Catalan in schools. An analysis of the language policy proposals in education made by the political parties in Catalonia (2019-2021)

Abstract

At present there are different views regarding the Catalan educational linguistic model and the debate between defenders and detractors of the Catalan conjunction model is quite intense, especially in political circles: all the Catalan political parties have taken a stand for or against it and have presented different language policy proposals. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to analyse and compare these proposals in order to establish which one is the most appropriate in our sociolinguistic context. However, since this evaluation requires theoretical foundations, the first part of this paper also includes an introduction summarising the recovery process of Catalan in schools and the second part contains a synthesis of the methodology that needs to be followed to analyse a public policy. This allows us to present, in the third part, an evaluation of the different political proposals, grouped into three blocks: the parties which consider the Catalan conjunction model to be unfair because it puts the Spanish-speaking population at a disadvantage and prevents children from learning Spanish and English; the parties which are not against it but which think it should be made more flexible to compensate for linguistic deficits and to lend greater importance to third languages; and the parties which defend the model because they believe that it is the only viable one to guarantee the rights of all citizens. The results of this analysis show that although this model is not perfect, it still remains the fairest and most permissible one for preserving the balance and harmony of our society.