A Co-Cultural Analysis of Language Policies in the Education System of Catalonia     

_____________________________

An Honors College Project Presented to

the Faculty of the Undergraduate

College of Arts and Letters

James Madison University

_____________________________

by Madison Alexia Farabaugh                 

  May 2021          

Accepted by the faculty of the Department of Communications Studies, James Madison University, in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the Honors College.

FACULTY COMMITTEE: HONORS COLLEGE APPROVAL:

Project Advisor: Jennifer J. PeeksMease, Ph. D.  Bradley R. Newcomer, Ph.D.,

Assistant Professor, Communications    Dean, Honors College

Reader: John A. Tkac, MA      

Lecturer, Spanish      

Reader: Sharon R. Mazzarella, Ph. D.      

Professor, Communications      
    

PUBLIC PRESENTATION

This work is accepted for presentation, in part or in full, at the virtual Spring Honors Symposium on April 23, 2021
at 12:00pm.
 Table of Contents
I. Acknowledgements 3

II. Abstract 4

III. Introduction 5

IV. Catalan Language History and Transition to Power 9

V. Applying Co-Cultural Theory to the Catalan Situation 14

A. Background of Co-Cultural Theory

B. Existing Co-Cultural Research

C. Catalan as a Transient Co-Culture

D. Catalan Education Language Policies as Artifacts of Analysis

VI. Eras of Power and Language Policies 23

A. Era 1: Franco’s Dictatorship (1939-1977)

B. Era 2: Democracy and Autonomy (1978-1999)

C. Era 3: Bilingualism to Multilingualism (2000-Present Day)

VII. Discussion & Conclusion 54

VIII. Bibliography 64

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 Acknowledgements

I have many people to thank for their continuous support throughout the entire process of

this Honors capstone project. First, I must express my gratitude for Dr. Jennifer PeeksMease, the

advising chair for my project. Her expertise in theoretical analysis and application for

communications studies was absolutely crucial for crafting my own analysis in a more advanced

and sophisticated manner. Next, I would like to acknowledge my appreciation for one of my

readers, Professor John Tkac. His extensive knowledge about Spanish and Catalan culture helped

me tremendously with improving the accuracy of my historical and cultural connections to

Co-Cultural Theory. Dr. Sharon Mazzarella, my other reader, was equally as important to me for

her vast background experience in communications research and for her consistent

encouragements to finish this project out strongly. I am greatly honored to have been able to

work closely with my reading team as a whole as their feedback made all the difference in

putting my ideas into action. Lastly, I must thank my family for their unceasing love and for

believing in my ability to achieve anything I put my mind to. It has been a pleasure learning and

contributing to the Honors College and School of Communications throughout my time at James

Madison University, and I cannot wait to see where my experiences will lead me next.

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 Abstract
The purpose of this capstone research is to provide a historical analysis of how Catalan

society has functioned as a co-culture of transient power between Franco’s dictatorship and

today. By using Mark P. Orbe’s Co-Cultural Communication Theory to analyze the goals and

impacts of language policies in Catalonia’s education system during various time periods,

researchers and readers can witness the unique progression of power for the Catalan co-culture

that establishes it as a minority culture with certain characteristics of a dominant one in specific

sectors of society. Furthermore, researchers and readers can see how power and cultural

prominence can vary in different sectors as well as how transience of power can impact the

relationships and communicative structures that form in multicultural societies.

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 Introduction
Like many countries in the world, Spain’s population reflects much more than the

traditional Castilian culture commonly identified by the rest of the world as “Spanish” culture.

An example of this is the culture of Catalan society, an autonomous community that resides

predominantly in the region of Catalonia in northeastern Spain but can be found in other regions

such as Valencia and the Balearic Islands. Those who consider themselves Catalan, however, are

not necessarily culturally distinct from Castilian. Many people identify as both Catalan and

Spanish (Castilian), with the difference being that one culture only occupies certain regions of

Spain while the other is present throughout the country.

Castilian and Catalan societies have had a long history of sporadic conflicts due to

various power struggles over geographical, political, and economical control as well as cultural

recognition, and many of these factors notoriously overlap. While Castilian has been the

dominant culture/language throughout many parts of the Iberian Peninsula, certain Catalan

communities in Catalonia have experienced waves of power and oppression that have influenced

their ability to promote and sustain aspects of the culture, such as the Catalan language.

A notable period of time that exhibits such a transition from Catalan oppression to power

can be seen between the start of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in 1939 after the Spanish Civil

War and present-day Spain. The beginning of Franco’s regime marked a time of attempted

cultural homogenization that involved repressing the Catalan language, culture, and history in

order to unite the country under one “Spanish culture” (Keller, 2018). The end of Franco’s

dictatorship and the establishment of democracy after his death, however, brought a gradual

rebuilding of Catalan identity into everyday life (Keller, 2018). Today, the people of Catalonia

5
have restored their ability to promote the region’s cultural traditions and language, and many in

the autonomous community continue to push for wider recognition in the public/political sphere

(Keller, 2018).

In the context of this research project, of particular interest within the aforementioned

time period is how certain Catalan communities in Catalonia have changed their communicative

goals and orientations for interacting with the dominant Castilian culture in each stage of power.

More specifically, the research aims to see how these changes in communicative goals and

orientations are reflected within the language policies of Catalonia’s education system.

Language is simultaneously a form of communication and a representation of cultural

identity. The Catalan community has been persistent about maintaining its language because it

has been a social and political negotiation tool for power relations between its own and Castilian

culture (H. Miller & K. Miller, 1996, p. 116). Thus, analyzing language policies in Catalonia that

regulate how, when, and where the Catalan language should be used along with or instead of

Castilian can reveal how members and groups of this co-culture have desired to interact with

members and groups of the dominant Castilian culture as Catalan groups themselves gained

more power in society.

The purpose of this research project is to use Mark P. Orbe’s Co-Cultural Theory of

Communication (CCT) as a lens through which to examine correlations between the amount of

Catalan institutional power and the community’s co-cultural communicative goals and

orientations since the end of the Spanish Civil War. More specifically, the research will

categorize the rhetoric, goals, and impacts of Catalan language policies within this time period

according to the communicative goals and orientations outlined in CCT.

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 CCT provides a framework for understanding how co-cultural groups, such as certain

Catalan populations, choose to communicate in specific ways when interacting with dominant

group members, such as those of the Castilian culture. By using CCT to explore Catalan

language policies in Catalonia at different points in time and power, researchers will be able to

examine correlations between co-cultural levels of power and choices of communicative goals

and orientations. Since CCT was originally written for research and application in the United

States with marginalized groups such as African Americans, women, and homosexuals (Orbe,

1998, p. 2), this research will add a new international perspective to existing knowledge about

co-cultural communication.

This research topic is also relevant to current cultural conflicts occurring all over the

world, including the civil unrest of the United States in 2020 related to police brutality and

systemic racism. Certain co-cultural communities today are more empowered than they were

decades ago, but they are still striving for more recognition. So, the research described in this

proposal will add insight and understanding to existing knowledge of transient co-cultural groups

specifically that may experience different levels of power in different societal contexts.

Examining tangible policies in a timeline of different societal positions diverges from

traditional CCT research as well, which typically takes place with in-person conversations

around one relative time and power level. So, aside from providing a deeper understanding of the

progression of the Catalan culture, using CCT in this unconventional way may serve to extend

the applicability of the theory by gaining an understanding of how CCT can be applied to both

textual artifacts that are public documents and to more longitudinal scenarios.

This thesis as a whole will explore how Catalan society functions as a co-culture of

transient power based on the language policies in the education system of Catalonia between

7
Franco’s dictatorship and today, and it will seek to determine correlations amongst levels of

power, dominant and/or nondominant co-cultural status, and subsequent communicative

goals/orientations. The following section will provide a brief history of the Catalan progression

of cultural prominence from Franco’s dictatorship to present-day, including why the Catalan

people were oppressed and how they gradually gained cultural and political recognition back.

The research will then lead into an explanation of Co-Cultural Theory, its framework, and how

the framework will be applied to the Catalan situation in order to establish the co-culture as one

of transient power, one of both dominant and nondominant qualities. This theoretical background

will be useful for the sections that follow as they will give specific examples of Catalan language

policies of the education system that correlate chronologically to periods of differing power for

the Catalan people.

The analysis of the language policies will focus on how they promote certain co-cultural

communicative goals and orientations over others and how this has impacted co-cultural

interactions in Catalonia. In addition, the analysis will aim to determine potential relationships

that exist between levels of co-cultural power, the goals/impacts of the language policies, and the

communicative goals/orientations of the Catalan co-culture that reflect its dominant or

nondominant identity in that time and place. The research will conclude with a summary of

Catalan co-cultural trends since Franco’s dictatorship, how these trends are insightful and useful

for understanding the communicative behavior of transient co-cultures, additional limitations in

the methods of research, and suggestions for future research.

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Relevant Catalan Language History and Transition to Power
In order to understand how the Catalan co-culture has been, and currently is, a unique

co-culture of transient power with both dominant and nondominant traits, a general knowledge of

the history that led to the Catalan progression of power (since its most recent survival of

oppression) would be useful. This section gives a brief overview of that history with a specific

focus on the events, trends, and time frames that mark significant change for the Catalan culture

and relate to the linguistic power and prominence, or lack thereof, of the Catalan language.

In the mid-20th century, Catalonia joined the many other romantic and nationalist

movements throughout Europe with its own cultural and linguistic renaissance (Laitin, 1989, p.

301). Catalan identity was vibrantly demonstrated through extensive literature publications,

theater and arts achievements, and political recognition of the Catalan language in the region’s

Statute of Autonomy in 1932 (Laitin, 1989, p. 301).

The victory of General Franco’s conservative regime in the Spanish Civil War of 1939,

however, marked the beginning of a severe, nearly forty year cultural and linguistic repression

for multiple minority groups such as Catalan, Euskera, and Galego. One contributing reason for

why Franco targeted Catalan society was because Catalonia supported the opposing Republican

party during the war (Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 60). Much beyond annulling Catalonia’s

autonomy, books written in Catalan were removed from bookshops and libraries and were

destroyed; use of the Catalan language was prohibited in public and private schools;

non-Castilian speakers were expected to speak “the language of the Empire” (Castilian Spanish)

even in private; and the Catalan language itself was reduced in status from being an official

language to a “mere dialect” (Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 60; Laitin, 1989, p. 302; Skerrett, 2010, p.

