‘No, I Don’t Like the Basque Language.’ Considering the Role of Cultural Capital within Boundary-Work in Basque Education

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyze the nature of multiethnic academic interactions in relation to theories of cultural capital and boundary-work. More precisely, it considers to what extent school structure is related to the cultural capital of students from different ethnic backgrounds and explores its relationship to Intergroup Contact Theory and identity. Methods include documentary analysis, participant observation, interviews, and focus groups conducted from an ethnographic perspective between 2015 and 2016. Based on data collected in a Basque school attended by a high proportion of immigrant students, intraethnic and interethnic student–student and student–teacher relationships, and inequalities within these, are analyzed. Results indicate that the distribution of students in different classes tended to be ethnically marked, as most immigrant students chose to attend classes that were taught mostly in Spanish, whereas most autochthonous students were enrolled in classes with a high Basque instruction. The study considers the effects of students’ language choices and concludes that Basque has implications for the theories of identity, cultural capital, and boundary-work, as learning Basque is an academic and implicit rule in Basque education and society.

Can Transgression Define Identity in Educational Settings? A Basque-Based Framework for Identity-in-Interaction

“…As mentioned, this is part of a larger study, but the sample utilized in this paper differs from previous publications (see Pérez-Izaguirre, 2018, 2019). In this case, the sample is composed of teachers ( N = 4) and students ( N = 6) engaged in interactions, which are analyzed from the students’ perspective, as they are the primary focus.…”

“…As illustrated in previously published results from this case study, some immigrant students bluntly refused to learn Basque, citing its lack of value to them, while their local counterparts did not show such resistance. In such cases, teachers often failed to manage the classroom effectively, as they were trying to teach Basque to an obviously unreceptive audience and the subsequent conflict seemed more significant to them than simple student misbehavior (Pérez-Izaguirre, 2018, 2019).…”

Alliances, oppositions and the nature of ephemeral identities in ethnically diversified Basque education (Alianzas, oposiciones y la naturaleza de las identidades efímeras en el sistema educativo vasco étnicamente diverso)

“…Este estudio comparte algunas características con el caso catalán, estudiado por Codó y Patiño-Santos (2014), en el que estudiantes de origen inmigrante en Cataluña se negaban a utilizar el catalán, la lengua predominante en la escuela. El presente estudio forma parte de una investigación más amplia realizada en el País Vasco en un centro de secundaria étnicamente diverso al que denominaremos Udabia (para preservar la confidencialidad de los participantes en el estudio, los nombres utilizados en el artículo son seudónimos), en el que tanto el vasco (euskera) como el español son lenguas de instrucción (Pérez-Izaguirre, 2018, 2019). La hipótesis que planteamos en este trabajo es que los estudiantes de origen inmigrante construyen su identidad mediante alianzas y oposiciones en relación con el aprendizaje del euskera.…”

“…This study shares some characteristics with the Catalan case, as collected by Codó and Patiño-Santos (2014), where students of migrant background in Catalonia fail to employ Catalan, the reinforced language at school. The present study is part of a broader investigation that took place in the Basque Country in an ethnically diversified secondary school that we will call Udabia (to protect the confidentiality of the research participants, the names used throughout this work are pseudonyms), where both Spanish and Basque are languages of instruction (Pérez-Izaguirre, 2018, 2019). The hypothesis we propose in this work is that students who have a migrant background perform their own identity through alliances and oppositions in relation to the learning of Basque.…”