Saturday or Sunday afternoons; class sizes and locations varied greatly, with some lessons even being held in community members’ homes (Kravchenko 2009; Skrypka 2015). Since those beginnings, the number of schools and the number of students attending them have fluctuated greatly. Between their establishment in 1953 and the early 1960s, an estimated 320 students attended 20 complementary schools (Kravchenko 2009). This was followed by the busiest period for Ukrainian schools, as the new generation of Ukrainians born in the UK started to attend. Jenkala (1991, 1994) reports that the busiest year for Ukrainian complementary schools was in 1966: 43 schools were operating with a total of 217 staff members attended by 2743 pupils. A sharp decline followed: by 1987, only 350 students attended 14 schools, the largest two of which were located in Manchester and London. The number of Ukrainian complementary schools has seemingly continued to decline. Between 2016 and 2017, when data were collected for this project, there were six Ukrainian complementary schools in the UK. The school in which observations were conducted for this project—located in the Midlands, England—was one of the smaller Ukrainian schools operating, and was attended by twelve pupils.

Prior to the research presented in this study, there have been no examinations of Ukrainian complementary schools in the UK. Outside of the UK, research on Ukrainian complementary schools has also been somewhat limited. Tereshchenko and Cardenas (2013) surveyed 184 students attending eight Ukrainian complementary schools in Portugal, obtaining demographic information and identifying what students liked and disliked about attending complementary school. The data demonstrated that the main reasons for students’ attendance were to gain a qualification to improve future job prospects and to meet friends from similar backgrounds. The main negative aspects of complementary school attendance reported by students were the workload, extensive testing, and poor learning resources. Although this study provides a rare example of research conducted in a Ukrainian complementary school, a greater amount of research has been conducted on language in Ukrainian diaspora communities more generally, as is outlined in the following section.

3.2. Ukrainians in the United Kingdom: History and Language

The Ukrainian community in the UK, like other ethnic minority communities, comprises individuals from a range of backgrounds, a consequence of which is variation in the linguistic repertoires, languages practices, and language attitudes and ideologies of community members (for an in-depth analysis of the sociolinguistic situation in the Ukrainian community in the UK see Harrison 2019). The Ukrainian community in the UK comprises two relatively distinct waves of migration, the first of which took place after World War II and the second after Ukraine became independent in 1991. Between 1946 and 1948, an estimated 20,000 Ukrainians were brought to the UK as European Voluntary Workers, the vast majority from Western Ukraine, a part of Ukraine that was never part of the Russian Empire, was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939, and was permanently annexed in 1945 (Dobriansky 1988; Kubal et al. 2011). Thus, the first-wave Ukrainian migrants to the UK were never subject to the Russification policies implemented by both the Russian Empire and Soviet authorities from the 1930s onwards (Bilaniuk 2005). This means the variety of Ukrainian brought to the UK (and subsequently transmitted across generations) by this first migration wave somewhat differs from that transferred into the diaspora by second-wave Ukrainians.

The second wave of Ukrainian migration to the UK comprised individuals from across all regions of Ukraine and took place after Ukraine gained independence in 1991. Until then, Soviet restrictions on migration meant it was not possible to emigrate from the Soviet Union. The linguistic repertoires and language practices of this second wave of migration to the UK have arguably been influenced by language policies implemented throughout the Soviet era. For example, broadly speaking, the variety of Ukrainian spoken reflects a whole host of changes made to Ukrainian as part of Russification policies from the 1930s onwards that sought to make Ukrainian more similar to Russian (Bilaniuk 2005; Shevelov 1989; Karavans’kyi 1994; Taranenko 2007). Additionally, Russian–Ukrainian bilingualism is widespread amongst this group, a relevant factor when considering teachers’ language ideologies in relation to students’ use of Russian in the classroom (Harrison 2019).

The history of Ukrainian migration to the UK means that—broadly speaking—two varieties of Ukrainian are present in the linguistic repertoires of community members: that brought to the UK by the first wave of migration, which I have labelled Diaspora Ukrainian, and Contemporary Ukrainian, which is spoken by those belonging to the second wave of migration, the overwhelming majority of whom also know Russian (see Harrison 2019, 2021). Such linguistic differences between the two waves of migration have yet to be explored in any detail. The brief account of language in the Ukrainian community in the UK provided by Jenkala (1991) predates the second wave of migration, thus the presence of the Russian language in the Ukrainian community in the UK. In the examination of the role of information technology in the formation of communities in Eastern Slavic diasporas in the UK (Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian), Kozachenko (2013) interpreted the absence of Russian on Ukrainian diasporic webpages as a signal that Russian is not considered an acceptable language in the community.