9
262). Franco’s overarching goal was to unify Spain under a single identity of a single language,

history, and tradition (Skerrett, 2010, p. 263).

Despite the attempted replacement of the Catalan language in all aspects of everyday life,

it remained the language of family and community circles. Eventually, Franco’s regime adjusted

itself to this reality, and the Catalan language was permitted in certain restricted areas after 1945

(Laitin, 1989, p. 302). Unfortunately, although the language survived its political opponent, it

soon faced another threat to its prevalence in Catalonia: the migration of Spaniards with low

socioeconomic status from other regions of Spain. From the fifties to the mid-seventies,

Catalonia’s economy prospered as a result of industrialization and the start of mass tourism in

coastal areas, which led to a large increase in Spanish-speaking immigrants seeking work

opportunities, most notably in the metropolitan capital of Barcelona (BBC, 2018; Roda-Bencells,

2009, p. 61). The combination of mass immigration, lack of Catalan educational resources, and

lack of democratic freedoms made it extremely difficult for new citizens of Catalonia to naturally

learn the Catalan language and culture unless it was voluntary and secretive (Roda-Bencells,

2009, p. 61; Gencat, Origins and History, 2019), resulting in what could be considered a

purposeful “dilution” of the Catalan population (Woolf, 2017; Skerrett, 2010, p. 267).

Additionally, many immigrants did not see it necessary to learn the Catalan language because, as

is still the case today, it is possible to live in Catalonia without speaking Catalan, and many

immigrants from other regions in Spain have language ideologies that value Castilian over

Catalan (Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 69).

Franco’s death in 1975 paved the way for a transition from dictatorship to democracy in

Catalonia. The new king of Spain, Juan Carlos, allowed the restoration of a regional government

in Catalonia (the Generalitat) in 1977 (BBC, 2018). By 1978, a new Spanish Constitution was

10
passed that officially recognized the right of Spain’s “nationalities and regions” to govern

themselves so long as they recognize the “indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation” (BBC, 2018;

Gencat, The Contemporary Government of Catalonia, 2018). The Spanish Constitution of 1978

further allowed minority languages such as Catalan to be co-official languages (along with

Castilian Spanish) in their own regions according to their own Statutes of Autonomy, which

Catalonia established in 1979 (Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 63; BBC, 2018). Hence, Catalonia

secured the ability to educate students in its own language. Catalan medium education began in

1982 followed by the Language Normalization Act of 1983 (later updated as the Linguistic

Policy Act of 1998) that promoted revitalisation of the language in education, institutions, and

the media (Gencat, Origins and History, 2019; Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 65). This among many

other policies put in place since have made it possible for significant growth to occur in

knowledge of the Catalan language while still teaching Castilian Spanish in schools.

Although the Linguistic Policy Act of 1998 (the current policy used in the education

system) encouraged bilingualism to accommodate both Castilian and Catalan speakers, there was

and still is controversy between Catalan nationalism initiatives and Spanish nationalism

initiatives that argue over which language is actually marginalized in Catalonia’s education

systems (Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 70). Additionally, Catalonia experienced a new wave of

international immigration beginning in the late 1990s that made it necessary for the Catalan

government to adjust its educational policies and institutional models to reflect a multilingual

approach instead of the traditional bilingual split between Catalan and Castilian (Roda-Bencells,

2009, p.p. 71-74). As Spain entered the 21st century, emphasis was given to help new immigrant

students achieve command of both Catalan and Castilian while recognizing and accepting their

diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds (Roda-Bencells, 2009, p.p. 74).

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Modern threats to the Catalan language continue to be the attitudes of the broader Spanish state

toward the language’s status and usefulness (Gencat, Origins and History, 2019) and the fact that

many children speak Catalan in the classroom but not in the community (Woolf, 2017). Even

still, the Catalan identity remains strong, knowledge of the language continues to grow, and the

culture has been successfully sustained— a great deal of which can be attributed to the

successful establishment of Catalan as the language of instruction for over 30 years (Woolf,

2017). Today, Catalan is among the 100 most widely spoken languages in the world and, as of

2007, about three out of four residents in Catalonia can speak and write Catalan (Gencat, 2016).

In short, although Catalan experienced a cultural renaissance in the mid-20th century, the

vitality of this culture became severely threatened for nearly forty years when General Franco’s

dictatorial regime took to power after the Civil War. With the threat of cultural homogenization,

the ability of the Catalan culture to develop and progress was extremely limited. Franco’s death

in 1975 and a return to democracy, however, created hope for the Catalan community which

quickly achieved regional autonomy and began a revival movement aimed at normalizing the

Catalan language. One area of this revival movement to be looked at with this research is that in

the education system. The Catalan cultural community would still face challenges with

conflicting ideologies between regional and state government as well as crafting policies that

balance the promotion of Catalan prominence with a consideration for the Castilian-speaking

community of natives and immigrants. Despite these and other challenges, the Catalan

community has acquired, maintained, and continues to progress.

The following section will focus on explaining Mark P. Orbe’s Co-Cultural Theory and

how using it to analyze the Catalan situation in Catalonia can provide new insight into the

12
complexity of the culture and region as a whole. This explanation will thus provide a general

idea of how Catalonia’s language policies in education will be analyzed in each era of

progressively more power, and it will subsequently allow for those language policies to be

examples of transient power that is dominant in some societal contexts and nondominant in

others. The three distinctive eras of Catalan co-cultural power to be explored in greater detail for

linguistic progress are Franco’s dictatorship from 1939 to 1977 (Era 1), Democracy and

Autonomy between 1978 and 1999 (Era 2), and the modern shift from Bilingualism to

Multilingualism that began around the year 2000 and leads up to 2020 (Era 3).

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 Applying CCT to the Catalan Situation

The previous historical section provided a necessary contextual background for

understanding the Catalan culture’s status in Catalonia and within the greater Spanish state. This

section focuses on explaining Co-Cultural Theory (CCT) and how it applies to the Catalan

situation by first defining the key components and purposes for CCT and then explaining how

the Catalan culture (specifically the vitality of its language) can be analyzed through a

co-cultural lens. Combining contextual knowledge of the Catalan culture/language with a

theoretical knowledge of CCT and its applications will assist in depicting how the Catalan

culture functions as a co-culture of varying levels of power.

Background of Co-Cultural Theory

A “co-culture” can be defined as a group with a specific collective quality or qualities

(ethnicity, religion, class, age, etc.) that exists among other cultures in a society but lacks the

power to significantly construct or change the dominant structures of that society (Chand, 2003;

Orbe, 1998, p. 1). Thus, the act of co-cultural communication occurs when an individual or

individuals from different co-cultures interact (Orbe, 1998, p. 1).

Grounded in Muted Group and Standpoint Theory (Orbe, 1998, p. 8), Mark P. Orbe’s

Co-Cultural Communication Theory (CCT) aims to understand how marginalized co-cultures

communicate their “cultural differentness” (Orbe & Roberts, 2012) with other co-cultural or

dominant group members and, further, construct their identities within the power structures of

major societal institutions that are created by the dominant group (Chand, 2003; Orbe, 1998, p.

2). According to the theory, every society contains a hierarchy that privileges specific groups of

people who then occupy institutional positions of power and create communication systems that

14
promote their own fields of experience (Orbe, 1998, p. 11). Based on this, the systems

advertently or inadvertently impede societal progress for other groups whose fields of experience

do not relate or coincide with that of the dominant group, leading to shared marginalization

and/or underrepresentation among co-cultural groups (Orbe, 1998, p.11). To overcome the

hierarchies and gain voices for status, power or change, co-cultures strategically select different

communicative practices based on various influential factors and overarching communication

orientations determined by two of those factors: preferred outcomes and approaches (Orbe, 1998,

p.p. 14-15; Orbe & Roberts, 2012). In regard to the influential factors, Orbe explains:

“Situated within a particular field of experience that governs their perceptions of the costs

and rewards associated with, as well as their ability to engage in, various communicative

practices, co-cultural group members will adopt communication orientations-- based on

their preferred outcomes and communication approaches-- to fit the circumstances of a

specific situation.” (Orbe, 1998, p. 120)

Below is a table that shows which communicative practices are typically associated with each

combination of preferred outcome (assimilation, accommodation, separation) and

communication approach (nonassertive, assertive, aggressive). The combination of preferred

outcome and communication approach results in what is called a “communication orientation”,

and it is these overarching concepts of CCT that will be more directly applied to the Catalan

situation.

Communication Orientations Table (Orbe, 1998, p. 110)

Separation Accommodation Assimilation

Nonassertive -Avoiding -Increasing visibility -Emphasizing

-Maintaining -Dispelling commonalities
interpersonal barriers stereotypes -Developing positive

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 face
-Censoring self
-Averting controversy

Assertive -Communicating self -Communicating self -Extensive

-Intragroup -Intragroup preparation
networking networking -Overcompensating
-Exemplifying -Using liaisons -Manipulating
strengths -Educating others stereotypes
-Embracing -Bargaining
stereotypes

Aggressive -Attacking -Confronting -Dissociating

-Sabotaging others -Gaining advantage -Mirroring
-Strategic distancing
-Ridiculing self

In the context of this research, it is useful to know in greater detail how the preferred

outcomes of co-cultural groups are defined by Orbe (1998) as the language policies explained in

later sections will be analyzed for what their preferred outcomes were for the education system

in Catalonia. The preferred outcome of Assimilation essentially seeks to conform to the

communication structures of the dominant culture which diminishes cultural differences and

encourages marginal insignificance. Accommodation insists that the dominant structures be

reinvented to include the perspectives of the co-cultural group and aims for an appreciative

collaboration and interdependence of communication between the cultures of a multicultural

society. This preferred outcome will resist efforts to mute co-cultural voices. A preferred

outcome of Separation rejects collaborations with the dominant group and tries to create

“separate-group” identities and rules that exist outside and/or within dominant structures. All of

these preferred outcomes will be known in later sections by the term “goals” as a means to

generalize what language policies wanted to achieve.

