ABSTRACT

In newly multilingual communities, where the language of education can no longer be assumed to be the home language of students, debates around language education policy can reflect broader sociocultural and political assumptions. As Ireland has become increasingly diverse in recent decades, the core compulsory status of the Irish language has emerged as one of the most contested aspects of the national curriculum. Informed by the field of language ideology, this paper draws on the responses to a public consultation on exemptions from the study of Irish. The findings point to a deeply entrenched polarisation of opinion regarding the relationship between identity and language, with some evidence of ethnocentric beliefs. However, the analysis also offered a number of nuanced and counterintuitive perspectives as to how minority languages might be positioned to contribute to a more open and inclusive educational environment.

摘要

在新的多语言社区，教育语言不再被假定为学生的家庭语言，围绕语言教育政策的辩论可以反映更广泛的社会文化和政治假设。随着近几十年来爱尔兰变得越来越多样化，爱尔兰语的核心必修地位已成为国家课程中最具争议的方面之一。受语言意识形态领域的启发，本文借鉴了对关于爱尔兰语研究豁免的公众咨询的回应。研究结果表明，关于身份与语言之间的关系存在根深蒂固的两极分化观点，并有一些种族中心主义信仰的证据。然而，