This article analyses aspects of the impact of internationalisation in higher education in multilingual contexts where both a state language and a minority language are present and where English is gradually being introduced. The analysis focuses primarily on the consequences for the professional identities of academics who work in a minority language. The basic hypothesis is that the processes of global change influencing higher education go hand in hand with a transformation of the roles of academics and their professional identities. This implies that new demands on professors, lecturers and researchers tacitly lead to the incorporation of new language requirements and to a new identity. The field work was carried out in the University of the Basque Country (Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea) and involved indepth interviews to obtain the perceptions and representations of Basque-speaking professors, lecturers and researchers about their academic identities and the metamorphoses that such identities have undergone in relation to language. This exploratory study has helped identify some of the main trends in professional roles and identities through a generational change; in particular, the emergence of strong strategic orientations in the design of academic careers. These processes of global change act as hidden forces regulating the academics' language choices.

The reproduction of gender order in young people's learning of counter-hegemonic contentious activism may seem a contradiction in a political field seeking to transform the social order and help empower its activists. A qualitative study carried out on young activists in the sphere of leftist Basque nationalism in the aftermath of ETA's armed activity revealed that the repertoires and forms of action of contentious politics foment activist ideals associated with hegemonic masculinity and mean that the women participating tend to occupy a subordinate position. In the tension between the political forces keen on change and those favouring continuance, we studied the factors which could help women activists build dissident collective agencies, particularly, feminist agencies.

The article examines ways in which the left-wing nationalist movement in the Basque Country has offered a framework of opportunity for the construction of activist youth agency. It also identifies transformations in youth activist practices over the last decade, following the cessation of ETA´s armed activity. Based on in-depth interviews, we set out to reconstruct the evolution of the political learning and trajectories of youth from the Basque Nationalist left during this period. The analysis of these young peoples’ narratives allows us to understand some of the meanings that they attach to their current political practices. With respect to inherited political traditions, continuity was manifest in the existence of enduring dispositions favourable to counter-hegemonic activism. Changes were manifest in the adaptation of these dispositions to new political conditions through progressively more individualized forms of political action, connected to emerging contemporary agendas.

ResumenLa sociedad vasca es políticamente plural -y escenario de conflicto sobre su estatus polí-tico-, además de culturalmente diversa, e inmersa, asimismo, en un permanente debate sobre el papel que se debe asignar al idioma y a la cultura vascos en relación con la cultura desarrollada en español. En este artículo, indagamos en las visiones sobre la asignatura denominada educación para la ciudadanía y los derechos humanos, desarrolladas por las principales organizaciones sindicales y políticas vascas, así como por algunos profesores de enseñanza no universitaria. Mediante entrevistas en profundidad a los primeros y grupos de discusión con los segundos, analizamos el discurso generado en torno a la educación cívica como medio indirecto de hallar la respuesta a tres temas cruciales para la vida social vasca: el concepto de ciudadanía, la visión sobre la nación y la convivencia entre culturas. Y destacamos una serie de conclusiones: a) la falta de significatividad política en relación con la identidad nacional que la asignatura recibe, exceptuando a algunas organizaciones nacionalistas vascas; b) la preeminencia del discurso moral de corte liberal en todos los agentes políticos y educativos; c) la aceptación generalizada de la diversidad cultural como elemento enriquecedor, aunque con diferencias notorias entre profesores y organizaciones respecto a sus consecuencias educativas, y d) la desconfianza del nacionalismo vasco y de un sector del profesorado hacia un discurso multiculturalista que signifique el retroceso de la lengua vasca.

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