Growing up bilingual and negotiating identity in globalised and multicultural Australia

Children’s experiences of using language impacts on their bi/multilingual identity and this has important implications for their capacity to become proficient in their home language/s. This chapter analyses findings from research investigating children’s and families’ multiple constructions of identity in speaking Spanish and English. This work demonstrates the links between children’s bi/multilingual identity and language use in everyday life. By drawing on concepts of hybridity, diaspora and Bhabha’s (1998) third space, issues of language are problematised and linked to constructions of bi/multilingual identity in a globalised world characterised by superdiversity.