The communication approaches of Nonassertive, Aggressive and Assertive describe the

styles of communication that individuals will use when pursuing any of the three types of

16
communicative goals. A nonassertive style seems nonconfrontational in nature, puts the needs of

others first, and is often used to prevent others from feeling threatened. An aggressive style is

perceived as self-promoting to the point of being hurtfully expressive and/or controlling the

choices of others. It is also often used when a nonassertive or assertive style was previously

unsuccessful. An assertive communication style appears to try to balance the needs of self and

others by promoting the self without violating the rights and choices of others. The styles and

communicative practices that fall into the categories of Nonassertive, Aggressive and/or

Assertive can sometimes be interpreted differently by the dominant groups in society. For

instance, some dominant members may perceive assertive co-cultural behavior to be aggressive

because they feel threatened by a greater presence of the co-culture. Due to the potential to be

interpreted various ways, and because this research project focuses on societal events as opposed

to first-person accounts, the overall goals of language policies will be analyzed in much greater

detail than will be their specific communicative styles and practices.

Until recently, much of existing research on cultural communication has tended to focus

more on dominant group communication and portraying its complexities/diversities while

subsequently generalizing the communication of co-cultures into that research (Orbe, 1998, p. 3).

This results in ethnocentric conclusions that do not adequately draw attention to how power

relations can affect cultural communication (Orbe, 1998, p. 3). Therefore, using CCT’s

framework to analyze the communicative choices and behaviors of co-cultural groups can

provide a deeper knowledge of and awareness for the perspectives of groups that have been

and/or continue to be marginalized by dominant-group structures in society. Aside from

overcoming many generalizations that have historically been made, analysis of co-cultural

communication can also provide applicable insight into areas in society where power imbalances

17
or biases still need to be addressed such as career and education pathways, job positions, access

to resources and support, and other distributions of opportunity (Orbe, 1998, p. 7).

Existing Co-Cultural Research

As noted in the Introduction section, CCT began as a theory for marginalized groups

within the United States, including but not limited to women, homosexuals, people of color, and

people with disabilities (Orbe, 1998, p. 3). Since then, it has been applied to a multitude of

communicative environments and unique characteristics that determine the existence of a

“co-culture”, and it has even been applied internationally. This progress is necessary and

appreciated because, as new co-cultures emerge and/or enter different communication contexts

all over the world and in growing numbers, it can help understand how increasingly diverse

ingroups and outgroups relate to one another (Orbe, 1998, p. 3).

The Catalan Situation Through a Co-Cultural Lens: Defining Catalan as a Transient Co-Culture

There are still many topic areas where further research with CCT could prove useful. One

area in particular is how marginalized or underrepresented co-cultures perceive social

disadvantages among themselves and what factors they believe should determine who is more

lacking in power (Orbe & Roberts, 2012). This relates to the Catalan situation because the

Catalan culture itself is a minority co-culture in the context of the broader Spanish state, but it is

a dominant co-culture within Catalonia as it has significantly more institutional power than other

co-cultures living there— even more than many members of the Castilian culture.

Another aspect of the Catalan culture that is an under-explored opportunity for CCT

research is the culture’s “transient powerlessness” seen throughout history, most notably and

recently in the culture’s language revival after Franco’s repression of it. Orbe (1998) associates

18
the concept of transient powerlessness to dominant group members who experience a temporary

(transient) lack of power and adopt co-cultural communicative practices (Orbe, 1998, p.p.

131-132). It is plausible then, given its ability to be classified as dominant or marginalized in

different scenarios, that this term can be associated with the Catalan culture. Co-cultural groups

do not always remain muted by the societal structures created by dominant groups as many find

various effective communication strategies to achieve voice and power “within and outside

dominant structures,” (Orbe, 1998, p. 25). Catalan is thus an example of a transient co-culture

that has overcome certain other dominant (Castilian) structures as it progressed after Franco and

has since used its power to create its own structures within Catalonia.

Since CCT has mainly focused on co-cultural groups who remain in an “outsider within''

position their entire life (Orbe, 1998, p. 133), studying the progression of the Catalan culture

from a state of oppression to its modern-day possession of regional power may inform on how

co-cultures in general change their communicative goals and orientations as they achieve more

power. Lastly, because there has been historic and recent controversy with the motives behind

Catalan governmental policies in regards to bicultural and multicultural cohesion, studying

specific systems, like Catalan language learning, may give insight into another trend Orbe (1998)

notes as a topic worthy of future study: how co-cultural group members can function as both

target and vehicle of oppressive communication (Orbe, 1998, p. 136).

Language Policies in Catalonia’s Education System as Artifacts of Analysis

As stated in the introduction section, the goal of this research is to track the progression

of the Catalan co-culture from Franco’s dictatorship to modern day and exemplify its quality of

transient power/powerlessness that make it dominant in some regards and marginalized in others.

This research will be a stepping stone of knowledge for understanding transient power or

19
powerlessness and for those who may wish to do more in-depth study or primary study of

transient identities in the future.

States and nations, including stateless nations like Catalonia, that have multi level

governments and operate over multinational, multiethnic, and multicultural populations have

complex responsibility when shaping their cultural and communications policies (Schlesinger,

2009, p. 9). Catalan policy makers in particular have had to figure out how to be inclusive while

still prioritizing national identity and the survival of the Catalan language. Ideally, there would

be a balance between maintaining cultural prominence within Catalonia while at the same time

welcoming and supporting other co-cultures, and many models/policies do attempt reasonable

representation of as diverse audiences as possible. The reality remains though that an

autonomous government that functions among the expectations of the broader state, its own

national agenda, and the rest of the multi-cultural population will often still see a propensity for

“divergence, contradiction and dispute about boundaries, competencies, and resources,”

(Schlesinger, 2009, p. 13).

An eminent example of divergence in Catalonia’s society relates to the Catalan language.

Specific conflicts of preserving or maintaining the Catalan language in different spheres

(economic, social, political) have continuously risen as a result of mixed perceptions of the

language’s status. Catalan has historically been seen as a prestigious language associated with the

region’s economically dominant group and the middle to upper-middle class whereas Castilian

has been seen as a lower, working-class language associated with the low economic and social

status of the immigrant population (Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 68; H. Miller & K. Miller, 1996, p.

117; Nacarino-Brabo & Lobeto, 2017). Numerically and ideologically, however, the Catalan

language has lacked such vitality. Because the non-Catalan population most often spoke

20
Castilian as a first language or chosen language after immigration, it became “linguistically

allied with the dominant Castilian speaking population outside of Catalonia,” (H. Miller & K.

Miller, 1996, p. 120). Even still, there is also divergence in such trends. There have historically

been plenty of Catalan-speaking groups in the working class and rural Catalonia, groups in the

upper-middle/upper class who switched to Castilian during times of oppression so as not to be

stigmatized, and Castilian-speaking groups who are a part of the upper class (Roda-Bencells,

2009, p. 68).

The political affiliation that the Catalan language has with nationalist sentiments adds

even more complexity and controversy in maintaining the language’s prominence. Language is

often considered a feature of national identity and a determining factor in political autonomy (H.

Miller & K. Miller, 1996, p. 113), which explains one reason why the Catalan language has been

pushed as the language of instruction in Catalonia’s education system. While Catalan language

education policies aim to integrate students and pursue cultural cohesion, the way in which the

Catalan language has sometimes replaced Castilian in classroom settings has caused conflict in

schools where many students come from Castilian speaking families (H. Miller & K. Miller,

1996, p.p. 117-118).

In summary, the Catalan language is a dominant co-cultural quality in some realms, and a

nondominant co-cultural quality in others. Using CCT to look at the goals and effects of different

language policies in Catalonia’s education system over time can reveal how co-cultural power in

an education system can impact co-cultural communicative behavior as well as co-cultural

relations. The next section of this capstone project will track the transient power of the Catalan

culture by focusing on the language policies and co-cultural status of Catalan society in each era

of power since Franco’s dictatorship. Additionally, the gathered research will inform on the

21
communication goals that the policies promote and the effects of these policies on the

communicative practices of different co-cultural groups within Catalonia.

There are a few limitations to this approach. Different Catalans with different language

ideologies and political opinions will handle situations differently. This research does not claim

that the language policies represent every Catalan opinion out there, only that the co-cultural

members who managed to gain power and pass these laws decided that this is what they would

do with their power. In other words, while personal Catalan goals cannot be determined from

general public documents, the analysis of these documents will hopefully be a reflection of the

goals of the majority.

The next section of research will cover the three eras of distinctively different levels of

Catalan co-cultural power in which language policies that exemplify such transient power will be

described and analyzed for their goals and impacts on co-cultural relations.

22
 Eras of Power and Language Policies
The purpose of this section is to understand the language policies for the education

system of Catalonia in each era of Catalan power, including their situational contexts, goals, and

impacts on co-cultural relationships. Additionally, correlations between the language policies and

the communicative orientations outlined in Mark P. Orbe’s Co-Cultural Theory will be briefly

explored in order to determine implications of the Catalan co-culture’s transient status between

dominant and nondominant. Compiling an analysis of the language policies and their

connections to CCT will allow for a deeper synthesis of co-cultural trends and power levels in

the final section.

Era 1: Franco’s Dictatorship (1939-1977)

During Franco’s dictatorship, the Catalan culture struggled against repression of its

language and against dilution of its prominence as a result of immigration. Language policies

enacted in this era, including those of education systems, reflected Franco’s monolinguistic goal

of Catalan assimilation to the Castilian language in order to decrease linguistic diversity and

establish a nation unified under a singular, Spanish identity (Skerrett, 2010, p. 262; Branchadell,

1999, p.p. 290-292). The teaching of Catalan or use of Catalan for instruction was outlawed until

the seventies (Branchadell, 1999, p. 292; Boada, 2015; Skerrett, 2010, p. 264). This, combined

with the censorship/destruction of Catalan books and publications (Skerrett, 2010, p. 263), meant

that there was a significant lack of institutional support and material resources to continue

advancing the language (Boada, 2015). Eventually, toward the end of the dictatorship, authorities

became tolerant but unsupportive of ‘native language’ education (Branchadell, 1999, p. 292), but

this did little to help existing language ideologies in favor of Castilian. Regardless of economic

23
power and perceptions of societal status, the fact that the Catalan population at this point was

forced to assimilate and could not safely speak or teach its own language besides in secure

private locations establishes Catalan as a non-dominant co-culture, at least linguistically, during

this era.

Besides assimilating to language policies of the authoritative Spanish state, the Catalan

culture also, in many cases, had to assimilate its language in reaction to the large influx of

Castilian-speaking immigrants after the 1950s that followed the industrialization within

Catalonia. Between one and two million immigrants from southern Spain moved to Catalonia,

many of whom did not desire to learn Catalan because they did not know of the language to

begin with, did not see a reason to learn it, and/or wanted to maintain their distinctive socioethnic

identity (Boada, 2015; Skerrett, 2010, p.p. 267-268; H. Miller & K. Miller, 1996, p. 120). While

immigrants in the 1920s were able to integrate more quickly into Catalan society and even saw

the Catalan language as one of social mobility and economic success (Skerrett, 2010, p. 268; H.

