Languages in the school systems of England and Wales

Abstract

This article outlines policy development and current educational provision for the languages of minority groups in England and Wales. The policy is set in the context of language policy making for pupils from the majority, English speaking society. The article examines how the dominance of English as the medium of education for all pupils in England is being actively re-inforced by the Conservative government in the implementation of the new National Curriculum, and also examines the growing contrast between policy for the so-colled ‘indigenous’ minority languages of Britain, specifically Welsh, and the newer minority languages of Britain and Europe, such as Urdu, Arabic, and Chinese. It is argued that the U.K. government has tried to distance itself from the conflicts involved in national language planning by the establishment of independent working groups, but in effect manages and controls the process through the setting of the terms of reference for each working group, and the differential allocation of resources to implement their recommendations. The implicit policy behind this control reflects the hegemonic concept of territoriality. The article concludes that if researchers are to provide useful language-planning frameworks for a mobile, intercultural society, they will need to deconstruct language-planning models which reproduce ways of thinking that attribute languages to territories.