Multilingual education for the global era: the value of languages in an international school

Abstract

Numerous elitist educational institutions are adapting to the social, economic and political demands of late modernity by undergoing processes of internationalisation. The renovation of the educational model is usually associated with a change in the linguistic curriculum and with institutional language policies. This article is based on a (socio)linguistic ethnography which examines how language is at the core of the internationality built at a school in the Greater Barcelona area.The analysis of discourses and practices generated at the school reveals that the institution is constructing itself as international, but at the same time it needs to preserve its national identification to maintain its niche in the market. This creates tensions between official trilingualism, ideologies of equality among languages, and an identity discourse. The discursive complexity of the school shows how romantic and profit-based ideas on language coexist in tension, questioning the social inclusion processes at the educational centre.

Keywords: language and education, linguistic ideologies, educational ethnography, internationality.