Miller & K. Miller, 1996, p. 117), immigrants of the 50s came in such great numbers and with so

little resources to learn and integrate that they did not have the same opportunity. As a result of

immigration, negative language ideologies, the fleeing of Catalans from their own territories, the

lack of written materials, and the absence of those who could teach the language, the proportion

of people who spoke Catalan in Catalonia declined from 90% to 60% of the population between

1939 and 1975 (Skerrett, 2010, p. 268; H. Miller & K. Miller, 1996, p. 117). Furthermore, by

1979, only 19.2% of people born in Catalonia could even write in Catalan (Skerrett, 2010, p.

268).

As the dictatorship came to an end and Spain returned to democracy following the death

of Franco, many threats to the Catalan language from this era remained to be addressed, and

24
many Catalans feared that supporting bilingualism in Catalonia moving forward would

eventually lead to a full shift to Castilian. This fear was not only because of grander-scale

phenomena like Franco’s oppressive language policies or the sheer number of Castilian-speaking

immigrants. It was also because of the small but harmful effects that followed such phenomena.

Aside from the loss of prestige for Catalan (Boada, 2015), common interference between the

languages could lead to a loss of specific Catalan characteristics like phonetics and grammar

(Skerrett, 2010, p. 269) in part of or alongside Catalan linguistic borrowings and calques from

Castilian Spanish, known as “castellanismes” that decreased the purity of the Catalan language

(Newman & Trenchs-Parera, 2015, Part 1).

Henry Miller and Kate Miller (1996) explain in their contribution to International

Studies in Sociology of Education the complex ethnolinguistic interactions and bilingualism of

Catalonia:

“In Catalonia the circumstances effecting speech accommodation are complicated by the

unequal ability of the two ethnic groups to accommodate. Due to the linguistic

assimilation policies of Franco the Catalan group as a whole are bilingual in the sense

that they have the linguistic ability to use both Castilian and Catalan. The non-Catalan

group are not so uniformly able to use both languages. The ability of an individual from

this group to speak Catalan will depend on various factors relating to perception of social

identity and motivation to integrate into the Catalan ethnolinguistic group. However, it is

generally the case, at least at present, that the Catalan ethnolinguistic group have more

options open to them when it comes to speech accommodation, though this is generally

not seen as an advantage, as frequently, this implies that they have to use Castilian when

their preference would be to use Catalan.” (p.p. 120-121)

25
Overview of Era 1

Franco’s dictatorship ultimately represents a time period when the Catalan co-culture in

Catalonia was linguistically non-dominant, despite perceptions of the language’s association with

economic or social affluence. A unique quality of this Catalan non-dominance is that much of

Catalan society had to both assimilate to and accommodate itself to the same Castilian language,

in two very different contexts, all at once. One context was of obligation to political

authoritarianism, and the other context was of reactionary adjustment to an increase in the

population of a lower socioeconomic class. This latter mention of “accommodate”, however,

reflects more of an assimilationist approach. Even though some Catalans may have been at a

higher socioeconomic level compared to the immigrant population (hence, dominant

socioeconomically), they still felt inclined in many scenarios to switch their language to the

language of the majority (hence, nondominant in terms of linguistic prominence). Between the

two contexts, the Castilian language represented a unifying and dominant trait in Catalonia,

leaving Catalan-speakers with less social and political power to promote the maintenance and

development of their own co-culture. So, even though the Catalan culture as a whole may have

been ethnically dominant in Catalonia, it was nevertheless increasingly a linguistic minority

(Newman & Trenchs-Parera, 2015, Part 1; H. Miller & K. Miller, 1996, p. 121).

Altogether, though there were not many language policies of education in Catalonia

specifically to evaluate, exploring the Catalan co-cultural status in Franco’s era reveals how

greater opposing political, institutional, and social forces can affect the co-culture’s

communicative practices and inhibit it’s transience of power. The forced assimilation and

reactionary accommodation of Catalan-speakers to the Castilian language, combined with their

26
lack of institutional support, establishes Catalan as, at this point, a linguistically nondominant

co-cultural feature. The next era of Catalan co-cultural power to be explored is the era in which

Spain becomes democratic once again and the nation of Catalonia reclaims its autonomy.

Era 2: Democracy and Autonomy (1978-1999)

Franco’s death in 1975 marked the social and political decline of his regime and allowed

for a transition to democracy in Spain. This transition gave Catalan society a chance to turn

pent-up feelings of mistreatment into a passionate drive for preserving and reviving its

previously-banned language (Boada, 2015; Laitin, 1989, p. 303). The education system of

Catalonia was a prevalent area of linguistic revival efforts because it could teach “standardised

and correct usage” and at the same time “help educate attitudes,” leading to more public support

and increased every day use of the language (H. Miller & K. Miller, 1996, p.p. 123-124).

However, policymakers for the education system had to keep in mind the cultural and linguistic

breakdown of Catalonia. Though the autonomous region used to host a majority of

Catalan-origin citizens, the surge of Castilian-speaking immigrants that lasted through the

seventies resulted in a fairly even split between Catalan and Castilian ethnolinguistic groups after

1975, with Catalan only having a slight numerical advantage (H. Miller & K. Miller, 1996, p.

118). Thus, policymakers had to consider how to craft laws that promoted a balanced integration

of languages. The following subsections break down the evolution of Catalonia’s language

policies between 1978 and 1999 that relate to education, reflect significant growth in Catalan

linguistic power, and reveal various intercultural impacts.

The Spanish Constitution (1978)

27
 In 1978, the new Spanish Constitution acknowledged the linguistic plurality of Spain in

which autonomous regions could establish their own languages as co-official with Castilian

Spanish, the sole official language of the entire state (Boada, 2015; Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 63;

H. Miller & K. Miller, 1996, p. 123; Siguan, 1991, p. 88). This regional recognition of minority

languages as official and national now presented an opportunity to develop policies that helped

normalize their statuses and acquisition (Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 61 & p.p. 64-65). Hence, the

Spanish Constitution was a key starting point and foundation on which to build up the Catalan

culture after years of repression.

Despite newfound freedom, the complexity of having a country with a “monolingual

center and bilingual regions” (Branchadell, 1999, p. 293) makes itself apparent with the

breakdown of shared authority in the education system. While other systems may operate in a

more decentralised manner, education in Spain ultimately must abide by requirements from the

central government, even though the regional systems can and do create the laws and policies for

their own schools (Ferrer, 2000, p.p. 188-189). This division of power can more explicitly be

seen within the Constitution itself. Article 3.1 states that citizens have the duty and right to,

respectively, know and use Castilian Spanish, but it makes no such affirmation for the minority

regional languages it mentions in Article 3.2. Whether this exclusion was purposeful, or whether

the central government merely desired to leave the knowledge and duty requirements up to

respective territories, the absence of knowledge and duty recognition in the Spanish Constitution

can be perceived to imply and perpetuate an imbalance of legal obligation and language rights

(Ferrer, 2000, p. 189). In a similar way, it could also be read as a proponent for continued

asymmetric bilingualism (Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 64) between Castilian-speaking communities

and minority language-speaking communities like Catalan in Catalonia.

28
 Altogether, the co-official recognition of minority languages within their own territories

was a major step forward for the newly democratic country and the region of Catalonia. While

increased measures for inclusivity would still be needed from Catalonia itself, the Catalan

co-culture was no longer powerless in terms of political and social influence.

The Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia (1979)

Catalonia passed its own Statute of Autonomy in 1979 that establishes that Catalan is

Catalonia’s “own language” (Article 3.1), Catalan is regionally co-official with Spain’s official

state language of Castilian (Article 3.2), and that the Government of Catalonia shall guarantee

the “normal and official use of both languages'' as well as promote the knowledge of them and

the equality of rights and duties of Catalonia’s citizens regarding them (Article 3.3)

(Roda-Bencells, 2009, p.p. 63-65; H. Miller & K. Miller, 1996, p. 123; Branchadell, 1999, p.

293; Siguan, 1991, p. 88; Newman & Trenchs-Parera, 2015, Part 1). The statute aimed to

increase “the maintenance (and revival) of the Catalan language by those native speakers who

were prohibited from using it in a public way” along with encouraging its prominence among

citizens who were new to Catalonia (Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 65). Though the Spanish

Constitution did not guarantee the “right to know'' and “duty to use'' minority languages,

Catalonia’s Statute of Autonomy would strive for a more “theoretical, and legal, balanced

bilingualism” in Catalonia (Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 65) by ensuring that individual citizens had

the right to learn and use both official languages and that institutions would foster the use of

Catalan in ‘normal’ public domains (Ferrer, 2000, p. 190; Branchadell, 1999, p. 293). This

guarantee would soon be pursued more directly in the Linguistic Normalization Act of 1983.

29
 The Statute of Autonomy received widespread support from both Catalans and

non-Catalans because it represented the region’s new found “era of hope” after such a divisive

regime as Franco’s (H. Miller & K. Miller, 1996, p. 123), thus showing intercultural relations

willing to cooperate with each other in order to move forward in peace. In terms of co-cultural

power, the Statute of Autonomy can be seen as one of the earliest significant displays of power

after Franco, in terms of Catalans having and utilizing their right to promote their language

through such a prominent outlet as the regional government of Catalonia. Moreover, the statute

stated that it would “create the conditions making it possible” for Catalan and Castilian Spanish

"to achieve full equality in terms of the rights and duties of citizens of Catalonia” (Article 3.3)

(Gencat, 2014). This essentially means that citizens have the freedom to choose which language

they would like to use on a personal basis, but that institutions expected to “create the

conditions” for the equality of the languages may also choose to enforce territorial guidelines of

their uses (Branchadell, 1999, p. 294). Considering the split of Castilian and Catalan speaking

individuals as well as the government’s need to follow the Spanish Constitution, such a statement

ultimately acknowledges the goals of Catalonia’s government to create an environment of

sociolinguistic and co-cultural cohesion.

