Towards a historical sociolinguistic account of language-in-education policy in the German-speaking community of Belgium

Abstract

One finds a number of descriptive synchronic sketches of language-in-education policy in the German-speaking community of Belgium (GC). However, a systematic analytical account of the evolution of language-in-education policy over the last 90 years has not been provided yet. With a project entitled ‘Language, Education and Power in the German-speaking community of Belgium (1919–2012)’, the Pluri-LL research group at the University of Namur seeks to tackle this research desideratum. The present paper intends to provide some basic information on the research project, starting with the GC’s geography and demography (Section 2) and the political history (Section 3). An outline of the project’s theoretical and methodological backbone (Section 4) and some preliminary findings (Section 5) are discussed as well.