Although linguistic research on the Ukrainian community in the UK to date is relatively scant, various matters related to language have been explored in Ukrainian diaspora communities beyond the UK. For instance, in a further examination of language and national belonging in Ukrainian diasporas across five countries (UK, Germany, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Canada), Kozachenko (2018) found that Ukrainian serves as a central identity marker for diasporic communities, and the presence of Russian within the diaspora is mainly problematic for the more established communities, as opposed to those belonging to more recent migration waves. Ukrainian was also identified by Nedashkivska (2018) as the default language of online and offline communications among the newest wave of Ukrainians in Canada, whose migration was triggered by the Euromaidan. The study found that Ukrainian is a ‘central, indispensable’ part of Ukrainian identity among the group studied (Nedashkivska 2018, p. 138). Furthermore, in the exploration of language and identity through interviews conducted throughout 2014 and 2015 with 38 Ukrainians aged between 18 and 40 years old, Seals (2019) interviewed 26 individuals who had moved from Ukraine to the USA, Canada, and New Zealand. These interviews with diaspora members found that some considered knowing and using Ukrainian an important part of being Ukrainian. However, this posed some challenges in the diasporic context, as it meant choosing between using Russian or Ukrainian and choosing which of these languages to pass onto future generations. This proved particularly problematic for interviewees who were Russian-dominant speakers, as choosing to transmit Ukrainian meant transmitting a language that is not their own dominant language (Seals 2019, p. 129).

3.3. Language in Contemporary Ukraine: Policies, Practices, and Ideologies

The somewhat tumultuous history of Ukraine, and the multiple partitions that have taken place throughout the territories comprising contemporary Ukraine over the course of history have influenced both the development of the Ukrainian language and language practices across the nation. In this exploration of language practices and language ideologies in the Ukrainian complementary school, an understanding of this history, as well as recent research on language practices and ideologies in contemporary Ukraine, provides an important backdrop to the study.2

Towards the end of the Soviet era, Ukraine started to counter the Russification policies implemented since the 1930s. In 1989, Ukrainian was made the sole official state language of Ukraine, which aimed to gradually increase the use and status of Ukrainian (Arel 1995, p. 600). Since Ukraine declared independence in 1991, further language policies implemented which have sought to promote the use and status of Ukrainian have resulted in tensions arising due to the linguistic, ethnic, and regional disparities throughout the nation (Fouse 2000, p. 53). For example, in summer 2012 as a result of the pressure exerted by the predominantly Russian-speaking eastern and southern regions, then President Viktor Yanukovych signed a new language law ‘On the Principles of the State Language Policy’, which allowed minority languages to be awarded the status of regional language. The signing of this law led to protests in the streets and brawls in parliament, as some feared it would lead to closer ties with Russia, due to the dominance of Russian in some regions of the country (Charnysh 2013; Bilaniuk 2016). Indeed, despite the existence of a great number of minority languages in Ukraine, regions with large numbers of ethnic Russians quickly granted Russian the status of regional language, but only two districts granted other languages (Hungarian and Romanian) regional status (Charnysh 2013, p. 1). In April 2019, following Euromaidan, the (illegal) annexation of Crimea by Russia, and in the backdrop of the ongoing conflict in the Donbas, a language law was passed that aims to further promote Ukrainian and increase its use in many aspects of public life, and thus undo past Russification policies (Roth 2019). This current focus on strengthening and consolidating the role of Ukrainian with the aim of strengthening the unity of the nation appears to send a clear message that the Ukrainian authorities consider the Ukrainian language an important part of Ukrainian national identity, and that it can play an important role in nation-building in light of recent, and ongoing, events in the country.

A number of studies have examined language practices, language ideologies, and the relationship between language and identity in Ukraine since the Euromaidan and subsequent conflict in Eastern Ukraine. One key finding of such research is that language and identity are not extremely closely intertwined phenomena in Ukraine (Kulyk 2016a, 2016b, 2018; Arel 2017). Although national identification has become more salient in Ukraine and there has been a widespread rejection of the Russian state, this has not resulted in Russian-speaking Ukrainians switching to the predominant use of Ukrainian (Kulyk 2016a, 2018). Two reasons cited for such language practices not changing are: (i) Russian speakers do not consider language an essential feature of Ukrainian identity (Kulyk 2016a); (ii) Russian ‘remains an important means of interaction’, and provides access to large amounts of information (Kulyk 2018, p. 135).

Regarding language ideologies, Bilaniuk (2016) identified two main ideologies: ‘language does not matter’ and ‘language matters’. ‘Language does not matter’ is exemplified in the widespread non-accommodating bilingual practices and promotes language choice. Although on the surface, this ideology could be deemed liberal as it seemingly allows for choice, it could nonetheless be problematic as language choice is often political, and it assumes at least passive knowledge of both languages. In contrast, ‘language matters’ refers to the belief that the titular language is an important part of nationhood, and supports the promotion of Ukrainian. Furthermore, in the examination of discursive practices in online media, Nedashkivska (2020) identified four prominent language ideologies: (1) the ideology of language as a national and state symbol, (2) the ideology of ‘mother tongue’ or native language activism, (3) the ideology of ‘democratic’ linguistic bilingualism, and (4) the ideology of plurilingualism and internal diversity. Thus, overall, language ideologies in Ukraine are seemingly diverse, and at times somewhat contradictory.