The Linguistic Normalization Act (1983)

The 1978 Spanish Constitution allowed for the authority of autonomous regions to

establish their own governments and policies. The 1979 Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia

provided direction for those policies in order to move forward in the new democratic state of

Spain. With unanimous parliamentary support, the Catalan government then passed the

Linguistic Normalization Act of 1983 that aimed to improve both the legal status and public

knowledge of Catalan as a language (Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 65; Jordan, 2018) without creating

30
any unnecessary suffering for those who did not speak Catalan (Laitin, 1989, p. 314). Essentially,

the act was meant to, as its name states, normalize the use of Catalan in everyday life and

specifically in domains like public administration, education, and the mass media (Vann, 1999, p.

317; Newman et al., 2008). It helped previous Catalan-speakers to reacquire the language,

current speakers to maintain the language, and new speakers from other parts of Spain to shift to

using the language in ‘normal’ contexts (Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 66). This would assist in

returning the Catalan language to its status before Franco (that of being an official language) and

to promote its normal use throughout the region while still respecting other languages.

In regard to the education system of Catalonia, although some instruction and course

material did occur in minor amounts beforehand, the Linguistic Normalization Act helped with

much of the initial groundwork for coordinating minimum standards and frameworks for change

(H. Miller & K. Miller, 1996, p. 124). A specific focus of the act in particular was to improve the

integration and expectations for teaching Catalan and teaching through the medium of Catalan.

The act states that Catalan, as the co-official language of Catalonia, should be progressively used

as the vehicular language in education centers, with the hope that children and students would

use Catalan more over time and that Catalan would one day be the sole language of instruction in

Catalonia (H. Miller & K. Miller, 1996, p. 124; Carbonell, 2018; Jordan, 2018; Siguan, 1991,

p.p. 90-91; Miley, 2006, p. 2). Castilian Spanish was still required to be taught alongside Catalan

(Carbonell, 2018; Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 66; Branchadell, 1999, p. 295), and children were

entitled to receive their initial schooling (up until the age of seven) in their language of choice

between Castilian and Catalan so long as they could fulfill the requirement to have a balanced

command of both languages by the end of mandatory schooling (Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 66;

Branchadell, 1999, p. 295; Siguan, 1991, p. 87).

31
 When put into action, the balanced command was pursued by requiring that “a minimum

number of hours per week must be devoted throughout the educational system to the language

not used as the principal medium of instruction,” (Siguan, 1991, p.p. 90-91). Different schools

implemented the standards for teaching in Catalan in their own ways, often somewhere “between

the legal minimum of two subjects and the possible maximum of all subjects” (H. Miller & K.

Miller, 1996, 124). The act also prohibited the separation of students in education centers/classes

based on their first language (Jordan, 2018; Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 66). So, besides reviving the

Catalan language, the act ultimately improved cultural cohesion between Castilian and Catalan

speakers while aiming for an equal opportunity to learn both languages (Jordan, 2018).

A final strategy for normalizing the Catalan language in the education system that came

out of the Linguistic Normalization Act was the implementation of immersion programs. In

significant areas of Catalonia where a majority of residents did not speak Catalan, these

immersion programs taught nursery school and some of primary school entirely in Catalan in

order to take advantage of the optimum age for learning multiple languages at once, such as

Castilian and Catalan (H. Miller & K. Miller, 1996, p. 125). Considering Castilian Spanish, at

this time, maintained more prominence in society than Catalan and did not need any additional

support to survive, a significant goal of the immersion programs was to provide such “additional

assistance and protection” for Catalan to even out the circumstances (Ferrer, 2000, p.p. 193-194).

Though the Normalization Act aimed to encourage a more symmetric bilingualism

between the Catalan and Castilian languages, it still had controversial impacts for the

Castilian-speaking community. A signficant area of dispute involved the potential for

discrimination based on language use. The Normalization Act states students cannot be

segregated based on language, but many Castilian-speaking families felt their own language, and

32
constitutional right to learn/use it, was being repressed in the education system (Vann, 1991, p.p.

317-318; Ferrer, 2000, p. 195). These families expressed concern over whether their child’s

initial education in Castilian (a constitutional right) could be effectively supported in its

transition to Catalan-medium instruction later on in the child’s schooling (H. Miller & K. Miller,

1996, p. 125). In addition, these families felt that the ideologies and legislation of “Catalan

linguistic and cultural authority” being pushed for in academics would eventually serve to

exclude recognition for Castilian Spanish in Catalonia’s school system (Vann, 1991, p.p.

317-318). The speed at which the changes in the education system occurred did not help ease

familial fears. In less than 20 years, between 1978 and 1996, the Catalan government reported

that Catalan instruction had increased in schools from less than 2% of primary schools to four

out of every five schools (Vann, 1999, p. 318). With so many families that have Castilian as their

first and home language, legislators in Catalonia faced a challenge of balancing the right for

children to be instructed in Castilian, the duty to know Catalonia’s own language of Catalan, and

the need to “integrate all students regardless of language and cultural background,” without

segregating classrooms/schools (Ferrer, 2000, p. 191 & p. 195).

When considering how to balance linguistic policies in the education system of

Catalonia, the idea of Catalan prominence beyond academics should be re-addressed. In this

period of time, the situation remained that citizens of Catalonia could only have spoken Castilian

Spanish and gotten along perfectly fine while the same was not true for citizens who only spoke

Catalan, the region’s “own” language (Ferrer, 2000, p. 191; Newman & Trenchs-Parera, 2015,

Part 1). Indeed, many sectors outside of education (the media, the judicial system, etc.) and much

of social communication in general were still dominated by Castilian Spanish, meaning that

children would still be exposed to and learn Castilian Spanish in the rest of society and at home,

33
if not in much more significant amounts than the hours taught in school (Jordan, 2018; Ferrer,

2000, p. 191). A 1983 study even found Castilian-speaking students to be predominantly

monolingual and native Catalan-speakers to be “the only ones truly bilingual in both languages,”

(Ferrer, 2000, p. 193). Of course, this is no surprise considering the forced assimilation to

Castilian by many Catalan-speakers during the Franco regime, but it legitimizes the goal of the

Linguistic Normalization Act to “eliminate the two-tired situation in the schools, and increase

student fluency in Catalan,” (Ferrer, 2000, p. 193). So, if anything, the combination of the

prioritized Catalan instruction in school and the social presence of Castilian outside of school (in

addition to courses taught in Castilian) promoted a social context of “dual development” where

students would inherently gain the balanced command of both languages that is required

(Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 68).

Based on the multiple perspectives just mentioned about the Linguistic Normalization

Act, the issue of and concern for language discrimination in education should be related less to

the general idea of language equality (ie. prominence in the context of Catalan society beyond

just education) as it should be related to equality of language support in education (ie. the

resources, treatment, and opportunity for children being educated in either language).

Additionally, both sides of the Catalan-Castilian linguistic situation should advocate for an

“active bilingualism” where members from the two cultural/linguistic groups choose to work

together with respect and willingness to understand the other’s perspective (Newman et al.,

2008).

The Linguistic Normalization Act, in total, played a crucial role in reviving the normal

use of the Catalan language in Catalonia through its implementation of standards and guidelines

for instruction. Catalan as a linguistic co-culture thus utilized the power it assumed from the

34
1979 Statute of Autonomy to gain significant prominence within the education system and

subsequently promote its equality to Castilian. The act did face controversy related to

Castilian-speaking families who did not wish to follow immersion agendas, but, as a whole, it

served to foster an academic environment of coexistence instead of division, accommodation

instead of assimilation.

The Linguistic Policy Act (1998)

The Linguistic Policy Act of 1998 was essentially an update to the Normalization Act of

1983 and retained many of the same goals for the use of Catalan throughout society in Catalonia.

The newer act aimed for continued integration between Catalan and Castilian sociolinguistic

groups as well as continued correction of the “historically inherited imbalances” between the

languages (Miley, 2006, p. 3). This included the view of education as a major key to reviving the

Catalan language and thus the necessity for bilingual academics (Roda-Bencells, 2009, p.p.

65-66; Ferrer, 2000, p. 124). In pursuit of these goals that were very beneficial to the Catalan

co-culture, however, the Linguistic Policy Act was perceived by some as crossing the line

between normalizing a language and forcing its acceptance.

Up until this point, individual education centers had the final say in the amount of

Catalan and Castilian instruction that occurred in school so long as they met the minimum

requirement of hours for both languages. In 1998, the Linguistic Policy Act expanded upon a

1992 decree that all primary schools would use Catalan as the language of instruction; Article

21.1 of the 1998 Act stated that this would now apply to secondary schooling too (Miley, 2006,

p. 2). Such a law risks being unconstitutional by infringing on the “the allegedly-fundamental

right” of nearly half the population of Catalonia (native Castilian-speakers) to be instructed in

35
their first-language (Miley, 2006, p. 2). Taking into account that in the 1995-56 school year 68%

of primary schools used solely Catalan for instruction, with the rest using mostly Catalan

instruction (Miley, 2006, p. 4), the Linguistic Policy Act of 1998 did not reflect the most noble

sentiments for inclusion. A specific example can be found in the expectations of students and

teachers regarding language choice in institutions. While they could choose their own language

of expression, the act required that “all pertinent measures” be taken to ensure that Catalan was

used in as many parts of research and teaching as possible (Vann, 1999, p. 326) and that

teachers/professors should be proficient in both Catalan and Castilian (Ferrer, 2000, p. 194). At

least for Castilian groups, the Linguistic Policy Act appeared to be part of a nationalist,

pro-Catalan agenda (Ferrer, 2000, p. 192).

In his 1999 contribution to the Language & Communication Journal, Robert E. Vann

describes the social situation surrounding the Linguistic Policy Act of 1998:

“Though Catalan has not yet been completely normalized (Fishman, 1991), the power

and capital of the suddenly dominant and hegemonic paradigm of linguistic

normalization of Catalan in Catalonia have very real consequences for non-Catalanists

and individuals who are Spanish-dominant. With the interpretations and practice of the

Law of Normalization presently facing a small but growing resistance, continued

observation of the regional autonomic imposition of linguistic unity in Catalonia is

warranted.” (p. 326)

In many ways, the Linguistic Policy Act of 1998 appeared to give more power to the

Catalan government than it gave to individual institutions. By requiring that all primary and

secondary schools instruct in Catalan and pushing for its prioritized use in universities, the new

linguistic act surpassed what could be called “reactionary language planning” in the post-Franco

36
era to what was now risking hegemony and repression of Castilian (Vann, 2000, p. 318)— at

least if not especially in areas of Catalonia where the majority of families were mostly

monolingual in Castilian. Altogether, the co-cultural prominence and power of Catalan

(specifically in the education system) grew significantly between the Linguistic Normalization

Act of 1983 and the Linguistic Policy Act of 1998, but this progression also expected many

Castilian-speaking communities to assimilate rather quickly to programs that were very clearly

focused more on promoting the Catalan language and ideologies.

