Catalan immersion schooling for children in Northern Catalonia: What impact does it have on parents?

Abstract

In a diglossic context, school often becomes the main or even the only vector of acquisition of a minoritized language when its natural transmission has been disrupted. While children are obviously the primary target group in immersive schools using a minority language, the question arises as to what extent the immersion policy’s influence is likely to extend beyond its initial audience to adults, that is to say, to pupils’ parents. From this standpoint, we will analyze the case of pupils’ parents who sent their children to the “bilingual” Catalan school Arrels in Perpignan. After presenting the school, we will discuss the various aspects of the school’s linguistic system that are also addressed to parents with a view to influencing their representations, attitudes and linguistic uses. On the basis of a survey carried out personally with the parents of the pupils at the Arrels school regarding aspects related to representations, attitudes, linguistic skills and identity, we will evaluate the school’s real capacity to reach a wider public than its initial one. Lastly, from these observations we will draw a certain number of conclusions on the ability of the school to bring a minority language out of the school framework in which it often remains confined, in order to encourage its (re)appropriation within families and, possibly, to recreate conditions of intergenerational transmission, starting with the children and moving up to the adults.