Language ideologies in relation to the use of Ukrainian and Russian have also been explored in educational contexts in Ukraine. For example, Friedman (2009, 2016) explored the role of Ukrainian language instruction in the revitalisation of Ukrainian as the national language of Ukraine. Observations conducted in Ukrainian language and literature classrooms in two schools in south-central Ukraine, and interviews conducted with teachers, demonstrated how teachers provided corrective feedback to students’ use of Russian (Friedman 2009). This feedback sought to socialise students into speaking Ukrainian ‘correctly’ and keeping their languages separate. Interviews conducted four years later with these students found that although students continued to align with the language ideologies transmitted in the classroom, this did not necessarily translate to their language practices, with many continuing to use Russian outside the classroom (Friedman 2016). Thus, teachers’ attempts to promote Ukrainian as the national language of Ukraine were only partially successful.

4. Data and Method

The data presented in this article were collected as part of a broader project that provides the first detailed sociolinguistic examination of the Ukrainian community in the UK through the exploration of the linguistic repertoires, language practices, and language attitudes and ideologies (Harrison 2019). Three separate but complementary data sets were collected through three methods: questionnaires, interviews, and observations in a Ukrainian complementary school. Overall, one of the key findings of the study was the considerable diversity in the Ukrainian community in the UK—particularly between the two migration waves and across generations. Of particular relevance to the analysis of language practices and ideologies in the Ukrainian complementary school are the broader findings related to language attitudes and ideologies throughout the community. Here, the analysis revealed mixed but internally consistent attitudes towards linguistic variation in the community (see Harrison 2019, 2021).

This article presents an analysis of the fieldnotes obtained through observations conducted over the course of 19 weeks of lessons throughout one academic year (September 2016–May 2017) at a Ukrainian complementary school. These observations involved the ‘conscious noticing’ of behaviours and actions in the classroom (Cowie 2009, p. 166), with the aim of producing an in-depth, ‘thick’ description of what was observed over an extended period of time (Heigham and Sakui 2009, p. 92; Starfield 2010, p. 57). The primary aim of the observations was to explore how language is used in a context in which members of the Ukrainian community in the UK regularly meet and interact with one another, and so to analyse the language practices and ideologies in this particular context. This enriched the overall dataset for the broader research project by providing an additional perspective alongside the self-reported data obtained through questionnaires and interviews (Pauwels 2016, p. 71).

The observations conducted align closely with those termed ‘open ethnographic observations’; I entered the field with a blank notebook and pen and set about documenting what I saw, heard, and felt in the classroom (Copland and Creese 2015, p. 38). The fieldnotes comprised a series of notes, bullet points, and drawings in English, Ukrainian, and Russian. They were often not organized chronologically, and multiple scribbles and comments were left in the margins. These notes were immediately typed up after the school day had ended, and rewritten into more cohesive, structured narrative accounts. It should be noted, however, that there are some issues with the particular method of data collection employed in this study. The exclusive collection of fieldnotes—as opposed, for example, to the collection of audio recordings alongside supplementary fieldnotes—is not optimal. Audio recordings would have arguably been a more reliable data source compared to the exclusive collection of fieldnotes. However, ethical hurdles prevented this from being possible. It proved particularly difficult to obtain ethical approval to take audio recordings of minors, and given the limited time frame of the project and the fact data were collected through two other methods, the observations in the Ukrainian complementary school solely involved the collection of fieldnotes.

Although whilst taking fieldnotes, I set about to document what I observed in the classroom, as Copland and Creese (2015, p. 38) warn, the fieldnotes will inevitably have been coloured by my own subjectivities, opinions, and beliefs; they are by no means an objective account of what was observed in the field. Throughout all stages of the research, at least two aspects of my identity might have had an influence on the study (Giampapa 2016): my position as an ‘outsider’, with no ancestral links to Ukraine, and my status as a researcher from a university attempting to make contact with members of a community with which I have no connections. Furthermore, my educational background—having learned Russian since school, long before I studied Ukrainian, and having studied Russian in Ukraine—was another factor that may have impacted on the research. These factors are important to consider in the presentation and analysis of data that follows in this paper. However, despite the limitations of this method of data collection, the study presented in this paper nonetheless provides an insight into language in a Ukrainian complementary school in the UK—a site in which such research has not previously been conducted—and therefore contributes to the ever-growing body of research on such institutions in the UK.

The fieldnotes underwent thematic analysis, which incorporated multiple stages (Boyatzis 1998; Braun and Clarke 2006; Ryan and Russell 2003). First, the full set of fieldnotes were read through as though they were complete corpora; this enabled me to familiarise myself with the data (Braun and Clarke 2008, p. 58). The second read-through involved an initial phase of open-coding—a close-reading of all data to identify ‘any and all ideas, themes or issues they suggest, no matter how varied and disparate’ (Emerson et al. 2011, p. 171). Following this, the data underwent a more focused analysis. This phase of focused-coding involved the ‘fine-grained, line-by-line analysis on the basis of topics that have been identified as being of particular interest’ (Emerson et al. 2011, p. 172). The identification of themes was guided and informed both by the research questions that the project sought to address and the findings of previous research on UK complementary schools. Thus, matters related to language use, attitudes and ideologies, and language and identity were the foci of this phase of analysis. In this phase, a more top-down approach to identifying themes was adopted, as is advocated by Erickson (2004, p. 191).