Overview of Era 2

After years of repression under Franco’s dictatorship, Catalan society preserved its

culture and language and led a quite successful revival movement between 1975 and the turn of

the century in the year 2000. From the Spanish Constitution to the Statute of Autonomy and from

the Linguistic Normalization Act to the Linguistic Policy Act, policymakers in favor of this

Catalan revival strived to create opportunities in various sectors like education to achieve

language equality between Catalan and Castilian.

For the majority of this era, the nature of the Catalan co-culture’s progression, at least in

the education system, has been one of accommodation from the dominant Castilian culture

because the Catalan co-culture progressively gained power through policies that shifted priorities

in education. To move on from the divisive atmosphere of the dictatorship, language policies in

education promoted bilingualism over monolingualism as well as integration between Catalan

and Castilian in order to fulfill expectations and requirements of both the Spanish state and the

government of Catalonia. Lawmakers in Catalonia eventually saw the difficulty in implementing

immersion and integration tactics within a society where the majority language (Castilian) was

37
not the region’s “own” language (Catalan). The process was rather smooth up until the 1990’s

when laws such as the Linguistic Policy Act appeared to infringe on Castilian-speakers’ freedom

of choice regarding education and the language in which it would be delivered.

The progression of the Catalan co-cultural status between the Franco era and the era of

renewed democracy depicts a significant acquisition of institutional power by Catalan society.

By the end of this era, in the context of Catalonia as a whole, the Catalan co-culture could be

seen as still linguistically nondominant in terms of its prominence. Within the education system,

however, Catalan gradually became more dominant in terms of institutional power as

policymakers in favor of Catalan revival crafted laws aimed at normalizing and prioritizing the

use of the Catalan language.

Analyzing the Catalan transition from powerlessness to power based on language policies

in education reveals how the increase in power for Catalans correlates with a notable shift in

communicative orientations towards other co-cultures in the school system— in this case,

towards the linguistically dominant but socioeconomically nondominant co-culture of

Castilian-speakers. Under Franco, the Catalan co-culture was relatively powerless to maintain

and develop itself due to forced assimilation. When democracy was restored and the Catalan

co-culture finally had more freedom of expression, policymakers designed laws that would

gradually normalize the language while respecting the language rights of the other half of the

population in Catalonia who spoke Castilian Spanish. In essence, there was an atmosphere of

accommodation because the Catalan co-culture passed multiple policies that re-structured the

education system to include Catalan perspectives too, not just Spanish ones. The Linguistic

Policy Act that followed, however, stirred much debate. Some perceived its intended impact as

evening the field for Catalan as the co-official language, and those who resisted it were

38
defending the existing asymmetry between Castilian and Catalan. Others perceived the intended

impact of the Linguistic Policy Act as prioritizing Catalan to the point of excluding or

marginalizing Castilian in schools. In this case, the act was perceived to promote a sense of

assimilation, this time being enforced by Catalan policy.

Based on the varying perspectives on whether policies were being crafted with a Catalan

nationalist agenda, a question on the basis of what constitutes assimilation emerges. Would it be

considered forced assimilation if a region appears to be forcing bilingualism, even if the goal is

for equality in both languages with no expectation of weakening the mother tongue?

As the 20th century came to an end, Catalan authorities would soon have to figure out

how to craft education policies that helped develop Catalan without polarizing not only Castilian

communities, but also a new wave of international immigration. The next era of Catalan

co-cultural power to be explored is the modern era in which this switch from bilingualism to

multilingualism occurred and in which a greater diversity of sociocultural identities would need

to learn how to integrate in a way that encouraged social harmony.

Era 3: Bilingualism to Multilingualism (2000-Present Day)

The beginning of the 21st century marked a time of globalization and international

immigration to Catalonia that, in turn, brought new languages and cultures from all over the

world to its school systems (Ferrer, 2000; Urmeneta & Unamuno, 2008, p. 2; Roda-Bencells,

2009, p. 74). In fact, between the 2000 and 2010 academic school years, the number of foreign

students in Catalonia rose from 24,787 to 155,845 (Mercator, 2013). Educating students of

increasingly diverse backgrounds presented new challenges for crafting modern language and

education policies that could encourage an agreeable atmosphere for all cultures while

39
maintaining the already achieved progress of the Catalan language. Overall, these

policy-drafting challenges arose from attempts to balance the goals and impacts of the policies

for both local communities and “populations at a global scale” since they would now need to

shift from a bilingual approach to a multilingual approach (Urmeneta & Unamuno, 2008, p.p.

2-3). This shift would inevitably impact how sociocultural and national identities would be

formed, often somewhere between the realms of polarization and cosmopolitanism.

Aside from the mere change in demographics as a result of globalization, the active use

of the English language spread to many new regions of the world “at the expense of local

languages” (Ferrer, 2000, p. 190), presenting another factor to consider when crafting new

language/education policies. As new foreign languages like English were introduced in a

widespread manner, policymakers needed to think about the time spent on language instruction

vs. other core subjects (now that Catalan, Castilian, and foreign languages were expected in

instruction); the type of language instruction in terms of which languages were offered and

which were used as a medium for teaching; and the training that teachers would need in order to

be prepared for these intercultural learning environments (Ferrer, 2000, p. 195). The programs

created in response to these needs ultimately would aim to continue normalizing the Catalan

language while improving student competence in foreign languages and tending to the “linguistic

needs of immigrant children,” thus encouraging a positive integrative experience for youth in

schools and in society (Urmeneta & Unamuno, 2008, p. 2). As has been the trend in Catalan

history, controversy would continue to occur regarding the balance between respecting ethnic or

linguistic minorities and promoting normalization attempts, which would turn into an ideological

debate between what is considered a culturally defensive agenda and what is considered a

progressively nationalist agenda.

40
 The following subsections break down the evolution of relevant Catalan language

policies between 2000 and today that relate to education, reflect significant growth in Catalan

linguistic power, and reveal various intercultural impacts.

The Plan for Language and Social Cohesion (2004)

The speed of Catalonia’s demographic shift based on increasing international

immigration soon resulted in Catalonia hosting not only the largest concentration of immigrants

in Spain, but also hosting one of the largest concentrations of foreigners in Europe (Bernaus,

Moore, Azevedo, 2007). By 2004, the overall population of Catalonia’s capital, Barcelona,

consisted of 12.8% foreigners, with specific districts of the city (such as the Raval district)

reaching a population with nearly 50% immigrants (Bernaus, Moore, Azevedo, 2007). Some

schools in Catalonia even had 80% of their student bodies be from immigrant backgrounds

(Bernaus, Moore, Azevedo, 2007).

The 2004 Plan for Language and Social Cohesion built upon the normalization and

revitalization initiatives that took place in Era 2, with a shift in focus from the often

identity-based bilingualism between Castilian and Spanish to a more cosmopolitan

multi-linguistic approach that would respond to the implications of globalization and

international immigration to be found in this era (Trenchs-Parera & Newman, 2015, Part 2;

Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 71; Newman et al., 2012). A major goal of the Language and Social

Cohesion Plan was to merge the promotion of social cohesion, intercultural education, and the

Catalan language into a new multilingual context with an added focus on students new to

Catalonia (Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 72; Urmeneta & Unamuno, 2008, p.p. 8-9). To achieve this in

a manner that was adaptable to each school, the Plan allowed for the establishment of reception

classrooms, as well as the continuation of immersion programs, that would assist foreign

41
students with learning Catalan and with their overall progressive integrations into other areas of

academic life as their language learning grew (Espelt, 2007, p. 74; Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 72;

Mercator, 2013; Newman et al., 2012). Reception classrooms were basically classes where

students learning Catalan (many of which were immigrant students) would receive linguistic

support in a separate room/location together with other students learning the language as well

(Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 72; Newman et al., 2012).

Catalonia benefitted in multiple ways from the implementation of the new Plan for

Language and Social Cohesion, including “progressive results in the acquisition and command of

Catalan at all levels of the school system,” (Bernaus, Moore, Azevedo, 2007). Reception

classrooms became a useful tool in providing immigrant students with opportunities to practice

their Catalan in real, socializing situations that they would otherwise not experience in their

normal interactions but that are fundamental to language acquisition (Espelt, 2007, p. 76). In

addition, instead of the potentially divisive nature of Catalonia’s traditional asymmetric

bilingualism that previous normalization policies arguably reinforced, the ideology of the new

Plan in its presentation of Catalan as the “backbone” of a multilingual and intercultural education

system stressed the importance of knowing the Catalan language, along with the social and

economic opportunity that comes with knowing it, while still being accepting of the unique

cultural/linguistic backgrounds of students (Newman et al., 2012; Urmeneta & Unamuno, 2008,

p.p. 5-6; Trenchs-Parera & Newman, 2015, Part 2). Hospitable rhetoric like this that eased

immigrant involvement in Catalan society was thus helpful in combatting xenophobic/racist

discourses that they often faced by native Catalans who blamed immigration for social and

economic problems of the region (Trenchs-Parera & Newman, 2015, Part 2). While other

societies may erase differences through cohesion policies that only aim for integration into one

42
language, the idea of cohesion in Catalonia’s “post-immigration reality” reflected a compromise

between the value for diversity and the value for local minority language (Newman et al., 2012).

Although its ideals were promising, some debate regarding the actual implementation of

the Language and Social Cohesion Plan did occur. The reception classrooms were sometimes

problematic because they had two-year limits that would technically prevent clusters of

segregated immigrant schooling (Trenchs-Parera & Newman, 2015, Part 2) but that were

insufficient both in resources and in time to support true success in the new language (Newman

et al., 2012; Trenchs-Parera & Newman, 2015, Part 2). Moreover, if students did not have

favorable experiences in the reception classrooms, be that because of the rooms’ insufficiencies

or lack of outside socializations, they were more likely to have less positive attitudes toward the

Catalan language in general, leading to more inclinations toward Castilian Spanish than Catalan

(Newman, Patiño-Santos, Trenchs-Parera, 2012). Aside from the academic framework of the

reception classrooms, some groups such as supporters for Spanish nationalism viewed the Plan

as contradictory and discriminatory toward non-Catalan languages (Espelt, 2007, p. 75;

Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 70; Trenchs-Parera & Newman, 2015, Part 2), as well as having a

“preoccupation with traditional essentialist ethnolinguistic concerns,” (Trenchs-Parera &

Newman, 2015, Part 2). For instance, reception classrooms were designed to be spaces for

multicultural inclusion and integration in Catalan society, but only one of the two co-official

languages of Catalonia was used for instruction: Catalan (Espelt, 2007, p. 75). To newcomers,

this setup could have been seen as a nationalist agenda expecting them to assimilate to a Catalan

culture or identity over a Castilian one.

