The legal rights of Aragonese-speaking schoolchildren
The current state of Aragonese language teaching in Aragon (Spain)
Aragon is an autonomous community within Spain where, historically, three languages are spoken: Aragonese,
Catalan, and Castilian Spanish. Both Aragonese and Catalan are minority and minoritised languages within the territory, while
Castilian Spanish, the majority language, enjoys total legal protection and legitimation. The fact that we live in the era of the
nation-state is crucial for understanding endangered languages in their specific socio-political context. This is why policies at
macro-level and micro-level are essential for language maintenance and equality. In this article, we carry out an in-depth
analysis of 57 documents: international and national legal documents, education reports, and education curricula. The aims of the
paper are: (1) to analyse the current state of Aragonese language teaching in primary education in Aragon, and (2) to suggest
solutions and desirable policies to address the passive bilingualism of Aragonese-speaking schoolchildren. We conclude that
although Aragon is a trilingual community, education policy actually does not reflect this reality. There is also a need to
implement language policies (bottom-up and top-down initiatives) to promote compulsory education in a minoritised language. We
therefore propose a linguistic model that brings to the forefront minority languages. This study may contribute to research into
Aragonese-Castilian bilingualism in contexts of possible language loss.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.General Spanish legal framework
- 3.Autonomous communities with their “own languages”: The case of Aragon
- 3.1The Statute of Autonomy of Aragon and its “linguistic modalities”
- 3.2The language acts of 2009 and 2013
- 4.Sociolinguistic data and evolution
- 5.Overview of the teaching of the Aragonese language
- 5.1The evolution of education laws
- 5.2The Aragonese language curriculum
- 5.3The reality of classrooms in early childhood and primary education
- 5.4Training for Aragonese language teachers
- 6.Discussion and conclusions
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
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