In cases where teachers and students were quoted in the fieldnotes, it was necessary to translate and transliterate the data, and to make explicit which language was being used. The following transcription conventions were adopted:

[translate]	translated segment
<transliterate>	transliterated segment
bold font	Ukrainian
italic font	Russian
normal font	English

The Ukrainian complementary school comprised a nursery and two classes, Class 1 and Class 2, which were organized by age. Observations were conducted in both classes; in total, eight observations were conducted in Class 1, and eleven in Class 2. Class 1 (taught by Tetiana3) comprised five students aged approximately five to seven years old, and Class 2 (taught by Olena) comprised seven students aged eight to ten years old (more details can be found in

Table 1. Complementary school student details.

Class 1 (Tetiana’s Class), Aged 5–7
Student Name	Background
Inna	1st wave, 3rd generation; both parents 2nd generation.
Anastasiia	Olena’s daughter; 2nd wave, 2nd generation; both parents 2nd wave.
Larysa	2nd wave, 2nd generation; both parents 2nd wave.
Nataliia	2nd wave, 2nd generation; father 2nd wave; mother Polish.
Vitalii	Father 2nd wave; mother 1st wave, 2nd generation.
Class 2 (Olena’s Class), Aged 8–10
Student Name	Background
Roman	Inna’s older brother; 1st wave, 3rd generation.
Kateryna	Larysa’s older sister; 2nd wave, 2nd generation.
Taras	Vitalii’s older brother; father 2nd wave; mother 1st wave, 2nd generation.
Petro	Mother 2nd wave; father British.
Maksym	Petro’s older brother; mother 2nd wave; father British.
Iuliia	2nd wave, 2nd generation; parents 2nd wave.
Anton	1st wave, 3rd generation; parents 1st wave, 2nd generation.

). In both classes, students’ backgrounds varied. However, it is important to note that all but three of the twelve students across the two classes had at least one parent belonging to the second wave of Ukrainian migration to the UK; thus, Russian formed part of at least one parent’s linguistic repertoire. Additionally, both teachers are second-wave Ukrainians, and had knowledge of Russian as well as Ukrainian; in fact, Olena made the decision to transmit Russian (as well as Ukrainian) to her children.

5. Language Practices and Teachers’ Language Ideologies in the Ukrainian Complementary School

5.1. Flexible Bilingualism

Observing language practices in the Ukrainian complementary school provided insights into the ‘messiness of actual usage’ of language in the classroom (Heller 2007, p. 25); however, it was also possible to identify some patterns and tendencies in both students’ and teachers’ practices. It should be noted here that the data presented throughout the remainder of the article were selected for illustrative purposes, and the findings of this analysis are indicative of the broader trends identified across the full set of fieldnotes. Overall, similar to other studies of language practices in complementary schools in the UK (Creese and Blackledge 2011; Martin et al. 2006), students predominantly used English (both to classmates and teachers), whereas teachers frequently used Ukrainian, albeit often alongside English. In some cases, students in both classes were also observed using Russian; this is explored in more detail in the following section. Within these broad trends regarding the use of Ukrainian, English, and (less frequently) Russian, teachers and students engaged in multilingual practices, juxtaposing different resources from their multilingual repertoires for teaching and learning purposes, to ensure effective communication, and identity work.

Teachers and students were frequently observed employing their linguistic resources in creative and playful ways during lessons to negotiate various classroom activities. For example, during activities that resembled ‘bilingual label quests’ (Creese and Martin 2006), Olena tried to help students deduce the English translation of vocabulary items through the employment of various communicative resources. In Extract 1, for example, Olena helps the students identify fruit and vegetable vocabulary by providing one clue in English, another combining English and Ukrainian, and using different gestures. Here, although seemingly largely unplanned and spontaneous, Olena’s juxtaposition of communicative resources serves a pedagogical purpose, as it enables students to successfully negotiate the task. Thus, this example of pedagogical translanguaging suggests the presence of the ideology of flexible bilingualism in the classroom:

Extract 1

Olena continues to help students with any unfamiliar words that are written on the sheet and gives them various clues. One word that they have an issue with is баклажан <baklazhan> [aubergine], and they spend some time trying to work out what it means. Olena gives them a clue in English, ‘it’s a vegetable’.

Olena provides a similar clue when trying to get the students to work out the meaning of another word, ‘it’s a ягoда <iahoda> [berry]’. Throughout this task, Olena uses English and Ukrainian words, as well as gestures, to help the students identify the meaning of the words on the sheet.