On the opposite side of this viewpoint was the remaining truth that, even though Catalan

was a co-official language of the region and the schools, it was still a minority language in

43
comparison to Castilian Spanish, and many students in the multilingual learning environments of

this time used Catalan quite infrequently outside of academics (Bernaus et al., 2007). This could

have been due to multiple status or usability reasons including but not limited to the fact that

immigrant students tended to live in predominantly Castilian-speaking neighborhoods with

limited Catalan exposure; Catalan-speakers tended to switch to Castilian Spanish either as a

means of accommodating to or excluding those they perceived as non-or-less-proficient

Catalan-speakers; and many Castilian-speaking immigrants had less than positive attitudes

towards Catalan because they found it unnecessary, did not know the linguistic situation of

Catalonia, and/or felt that using Catalan was betraying their own culture (Bernaus et al., 2007;

Trenchs-Parera & Newman, 2015, Part 2; Espelt, 2007, p.p. 75-76; Roda-Bencells, 2009, p.p.

69-71; Newman et al., 2012). So, based on such reasons, the reception classroom may indeed

have been one of the few spaces where new citizens of Catalonia could practice Catalan and

receive positive linguistic/cultural interactions and instruction from teachers. This raises

questions for how policymakers and teachers alike in Catalonia are expected to compromise in

the classroom when use and/or knowledge of Castilian is practically guaranteed outside of

academics while the Catalan language is not. Additionally, this raises questions for how

resources could be better allocated to support the transition of language learning between regular

academics, the reception classrooms, and Catalan communities.

The Updated Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia (2006)

In 2006, the government of Catalonia drafted and received approval for a revised Statute

of Autonomy that would give even more strength to the Catalan language by establishing in

Article 6 the right to use and duty to know the two official languages of Catalan and Castilian,

alongside the now normal and “preferential” use of Catalan in public administration, the media,

44
and education (Roda-Bencells, 2009, p. 65; Minority Rights Group International, 2018;

Trenchs-Parera & Newman, 2015, Part 2; Mercator, 2013). The new statute’s recognition of

citizen rights and duties regarding Catalan certainly marked progress in giving the language a

more equal status with Castilian. The idea of “preferential” use, however, sparked controversy in

the Spanish Constitutional Court because the “Catalan as first language” trend in public

administration, the media, and education seemed to overlook the co-official status of the

Castilian language (Mercator, 2013). In 2010, the Spanish Constitutional Court ruled that this

wording was unconstitutional and that Castilian must be presented alongside Catalan as a “lingua

franca” (common language) in these sectors, thus insinuating changes could potentially be made

in the longstanding academic model of the Catalan school system (Trenchs-Parera & Newman,

2015, Part 2; Mercator, 2013).

As will be discussed with more detail in later subsections, the Court’s adjustments to

Catalonia’s updated statute in 2010 was seen by many Catalans as an attempt to begin

recentralizing the aforementioned sectors to be increasingly aligned with more traditional

Castilian/Spanish ideologies, mainly due to the policies from the Spanish government that

followed soon after. Thus, the imposition from the Court ultimately would incite backlashes from

Catalan society and even lead to increases in political tensions as well as support for Catalan

independence.

The Wert Law (2013)

Back in 2010, when the Constitutional Court reviewed Catalonia’s updated Statute of

Autonomy, it acknowledged that the Catalan language was the “centre of gravity” in education

but also noted that Castilian must be incorporated in a proportional way (ACN, 2014). Based on

the Court’s interpretation of the statute, the Spanish government passed an education reform act

45
(LOMQE) in 2013 also known as the Wert Law, named after the education minister at the time.

Though this law was not written/introduced by Catalonia’s own government, it is relevant to

explain in order to understand the social and political context in more recent years and how they

impact education and intercultural relations alike.

In essence, the law reinforced many Castilian ideologies of the currently right-leaning

Spanish government by aiming to “recentralise education powers, foster religion and impose

Spanish as a language of instruction in Catalonia,” (ACN, 2014). It required that instruction

entirely in Castilian Spanish should be provided if a student requests it, and, if this is the case,

Castilian Spanish instruction should constitute at least 25% of total class time for the entire class

(Trenchs-Parera & Newman, 2015, Part 2; ACN, 2014; Alvarez & Baquero, 2018). In addition,

the Wert Law required the Catalan government to “pay for a privately-owned school for the

families that want to school their children in Spanish,” (ACN, 2014).

At this time, Catalonia already had an education model in which schools offered, aside

from the subjects of Spanish and Literature which were always taught in Castilian, “many

flexibility measures, including individualised attention for newcomers” and “additional subjects

in Spanish following their own autonomy and education project,” (ACN, 2014). Furthermore,

“under the current system, a Spanish‐dominant student may apply for individual language

support to be able to follow instruction in Catalan,” (Trenchs-Parera & Newman, 2015, Part 2)

without expecting the whole class to increase its instruction in Castilian. No policy is without its

share of critics, but the education model established through the Normalization Act and

Linguistic Policy Act (that had been in place for over 30 years) guaranteed student knowledge of

both co-official languages, had received widespread consensus since the 1980’s, and had

received praise from UNESCO, the European Commission, and even the Constitutional Court on

46
multiple occasions (ACN, 2014). So, along with attempts by the Catalan government to appeal it,

many Catalan citizens and groups of education stakeholders also protested the Wert Law with

claims it attempted to recentralize the goals of the education system, “Hispanicise'' students (a

comment made by Minister Wert himself), and contradict a guiding principle of the current

Catalan education policies that emphasizes “avoiding separate parallel educational systems based

on language preferences,” (Trenchs-Parera & Newman, 2015, Part 2; ACN, 2014). Among other

confounding factors, policy disagreements like those of the Wert Law led to increases in social

and political hostility that would soon heavily impact the relations between the regional and state

government.

Current Political Context: 2014-Present Day

Since 2010, the government of Catalonia and the government of Spain as a whole have

had back and forth policy battles involving linguistic rights. This subsection will give an

overview of the progression up until 2020 of their political tensions and battles involving the

education system.

Following the Constitutional Court’s edits to Catalonia’s updated Statute of Autonomy

and policies like the Wert Law that followed, the distrust in the Spanish government and the

desire for Catalan independence from Spain— a notion that until now was only a minority

opinion— was increasing in support (Trenchs-Parera & Newman, 2015, Part 2; Minority Rights

Group International, 2018; Carbonell, 2018). In November 2014, the Catalan government held an

unofficial referendum that would vote on the topic of Catalonia’s separation from Spain

(Trenchs-Parera & Newman, 2015, Part 2). The issue with this referendum and the subsequent

one in 2017 was that voter turnout was not enough to deem the results valid. In 2014, “80

percent of those who voted favoured independence, though only 40 percent of the population

47
turned out to vote'' (Minority Rights Group International, 2018). In 2017, the Catalan

government stated that a result of 50% or more for independence would lead them to declare it

(Minority Rights Group International, 2018). Over 90 percent of voters favoured secession,” but

the “turn-out was 43 percent,” (Minority Rights Group International, 2018; BBC, Oct. 14, 2019).

Many of the citizens who stayed home from voting were those who may have had their

own opinions about policies but overall desired for Catalonia to stay unified with Spain, and

many also did not believe the referendums’ results to be legitimate (Minority Rights Group

International, 2018). Nevertheless, the Catalan government did declare independence, and when

the Constitutional Court denied the legitimacy and constitutionality of the referendum results,

“peaceful protestors and voters faced a violent crackdown by Spanish police…. against people

lining up at polling stations to vote” (Minority Rights Group International, 2018). All of this

commotion led to the Spanish government establishing a direct rule over, and dissolvement of,

the Catalan parliament which lasted until June 2018 (Minority Rights Group International,

2018) when autonomy was restored and a new government was sworn in (BBC, Oct. 14, 2019).

Civil unrest including street riots have still been apparent following the 2017 political conflicts

because many Catalan leaders involved in the independence movement have been arrested, fined,

or took it upon themselves to flee the region since then (BBC, Oct. 18, 2019).

Today, Catalonia remains an autonomous community within the greater Spanish state,

and Catalan remains as the main vehicular language in the education system with exceptions

given to those who desire it. Political and social tensions inevitably still exist between spectrums

of the far right and left of Spanish nationalists and Catalan nationalists/separatists respectively.

On the one hand, many of those who acknowledge that the majority of students are firstly

Castilian-speaking argue that these children’s educations are weakened as a result of being taught

48
mainly through Catalan (a language that is not their home language). On the other hand, many of

those who acknowledge the region’s two official languages, one of which has historically been

dominant, argue against such echoes of the Francoist regime that fight for the right to be

monolingual (though the minority language never had this luxury).

Overview of Era 3

For the last 20 years of the 21st century, the Catalan co-culture has managed to coexist

with and even progress amidst a rapidly changing demographic, sociolinguistic, and political

environment. From the newest wave of international immigration to the conflicts with the central

Spanish government, the beginning of the century played out to be a time of reconstruction for

the Catalan co-culture and what it meant to be “Catalan” in a society that, now more than ever,

would need to promote a cosmopolitan identity. Some politicians framed immigration and

compromise as a threat to the vitality of the Catalan co-culture, but the inevitability of integration

(be that positive or negative) led many policymakers to favor a mutually accommodative rhetoric

in order to foster social harmony and respect for other sociocultural/sociolinguistic groups

(Newman et al., 2008). In this manner, the linguistically nondominant but institutionally

dominant co-culture of Catalan would need to accommodate Castilian by guaranteeing a fair

amount of time for Castilian in academics. On the other end, the linguistically dominant but

institutitonally nondominant Castilian culture would need to accommodate Catalan by respecting

the establishment of laws that give Catalan more presence in academics than it used to have.

