Towards conceptualizing 'demographic agency' in Family Language Policy: The case of Arabic-Persian bilingual families in Iran.

This article examines the maintenance of the Arabic language among Iranian Arab families in Khuzestan province, Iran, emphasizing the role of "demographic agency"—the collective influence of a concentrated minority population—in facilitating language use at home despite dominant Persian monolingual policies. Drawing on qualitative ethnographic data from three bilingual Arab families in Ahvaz, the study finds that living in geographically and socially close-knit Arabic-speaking communities enables parents to transmit Arabic intergenerationally through everyday face-to-face interactions, creating a laissez-faire environment for language maintenance. Although parents recognize the socioeconomic advantages of Persian proficiency, they prioritize Arabic as a core marker of ethnic identity and cultural belonging. The findings highlight how demographic settlement patterns can counterbalance institutional pressures favoring the majority language, contributing to the resilience of minority languages in multilingual contexts.