This book explores the relationship between onward migration and its impact on language practices, multilingual repertoires, and education, examining how complex migration trajectories shape migrants’ linguistic experiences and educational pathways. It addresses a gap in research on onward migration by foregrounding its sociolinguistic and educational dimensions, which have received less attention than its social, economic, and demographic aspects.

Bringing together researchers from the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, and Algeria, the volume examines onward migration across diverse European and international contexts. It highlights the varied roles of countries within migration trajectories: Italy, Portugal, and Spain often function as intermediate destinations, while the UK, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Canada more frequently serve as final destinations, although these patterns are not fixed.

Drawing on diverse theoretical and methodological approaches, the chapters examine implications for language maintenance and shift, multilingualism, education, language policies, and transnational practices. This timely volume contributes to sociolinguistics, multilingualism, migration studies, and education research.

Francesco Goglia is Associate Professor of Migration and Multilingualism at the University of Exeter, UK. His research interests include multilingualism and language contact in immigrant communities, code-switching, language maintenance and shift, Italian and Italo-Romance dialects abroad.

Valeria Villa-Perez is Associate Professor of Sociolinguistics and Education at the University of Bordeaux Montaigne, France. Her research focuses on multilingualism and language learning in migration contexts, drawing on collaborative and field-based research conducted in France. She also works on language policy in education and the study of minority languages.