Migrant families’ translanguaging in multilingual science museum activities: a multiple case study with Turkish-speaking families in the Netherlands

In this exploratory, qualitative multiple case study, we aimed to better understand how families of migrant backgrounds use their own and the museum’s languages to engage in museum activities. We analysed which translanguaging processes 15 Turkish-speaking families engaged in while using the different languages of multilingual science museum activities (including Turkish). Our reflexive thematic analysis of the families’ conversations during the activities showed four main translanguaging processes: families flexibly selected languages from museum texts, translated for one another, combined languages and registers, and discussed scientific vocabulary in different languages (e.g. learning animal species names in Turkish). These processes supported families’ meaning-making about the museum content as they shuttled between the museum materials and their joint conversation.