Following such vocabulary learning activities, students were often playful and creative with new vocabulary, employing them within predominantly English utterances. Despite some students possessing relatively low levels of proficiency in Ukrainian, they would employ some Ukrainian—often the sporadic use of single words, which somewhat suggests that Ukrainian thus adopts a seemingly primarily symbolic—as opposed to communicative—function. For example, the students’ use of the Ukrainian words for ‘Ukraine’ and Ukrainian’ in Extract 2—taken from Tetiana’s class—is one example of such practice:

Extract 2

As the students get on with writing in their books, they chat to each other about their stationery, ‘I’m going to use this pencil’, ‘I got this pencil from Україна <Ukraina> [Ukraine]’, and complain about having to write in Ukrainian ‘I’m really bad at writing in українська <ukrains’ka> [Ukrainian]’.

Such playful use of Ukrainian by students, provides further evidence of the ideology of flexible bilingualism in the classroom. While their flexible bilingual practices could be considered examples of spontaneous translanguaging, they could also be deemed examples of students ‘self-styling’. Here, students strategically appropriate ‘the language tokens associated with their in-group for in-group identity work, even though they are not proficient in the heritage language’ (Canagarajah 2012, p. 112). Although interpreting such practices as self-styling arguably assumes practices as less spontaneous and more intentional, in that the speaker employs resources strategically, they nonetheless involve the students employing different resources from their multilingual repertoires. Thus, such multilingual practices indicate the presence of an ideology of flexible bilingualism in the complementary school.

Another way in which teachers employed multilingual practices was through the use of Ukrainian and English, either alongside each other, or one after the other, to provide explanation and instruction to students. As presented in Extracts 3 and 4, these practices show both teachers employing flexible bilingual practices in a seemingly unplanned manner, employing both English and Ukrainian for the pedagogical purpose of providing explanation and instruction to students:

Extract 3

When the students have finished the translation activity (Ukrainian to English), Tetiana asks them in Ukrainian to turn to page fifteen in their textbooks. She then immediately repeats the instruction in English. Vitalii has forgotten his book and tells Tetiana this in English. Tetiana tells him off in English, and then goes on to repeat her initial instruction to turn to page fifteen in Ukrainian.

Extract 4

Olena gets her laptop out and introduces the first part of today’s lesson in English and Ukrainian, saying ‘today we will talk about прикметники <prykmetnyky> [adjectives]’. She then proceeds to translate прикметники <prykmetnyky> [adjectives]’ into English so that the students have all understood what the focus of the lesson will be. In English, Olena then asks the students whether they know what an adjective is, and if they know any Ukrainian adjectives.

While the above extracts present examples of teachers providing explanation and instruction to students in a seemingly unplanned manner, there were also instances in which teachers appeared to adopt multilingual practices—employing both English and Ukrainian—more intentionally. As with the practices in the above examples which appeared largely unplanned, these further examples of pedagogical translanguaging by teachers nonetheless aid the teaching and learning of Ukrainian and provide further examples of the presence of the ideology of flexible bilingualism. In Extract 5, for instance, students were observed responding to instructions initially provided in Ukrainian stating they did not understand what has just been said to them. Consequently, it was necessary for Olena to repeat these instructions in English, but she does so by interspersing English after each Ukrainian sentence. Here, Ukrainian is deliberately juxtaposed with a parallel translation to support pupils’ decoding of the Ukrainian:

Extract 5

Olena tells the students in Ukrainian what the plan for today’s lesson is. Roman has not understood her and asks her in English what they will be doing over the course of the day. Olena repeats what she told them in Ukrainian, but speaks a little more slowly and pauses between each sentence to translate what she has just said into English to make sure they have all understood her.

Overall, the linguistic practices of teachers and students in the complementary school involved the juxtaposition of different resources from individuals’ linguistic repertoires. Such practices appear to have varied in terms of being planned or unplanned. For example, in the case of both teachers, whether appearing planned ahead of time or not, their employment of flexible bilingual practices ultimately served instructional purposes and aided the teaching of Ukrainian to the students; thus, these flexible bilingual practices could be deemed examples of pedagogical translanguaging. The instances in which students were observed playfully appropriating Ukrainian vocabulary, interspersing it within largely English utterances—regardless of their proficiency levels in Ukrainian—could be deemed examples of spontaneous translanguaging. Whether such practices are interpreted as planned or unplanned, or examples of either pedagogical or spontaneous translanguaging, they nonetheless imply the presence of an ideology of flexible bilingualism, illustrating how the complementary school setting can provide a space in which multilingualism is embraced.

