Education Policy and Creole Education in Guadeloupe: Ambiguity for Educators in Educational Materials and Concern Over a French-Creole Interlect in the Classroom

Abstract

Summary Regional languages in France have historically struggled to find their place in the national linguistic landscape, and French-based Creoles, like those of Guadeloupe and Martinique, are no exception. Despite laws and initiatives like the creation of the Creole CAPES (2002) and the propagation of research like Poth (1997) and Cummins (2009) on the benefits of bilingualism, Creole-language education in French overseas departments, like Guadeloupe, is still stigmatized for a lack of standardization by academic policymakers, despite its attested success in the classroom as a tool for improving students’ metalinguistic capacities in French. Using a corpus of official Creole-language educational guides, pedagogical guides and one elementary textbook featuring exercises focusing on correction of regional French phrases, along with observations of two elementary Creole-language classes in Guadeloupe, this paper aims to analyze and demonstrate that educators often receive mixed messages on how to teach Creole in bilingual classrooms, and that the language is often perceived as a threat by French academic policymakers to the French abilities of students in Guadeloupe—yet that in practice, elementary students are more likely to struggle with Creole than French.