ABSTRACT
Summary: There has been an unfortunate tendency for much of the work on the relationship between majority and minority languages in education to assume a liberal perspective. This defines the minority language as a ‘problem’ and tends to relate this ‘problem’ to the individual rather than to the power relationships associated with structured social inequality between majorities and minorities; it also tends to express the view of the majority language group. Recent work suggests an alternative perspective. If education is seen as the basis of both social control and ideological transmission, then the language of education must relate to the manner in which unequal relationships between groups are legitimized and institutionalized.
The evidence suggests that nineteenth-century state educational policies aimed at eliminating the Welsh language. This policy was justified by an appeal to liberal philosophy, English being hailed as the language of individual achievement and mobility. However, the potential revolutionary threat of a minority language employed to transmit a counter-ideology was not lost on those involved in planning the disappearance of the Welsh language. The exclusion of Welsh from certain spheres and the increasing differentiation of function between the two languages in Wales led to Welsh being relegated to informal community structures. The pressure for the extension of bilingual education derives chiefly from those who achieved upward social mobility and who had learned Welsh informally. The contentious issue of bilingual education should thus be seen in terms of the conflict deriving from class fragmentation.
