ABSTRACT
A distinguishing feature of Spain’s democratic emergence from Franco’s forty-year period of dictatorship has been the restoration of community political and cultural structures. The country is now divided into seventeen autonomous communities, each with its own community parliament. There are still (1994) significant differences between these communities in the extent to which powers have been transferred to the various community administrations from Madrid. The language issue in Spanish education reflects both the aspirations of community governments to establish and further promote the use of Spanish languages other than castellano and the response of successive central governments to the issue of regionalism through enabling legislation and regulation. This chapter attempts to locate the language issue within the historical and political contexts of regionalism, trace the main characteristics of plurilingualism in contemporary Spain, identify the major phases in the development of community policies for bilingualism through education, examine the principal models of provision for bilingualism that have been established, and review a range of issues to which they give rise.