5.2. ‘In Ukrainian, Please!’: Separate Bilingualism

I turn now to explore how an ideology of separate bilingualism was also apparent in the complementary school, evident in teachers’ calls for students to exclusively use Ukrainian. Although it was commonplace for both teachers and students to engage in multilingual practices, incorporating Ukrainian and English, there were also many instances in which teachers insisted that students only used Ukrainian. In both classes teachers were observed rejecting students’ use of English, instructing them to use Ukrainian instead. Such requests from teachers—reflecting an ideology of separate bilingualism—are at odds with the ideology of flexible bilingualism implied by the multilingual practices of students and teachers observed in both classes. This coexistence of these two seemingly contradictory ideologies thus mirrors the situation observed in other complementary schools (Blackledge and Creese 2010a; Creese and Blackledge 2011; Huang 2020). Furthermore, although both teachers exhibited an ideology of separate bilingualism, in some cases, it was exhibited in slightly different ways, and in different contexts.

First, both teachers exhibited an ideology of separate bilingualism in relation to the completion of different tasks and activities. As shown in Extract 6, Olena mainly insisted on students’ monolingual use of Ukrainian when completing particular tasks. Here, Olena provides the students with instructions multilingually, using both Ukrainian and English to ensure the students have understood her. However, once the students start to complete these tasks and use English, Olena advises them to complete the task monolingually in Ukrainian.

Extract 6

Once all of the students have taken it in turns to read the text aloud, Olena tells them that they now need to retell the story. She tells them this in Ukrainian first, and then in English. One of the boys starts to retell the story in English, and Olena immediately stops him to tell him that he needs to do this in Ukrainian.

There were also several instances in which the students asked Olena about the language they needed to use for the completion of a given task, to which Olena would always respond telling them that they need to complete it monolingually in Ukrainian, as is shown in Extract 7. Thus, despite her own multilingual practices, Olena nevertheless insists on the monolingual completion of tasks. The nature of her response ‘no, it’s Ukrainian school’ (notably in English) suggests that she considers it almost a given that tasks need to be completed in Ukrainian only. However, this expectation of such monolingual Ukrainian task completion is at odds with the multilingual practices of both Olena and the students, and it is interesting to note that the students do not find this distinction between language use for communicative purposes and language use for task completion obvious.

Extract 7

The students have been watching an animated presentation that Olena has made to teach them about adjectives in Ukrainian. The video ends and Olena asks the students in English whether they might like to make similar animations. The students seem very keen to do this, and Olena tells them that if it is something they would like to do at home, she is happy for them to do this, and will write a letter to their parents explaining what they need to do. The students seem excited and ask Olena a series of questions about this in English. Olena responds to these questions in English, and then suggests they could all make cartoons about a Ukrainian folk story of their choice. She is then asked by a student whether they will complete their projects in English, and Olena responds in English, telling them, ‘no, it’s Ukrainian school’.

Like Olena, Tetiana was also observed instructing her students to complete specific tasks and activities in Ukrainian. However, there were also moments in which she was observed advising students (often in Ukrainian) to use Ukrainian in contexts slightly more loosely related to the completion of tasks, as demonstrated in Extract 8. Here, Tetiana corrects a student’s use of English and implies that she should be using Ukrainian to discuss the present activity. However, it could also be argued that the student’s casual reference to the word she is about to write on the board is not as directly related to task completion as in Extract 7, as it does not affect her ability to write on the board in Ukrainian. Thus, this correction suggests that in addition to expecting students to complete tasks monolingually in Ukrainian, Tetiana also expects the students to use Ukrainian as much as possible in the classroom.

In fact, although both teachers were observed instructing students to use only Ukrainian more generally in the classroom, Tetiana was observed doing so more frequently than Olena. Extract 7 provides one instance in which she requested that students switch from English to Ukrainian whilst talking to one another. Here, Tetiana starts the lesson talking to the students only in Ukrainian and does not accommodate Inna’s (first wave, third generation) use of English, nor does she instruct her to switch to Ukrainian. However, upon hearing Nataliia (second wave, second generation)—who has higher proficiency in Ukrainian than Inna—speak English, she directs her to speak Ukrainian instead of English, using the imperative construction ‘гoвoри пo-українськи’ (‘speak in Ukrainian’). Thus, in this extract, the coexistence of the two ideologies—of separate and flexible bilingualism—are observed in close proximity to one another: Tetiana’s non-accommodation of Inna’s use of English results in a bilingual interaction taking place between the two of them, reflecting an ideology of flexible bilingualism, whereas the instruction for Nataliia to use Ukrainian reflects an ideology of separate bilingualism. Thus, in this instance, expected language practices appear dependent on the proficiency of each individual student:

Extract 8

Tetiana enters the classroom and speaks to the students in Ukrainian straight away. Inna turns to Tetiana and talks to her in English about her birthday party; Tetiana responds in Ukrainian. Next, Nataliia starts chatting to Tetiana in English, and Tetiana immediately responds to her with the instruction, ‘гoвoри пo-українськи <hovory po-ukrains’ky> [speak in Ukrainian]’.

The extracts presented here provide evidence of an ideology of separate bilingualism coexisting alongside the ideology of flexible bilingualism explored in the previous section. In some cases, particularly in Olena’s class, this ideology is observed in relation to specific language learning activities and less so in relation to general classroom communication. In slight contrast, Tetiana appeared to impose this ideology of separate bilingualism more strongly than Olena, insisting more often on the monolingual use of Ukrainian more generally, and did not reserve this only for the completion of tasks.

