Linguistics and Education. Volume 60, December 2020, 100865
The politics of plurilingualism: Immersion, translanguaging, and school autonomy in Catalonia
Highlights
The plurilingual model in Catalonia represents the politics of innovation.There are many interests at play behind the introduction of innovations in education.International educational trends are invoked for political purposes.Translanguaging is uncritically appropriated and included in the plurilingual model.Sociolinguistic concepts are neutralised in discourses of educational innovation.Research may become a sociopolitical tool external to sociolinguistics.
Abstract
This paper aims to investigate the politics of plurilingualism in education and, more concretely, the various interests at play behind the introduction of innovations by education authorities in Catalonia, Spain. To do this, the paper critically examines the linguistic model of language in education and the public debate that its introduction generated, focusing on three themes: immersion, translanguaging, and school autonomy. The model, which acknowledges cultural diversity and values plurilingualism, would appear to embrace developments in the field of multi/plurilingual research, although there have been disparate interpretations of the policy. But this case also represents the “politics of innovation”, that is, the invocation of international educational trends for political purposes. The paper (a) argues that sociolinguistic scholars should seriously scrutinise how research may become a sociopolitical tool external to sociolinguistics, and (b) claims that sociolinguists should be more attentive to how we lend our own professional concepts to political agendas.