Exploring language education in Scotland: multilingual aspiration in a monolingual perspective

Scotland attempts to dispel the hegemonic identity of a ‘monolingual country’. The aim of this paper is to explore the educational habitus in contemporary Scotland as articulated by two mechanisms. These are: efforts to promote linguistic vitality and language revitalization, with the development of new curricula and pedagogies; and the working of governing mechanisms and policy instruments, particularly the 1+ 2 Language Approach (Scottish Government 2012).

With this in mind, specific policy documents such as 1+2 Language Policy (Scottish Government 2012), National Gaelic Language Plan 2012-2017 (Bòrd na Gàidhlig 2012), Consultation Paper of Gaelic Medium Education (GME) Bill (Scottish Government 2014) and their related documents were studied. A discursive analytic tool was used: Spolsky’s (2004, 2009, 2012) a three component model of language policy – practices, beliefs and management. According to Spolsky, practices “are the observable behaviors and choices” (2009, p. 4); beliefs “are the values or statuses assigned to named languages, varieties and features” (2009, p. 4) and management is the explicit and observable effort… to modify practices and beliefs” (2009, p. 4).