The use of Russian was sometimes also observed, albeit less frequently than Ukrainian and English, which were commonplace in the classroom. Overall, across the 19 observations conducted in the two classes, I recorded 13 instances in which students used Russian (five in Class 1; eight in Class 2). However, the lack of recorded data and the fact I observed each class on alternate weeks means there may have been more cases in which students used Russian. The students who were observed speaking Russian were (in all but one instance) the children of at least one second-wave Ukrainian parent; these students also tended to have higher levels of proficiency in Ukrainian than the students with first-wave parents. In 12 of the 13 instances in which the use of Russian was observed, the teacher was present. Despite both teachers possessing knowledge of Russian, there was only one instance recorded where a student’s use of Russian was accommodated. In seven of these instances, teachers either provided corrective feedback to students or instructed them to use Ukrainian. In the remaining four cases, the use of Russian was neither acknowledged nor commented on by teachers. Extracts 9 and 10 are examples of cases in which students’ use of Russian was not explicitly rejected by the teacher, but was also not commented on:

Extract 9

Once the video Olena has made about noun gender in Ukrainian has finished playing, Olena talks to the students in Ukrainian, asking them whether they would like to use the Powtoon software4 for a homework project. She repeats this in English to make sure that all of the students have understood her. Kateryna then asks Olena whether she will need to create an account to use the software and uses the Russian ‘тебе нужнo…<tebe nuzhno> [do you need to]’, whilst talking to her. Olena answers Kateryna’s question in Ukrainian, not commenting on her use of Russian.

Extract 10

Tetiana gives the books out to the students, and she instructs them, in Ukrainian, to write their ‘ім’я <im’ia> [name]’, and ‘фамілія <familiia> [surname]’ on the new exercise books she has just given them, as well as ‘зoшит з пис’ма <zoshchyt z pys’ma> [writing book]’. Larysa responds in Russian to Tetiana’s instructions, stating ‘я не мoгу сама написать <ia ne mogu sama napisat’> [I can’t write it by myself]’. In response to this, Tetiana goes over and helps her write on her book.

In both extracts, taken from either class, the fact that neither teacher objected to the use of Russian may indicate that they are accepting of such language use in the classroom. However, neither teacher—despite processing knowledge of Russian—accommodated the students’ use of Russian, and Olena continued the exchange in Ukrainian. Such non-reciprocal interactions may indicate that both teachers are accepting of such language practices, thus providing further evidence of the presence of an ideology of flexible bilingualism in the complementary school.

However, in a number of further instances in which students used Russian, both teachers reacted to such language use, providing students with Ukrainian translations of some of the Russian words they had used, as is demonstrated in Extract 11:

Extract 11

The lesson is interrupted by a knock at the door. The person knocking is Olena’s daughter—Anastasiia—who has come to ask her mother for her folder. Anastasiia asks Olena, ‘мoжнo мoй фoлдер5 пoжалуйста? <mozhno moi folder pozhaluista?> [Could I have my folder please?]’. Olena responds to her daughter’s question in Ukrainian, telling her she does not understand what she has just said. Anastasiia responds to her mother saying ‘мoй фoлдер <moi folder> [my folder]’, and Olena hands it to her, advising her to use the word ‘будь ласка <bud’ laska> [please]’, as opposed to ‘пoжалуйста <pozhaluista> [please]’.

Notably, in this extract, Olena provides such corrective feedback to Anastasiia (her daughter) for using Russian, (falsely) claiming not to understand even though Olena has chosen to transmit Russian to her children as it is used in her family (Harrison 2019). In implicitly directing her daughter to switch from Russian to Ukrainian, Olena sets an example to the students by not accommodating this use of Russian in this context.

Tetiana was also observed providing corrective feedback to students using Russian. For example, when Anastasiia used Russian, such as in Extract 12, Tetiana responded by providing a Ukrainian translation. Thus, similar to the previous extract from Olena’s class, Tetiana suggests—without explicitly stating it—that Russian is not an acceptable language in the complementary school, even in cases where the student is talking to themselves. In Extract 13, Tetiana responded to the use of Russian by explicitly reminding the student to use Ukrainian instead. Again, this evidences an ideology of separate bilingualism in the Ukrainian complementary school that is at odds with the commonplace flexible bilingual practices observed in the school:

Extract 12

Tetiana overhears Anastasiia talking to herself, saying ‘чтo, чтo, чтo <chto, chto, chto> [what, what, what]. She corrects her and advises her to say ‘щo, щo, щo <shcho, shcho, shcho> [what, what, what]’ instead.

Extract 13

Anastasiia responds to some of Tetiana’s questions using Russian. Tetiana notices this and reminds her to speak Ukrainian ‘пo-українськи, будь ласка <po-ukrains’ky, bud’ laska> [in Ukrainian, please]’.

