ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors turn to the views of children from immigrant backgrounds on the place of language in both the French and English schools. The chapter shows that despite strong contrasts in terms of values, models of integration, and approaches to linguistic diversity, in both the French and English schools, children viewed school as monocultural and monolingual spaces which excluded linguistic differences, perceived as illegitimate in school. Linguistic diversity in France and England has been subjected to a negative narrative in public discourse over the past two decades. Bourdieu's notions of language and symbolic power were developed within the highly normalising linguistic context of France and aimed to understand the different values given to different forms of French and regional dialects.
