On being declared illiterate: Language-ideological disqualification in Dutch classes for immigrants in Belgium

Abstract

This paper examines ideologies in action. In Dutch classes provided to newly immigrated children (so-called ‘Newcomers’) in Belgium, literacy is narrowed to a highly specific set of normative writing practices (‘ortho-graphy’), and mastering these practices is seen as a precondition for learning. This highly specific view of literacy fits into larger societal, normative ‘monoglot’ ideologies of language, in which language competence is perceived as a complex of highly regimented skills, and in which degrees to which such competences are acquired reflect on wider identity categories of group membership. In the Belgian classrooms we examined, this particular view of literacy led to various forms of disqualification of pupils’ linguistic and literacy resources. Mastery of different writing systems or a capacity to produce basic forms of writing was dismissed as ‘non-writing’. There was little or no allowance for what we call ‘hetero-graphy’: the deployment of literacy means in non-normative ways.