Across the relatively small number of instances, while teachers’ responses to pupils’ use of Russian varied, it was more common for teachers to either provide corrective feedback or instruct students to switch to Ukrainian, evidence of the coexistence of the ideology of separate bilingualism alongside the ideology of flexible bilingualism.

Although teachers’ responses to these instances in which students used Russian appear to largely resemble their reactions to students’ use of English outlined above, the fact a teacher was only observed once (very briefly) accommodating students’ use of Russian is noteworthy. While this might assume this is simply because Russian, unlike English, is not a language shared by all teachers and students, the lack of accommodation of Russian, and (more frequently) corrective feedback and instructions to switch from Russian to Ukrainian may also be related to the historical and current relationship between Ukraine and Russia, and consequent negative attitudes towards the Russian language in response to this. Thus, teachers’ attitudes towards the limited number of times students were observed using Russian could be either interpreted as further evidence of the ideology of flexible bilingualism, but could also be indicative of negative attitudes towards the Russian language due to various sociopolitical factors, as discussed towards the beginning of the article.

6. Discussion and Conclusions

This paper has explored the language practices of teachers and students in a Ukrainian complementary school and teachers’ language ideologies in relation to these practices through the analysis of fieldnotes. Given that the observations were conducted in one relatively small Ukrainian complementary school, the findings of this analysis cannot be generalized to Ukrainian complementary schools in the UK more generally. Despite this, however, the findings of the study provide a valuable preliminary insight into a complementary school teaching a language that has not yet been explored in the UK, and contributes to the existing body of research on language practices and language ideologies in complementary schools in the UK.

The analysis of the data presented here has demonstrated that both teachers and students in this particular Ukrainian complementary school adopt multilingual practices, combining various resources from their linguistic repertoires, predominantly Ukrainian and English. Such language use reflects a practice and ideology of flexible bilingualism, thus mirroring the findings of other studies conducted in UK complementary schools (e.g., Creese and Blackledge 2011; Huang 2020). The observed flexible bilingual practices in the Ukrainian complementary school could be interpreted as varying in terms of how spontaneous or intentional they appeared to be, but nonetheless aided the teaching and learning of Ukrainian, whilst also creating a space that accepted and embraced individuals’ multilingual repertoires.

However, despite such flexible bilingual practices being commonplace in the complementary school, this study—again like those conducted on other complementary schools in the UK—identified a second, seemingly contradictory ideology of separate bilingualism, evident in teachers’ requests for students to use Ukrainian, despite this not reflecting their own language practices in the classroom. The coexistence of these two ideologies in the Ukrainian complementary school both provides an opportunity for teachers and students to employ multilingual practices, whilst also providing a space for the heritage language—both of which counter the monolingual English ideologies prevalent in the mainstream education system and society more generally.

The analysis presented in this paper also briefly considered the use of Russian in the complementary school classroom. Despite Russian being used relatively seldom in comparison to English and Ukrainian, an examination of teachers’ responses to such language use provided a further insight into the language ideologies present in the Ukrainian complementary school. Teachers’ responses to students’ use of Russian appears to largely resemble responses to the use of English, with one difference—the near absence of accommodation of Russian. This non-accommodation and the fact that teachers corrected the use of Russian more often than they engaged in non-reciprocal interactions, considered alongside various sociohistorical factors and current relations between Russia and Ukraine, may suggest that Russian is not deemed to be suitable by teachers in the complementary school setting, despite it being part of some students’ and teachers’ repertoires. However, a further reason that could influence teachers’ responses to students’ use of Russian may be that—unlike English—it is not a language shared by all participants. Building on this preliminary examination of Ukrainian complementary schools in the UK, future research on such institutions could explore the presence of Russian in this setting, and the diaspora more generally, in order to further explore the presence of this language in the community. This has the potential to provide a valuable insight into the linguistic and cultural diversity within the community, influenced by a variety of sociohistorical factors.

More generally, although recent studies have started to explore linguistic variation and diversity in UK complementary schools, future studies of language in diasporic settings—both in complementary schools and more broadly—would benefit from paying increased attention to their inherent linguistic diversity. The different historical backgrounds and migration trajectories of individuals results in both different varieties of heritage languages being spoken, and in diverse multilingual repertoires. Further examinations of this diversity would lead to a more nuanced understanding of language and migration, as well as the different language ideologies—both transferred into the diaspora from their respective home countries and developed in the diasporic setting. An increased understanding of language practices and language ideologies present in complementary schools, and providing teachers with sociolinguistic training to heighten their awareness of students’ diverse linguistic repertoires—as has recently been recommended by Matras and Karatsareas (2020) in relation to standard and non-standard heritage language varieties—could lead to the ideology of separate bilingualism becoming less prominent in complementary schools. Consequently, complementary schools have the potential to become sites of multilingualism where students are able to freely explore different parts of their linguistic repertoires, potentially mitigating the risk of students developing negative attitudes towards parts of their linguistic repertoires.