Bilingual Education in the Autonomous Regions of Spain

Bilingual Education in the Autonomous Regions of Spain F. Xavier Vila, David Lasagabaster, and Fernando Ramallo Contents Catalan-Speaking Territories .................................................................... 506 Historical Background ....................................................................... 506 The “New Immigrations” Decade (2000–2010) ............................................ 508 The Evolution in the 2010s: The Perfect Storm? ........................................... 509 Basque-Speaking Territories .................................................................... 510 Historical Background ....................................................................... 510 Galician .......................................................................................... 513 Historical Background ....................................................................... 513 Bilingualism and Education ................................................................. 514 Conclusions ...................................................................................... 515 Cross-References ................................................................................ 516 References ....................................................................................... 516 Abstract A historically multilingual country, Spain is today legally divided into 17 autonomous communities and 2 autonomous cities. The 1978 Spanish Constitution stipulates that Castilian – i.e., Spanish – is the official language of the Spanish F.X. Vila (*) Faculty of Philology, Department of Calan Philology and Linguistics, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain e-mail: [email protected] D. Lasagabaster Faculty of Philology, University of the Basque Country, Vitoria-Gasteiz, The Basque Country, Spain e-mail: [email protected] F. Ramallo Department of Translation and Linguistics, Universidade de Vigo, Vigo, Galicia, Spain e-mail: [email protected] # Springer International Publishing AG 2017 505 O. García et al. (eds.), Bilingual and Multilingual Education, Encyclopedia of Language and Education, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-02258-1_28 506 F.X. Vila et al. state and that all Spaniards have the duty to know it and the right to use it. The Constitution also acknowledges Spain’s multilingual character and, accordingly, confers legislative powers to the autonomous communities – by means of their statutes of autonomy – among others, in the areas of language policy and education. Every autonomous community has implemented its statute in a different way: Catalonia is officially trilingual, whereas Galicia, Navarre, the Balearic Islands, the Basque Country, and the Valencian Community are officially bilingual. Hence have Basque, Catalan, Galician, and Occitan become also official in (most of) their respective territories. The rest of the autonomous communities are officially Spanish-monolingual, even though several among them host historical minority languages such as Asturian, Aragonese, Arabic, Tamazight, or Portuguese. Language-in-education policies in Spain have been a contended area for centuries, especially in the six territories with more than one official language. This chapter describes briefly the sociolinguistic historical backgrounds of these autonomous communities, grouped in three language areas and focuses on contemporary dimensions of bilingual education. The paper chapter ends with a short reflection on bilingual education in Spain as a whole. Keywords Basque • Castilian • Catalan • Galician • Spanish • Valencian • Language policy • Immersion Catalan-Speaking Territories Within Spain, Catalan is the native language of Catalonia, most of the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands, as well as la Franja and Carxe/Carche, two small regions included in the mostly Spanish-speaking autonomous communities of Ara- gon and Murcia, respectively. Catalan is also spoken natively in Andorra, where it is the sole official language, the French Department of the Eastern Pyrenees and the Sardinian city of Alghero. Historical Background Derived from Latin, Catalan became fully standardized in the thirteenth century and knew a golden literary age until the late fifteenth century. It was the main official language of the Crown of Aragon and retained its official status in Catalonia, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands until the eighteenth century, although its position at the courts weakened in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when these territories became part of the multinational empire whose capital was placed in Castile. During these centuries, education was imparted in Catalan, with Latin being used as the scientific and academic lingua franca. Bilingual Education in the Autonomous Regions of Spain 507 The Spanish War of Succession (1700–1714) dissolved the Crown of Aragon and annexed its kingdoms to Castile. The new royal Bourbon dynasty launched a policy aiming at homogenizing linguistically its Empire by spreading the knowledge and use of Castilian. Education was progressively Castilianized, and a new university was created under direct supervision of Castilian authorities. These policies stretched until the twentieth century (see Ferrer i Gironès 1985; Vila i Moreno 2008). Assimilationist policies were often resisted: teachers and pupils often used Catalan in the classrooms, and the language was officially reinstated in schools at every single episode of democracy and autonomy, such as during Catalonia’s Mancomunitat (1914–1923/25) and during the Republican autonomy (1932–1939). One of the first measures taken by the Franco’s Spanish military dictatorship (1936/39–1975) was to ban Catalan from schools and public spheres (Benet 1995). The Normalization Period (1980–2000) In the aftermath of the dictatorship, the political opposition claimed for language freedom and autonomy. During the dictatorship, Catalan speakers had all become bilingual and literate only in Castilian, and cultural infrastructures in Catalan were very weak. Besides, during Franco’s rule, millions of Spanish-speaking immigrants had settled down in the Catalan-speaking territories, and language shift towards Castilian had taken place in the main cities of Valencia. The 1978 Spanish Constitution was a compromise solution. It retained the official status of Spanish all over Spain and the duty to be proficient in it for all citizens, but also opened the door to official status of other languages (Pradilla Cardona 2011; Vila i Moreno 2011). Catalonia was the first Catalan-speaking territory to gain autonomy (1979) and soon spearheaded the process of linguistic normalization (McRoberts 2001: 139–160). Catalan became a compulsory subject matter in primary and secondary education and accepted as a medium of instruction. The first immersion programs were launched. Simultaneously, teachers were progressively required to prove their ability to teach in Catalan or alternatively follow recycling courses. By the mid-1980s, evidence showed that language courses alone would never make Spanish speakers bilingual, while immersion programs were giving evidence of success (Alsina et al. 1983). Following the 1983 Law of Linguistic Normalization, Catalan became the means of instruction for an increasing number of subjects for all schools, in a process that led to its being the main means of instruction all over Catalonia in the 1990s. This was the birth of the Catalan conjunction model, based on two principles: children should be educated together irrespective of L1 and Catalan should be the basic medium of instruction. The model represented an answer to two basic fears: societal division between descendants of natives and descendants of Spanish immigrants, and the risk of depriving Castilian speakers of access to Catalan proficiency. In 1994, the Spanish constitutional court validated this model. The 1980s and 1990s decades also saw the progressive introduction of Aranese Occitan as a subject and a medium of instruction in the schools of Val d’Aran, an 508 F.X. Vila et al. Occitan-speaking enclave in the Catalan Pyrenees. In this region, a multilingual school model encompassing both Catalan and Castilian was introduced. In Valencia, the recovery of Catalan was hindered by a polarization between the left, basically in favor of linguistic normalization, and the right, opposed to any language recovery and arguing that “Valencian” was a language different from Catalan. A fragile consent was built around the Statute of 1982 and the 1983 Law of Use and Teaching of Valencian: standard Catalan – with minute dialectal differ- ences – became a compulsory subject under the label of “Valencian,” and education was organized on the basis of three different programs : (a) Program of progressive incorporation (PIP), with Castilian as the basic means of instruction; (b) Valencian- medium education, with Catalan as the means of instruction (PEV); and (c) Language immersion program (PIL), in Catalan for Castilian speakers. In the Balearic Islands, Catalan became a compulsory subject in 1986 thanks to the Law of Linguistic Normalization, but education remained under total control of Madrid until 1992. In 1997, the Balearic Parliament passed the 92/1997 “Decree of Minimums” indicating that all schools should teach at least 50 % of their subjects in Catalan. In time, this percentage was widely surpassed by most schools in the Islands. Neither in la Franja nor in Carxe was Catalan recognized as an official or even a protected language, and education remained officially Castilian-medium. In la Franja, pupils

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