In the first two eras of the Catalan co-culture’s progression of power, there was a

significant presence in education/language policies of accommodative ideals along with some

instances of assimilationist notions. In some cases, there was a shift between these orientations,

and in some cases there was a mix. Unlike previous eras, however, the last few decades that

49
constitute this third most recent era experienced the greatest sentiments of separation in addition

to accommodation and assimilation— not necessarily in the policies enacted but as a backlash of

their implementation. For instance, the limitations on Catalonia’s updated Statute of Autonomy

in 2010 and the proposed changes to the linguistic policy of an education model that has been in

place for over 30 years led many groups of Catalan-identifying citizens to claim that the central

government was out of line and that independence was needed.

Education remains one of the few areas where Catalan is a prominent, working language,

so decreasing its presence in schools would mean decreased exposure for children who do not

typically interact with this other co-official language. In a way, the education system is

“compensatory” (Trenchs-Parera & Newman, 2015, Part 2) because it tries to make up for the

lack of significant Catalan usage in other sectors of society. This method has been working too,

for Catalan has maintained stability amidst its changing societal makeup. In 2013, three million

out of 7.5 million individuals in Catalonia spoke the language, 36.4% of individuals identified

with the language (even though only 31% had Catalan as their first language), and more

individuals identify with both Catalan and Castilian (7.0%) than those who had both languages

as their first (2.4%) (Trenchs-Parera & Newman, 2015, Part 2). Based on such data, there is hope

for the Catalan-speaking community that the language will continue to be passed on through

future generations.

Based on the achievement of stability and growth, requests from the central government

to decrease the presence of Catalan in classrooms resulted in increased support for independence

because Catalan-speaking communities did not want to risk regression. Additionally, many

Catalans disagreed with government interference and increased instructional use of Castilian

because they had been, for much of recent history, expected to be bilingual themselves.

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According to these Catalans, if education is the only center of prominent Catalan speech but still

a guarantor of balanced command for both co-official languages, then arguing against it is

arguing for Castilian-speaking students to be more inclined to be monolingual (Roda-Bencells,

2009, p. 70). After years of Franco’s propaganda, the repression of their own language in

schools, and an imposed subordinate identity in society, some Catalans may see “promoting a

national consciousness and desire for self-rule” (H. Miller & K. Miller, 1996, p. 119) as a means

of maintaining what they have achieved if the government continues to undermine Catalan

power.

While promoting solidarity within a co-culture is normal and useful, it may cause tension

when the desire for power and prominence of one’s own co-culture outweighs respect for and

relationship with other co-cultures. Yes, the Catalan education system may foster balanced

command of both co-official languages in Catalonia, but what is the process of reaching that

balance? Many Castilian-speaking families have argued that the language policies in education

promote more of a Catalan ideology and nationalism as a means of indoctrination than they do a

balance of nationalism for the entire Spanish state (Jordan, 2018; Wong, 2017). To these

families, a Catalan separation movement would prove this discriminatory theory to be true and in

opposition to the claimed goals of cohesion/immersion policies that value unity and harmony for

the whole community and region of Catalonia. Furthermore, calls for independence that come

from groups and institutions of power could potentially shed a negative light on the progression

of the Catalan co-culture. If it used to grow in prominence from majority accommodative

strategies but decides to begin enforcing more extreme ultimatums of assimilate or separate,

citizens in Catalonia may question if members of the Catalan co-culture (or, at least its

51
representatives in power) truly value equality for all cultures and languages or if its members

really wish to acquire and maintain their own dominance at the expense of others.

Despite the perspectives on both sides of the language policy debates, individuals

analyzing and/or merely keeping up with the Catalan situation in Catalonia must keep in mind

the influence that media, politics, and institutional power can have on the perception of

co-cultural and intercultural relations. As seen by the lack of voter turnout in the independence

referendums and by the overall consensus that the education system has tried to maintain with its

language policies, it appears that much of Catalonia’s society would indeed prefer to live in a

society where citizens can identify with their own unique qualities and backgrounds as well as

the qualities of the region and nation of Spain as a whole, without the need to “divide society

into separate, impermeable communities,” (Carbonell, 2018). Such beliefs inherently relate to

linguistic choices, in that the choice to have multilingual competence can provide “a wider

repertoire to express different identities and promotes social cohesion”— a clear goal outlined in

the foundational policies of Catalonia’s education system (Newman et al., 2008). Moving

forward, with consideration of the most recent political and civil tensions, Catalonia’s society

and policymakers must continue to work towards balanced integration while refraining from

minimizing the value of diversity and politicizing aspects of culture in order to sway public

opinions to the point of division. Identifying with one culture or language should not mean less

identification with others.

In terms of its institutional status within Catalonia, the Catalan co-culture today would

not be characterized as oppressed. It has its own autonomous regional government, a regional

co-official status for its language, notable economic affluence, and, among many other

significant features, exercises its power to influence policy-making in various sectors such as

52
education. In terms of its institutional and social status in the context of the whole Spanish state,

the Catalan co-culture is still a minority one, linguistically even more so. Catalan society must

adhere to both Catalonia’s Statute of Autonomy and the Spanish Constitution which at times

have conflicting goals. Catalan must also share the co-official status of its own language with a

language (Castilian) that is far more popular in use and identification throughout the Spanish

State. Altogether, the quality of having dominant, authoritative abilities in some contexts and

nondominant, reactive tendencies in another establishes the Catalan co-culture as a quite unique

one of transient power depending on the social, political, and institutional scenario. The language

policies of the education system of Catalonia explored throughout this section have demonstrated

how policies can serve as reflections of existing co-cultural goals and statuses as well as building

blocks for the construction of new societal norms. The following and final section of this

research will provide a collective discussion of the trends in each era regarding communicative

goals of the language policies, what these findings reveal about transient co-cultures, and where

future research in similar directions could lead.

53
 Discussion & Conclusion
The research thus far has covered a brief history of the Catalan co-culture and explained

its progression of institutional power in three distinct eras by applying the communicative

perspectives and goals outlined in CCT to language policies of Catalonia’s education system in

each of those eras. This has allowed for an understanding of how a co-culture can be transient in

power. A co-culture that was once oppressed and completely nondominant can gradually gain

and exercise power in ways that dominant cultures would in certain sectors of society, such as in

the education system. Additionally, the research has provided examples of differing co-cultural

communicative goals and approaches when co-cultural levels of power have changed. This final

section will discuss the overarching correlations between level of transient power for the Catalan

co-culture and the communicative goals of policymakers, determine new insights regarding

transient co-cultures in general, and provide suggestions for future research in this area of

Communications Studies.

As was mentioned in the second section that explained the background of CCT, there is

not much existing research on co-cultural transience of power. The Catalan language revival

provides a unique opportunity to explore this topic in the sense of both time and societal context.

For instance, in terms of time, the Catalan co-culture experienced transient power as it

transitioned from being nearly powerless during Franco’s dictatorship to being significantly

powerful in the 21st century after acquiring regional governmental authority and putting

promotional linguistic policies in place. In terms of societal context, the Catalan co-culture has

experienced and still experiences transient power when shifting between, for example, the

education system and home life in Catalonia. Catalan may have dominance in academics and

instruction, but Castilian is still the majority language of the region and Spanish state.

54
Additionally, the Catalan co-culture has experienced a regression of transient power when the

Spanish government more recently overruled legislation that the Catalan government wished to

pass regarding linguistic rights and duties.

Orbe (1998) notes that co-cultures do not always remain muted by the dominant

structures put in place, that they can achieve voice and power within and outside those structures,

and that co-cultures of transient power adopt various communicative practices when their power

levels change (p. 25). With this in mind, the following subsection will make cumulative

connections between the dominant and/or nondominant status of the Catalan co-culture and

chosen goals for co-cultural communication based on the language policies previously analyzed

in all three eras of this research.

Trends of Transience

When looking at the Catalan co-culture during Era 1, it is clear that the Catalan

community had little power to promote the development of its language and was thus

nondominant during this time. The general communicative goal for the Catalan-speaking

community in public was to assimilate to the expectations of Franco’s regime by using

assimilative strategies such as censoring the use of its own language and mirroring the language

of the dominant culture (Castilian), both methods inherently reinforcing the prominence of

dominant, monolinguistic communicative structures. However, because members of the

Catalan-speaking community knew they had to keep the language alive somehow, there were

plenty of Catalans who continued to speak Catalan in groups and in private/personal spaces as a

more low-scale means of protesting against the dominant authority enforcing the Castilian

language. This refusal to give up the Catalan language could be seen as a form of intragroup

networking and communicating self that are common strategies associated with a goal of

55
separation from the dominant group. These groups, whether they assimilated in public or not,

still strived to maintain their cultural individuality. There is not much to say for Era 1 in terms of

transient power as the Catalan co-culture was, at this point, lacking in power altogether and had

little choice in options for co-cultural communication using its own language. If anything, the

goals of nonassertive assimilation and secretive separation could potentially mean an inclination

for co-cultural communities to be more subservient and/or passive than confrontational when

under more aggressive authorities.

Era 2 of Catalan power represented a time of significant growth for the Catalan

community after the region of Catalonia achieved its own Statute of Autonomy under the new

democracy in Spain. At the beginning of this era, the Catalan co-culture was still fairly

nondominant as its renewed freedoms were just that: new and in need of promotion. Many of the

language policies in education that were passed throughout this era aimed for the Castilian

culture to accommodate Catalan in varying degrees. Initial policies such as the Normalization

Act, for instance, were fairly nonassertive in their desire for the dominant Castilian-speaking

group to accommodate them in the education system. These policies sought to make Catalan a

language of instruction as a compensatory act as a means of increasing its visibility within the

education system and, in turn, increasing the prominence of the Catalan co-culture as a whole.

There was a great deal of consensus surrounding the initial initiatives for normalization because

the policies maintained a goal of bilingual balance between Castilian and Catalan in which

speakers of both languages were expected to have a balanced command of each. This strive for

equality meant that accommodation from the dominant Castilian community would promote

positive intercultural relations without inciting defensiveness from that community. By the end

of this era, normalization policies continued to be a successful movement and even helped

56
establish Catalan as dominant within the education system because the language was now being

used as the main vehicular language in schools.

Despite increasing in vitality in Catalonia and becoming linguistically dominant within

the education system, the Catalan co-culture still had to consider how to keep peace with

Castilian-speaking communities (immigrants and/or natives) who felt threatened by the rapid

changes in academics and instruction. Increased attention for Catalan in education, especially by

the time of the Linguistic Policy Act, consistently raised questions in Castilian-speaking groups

who felt that the push for even more Catalan would be an act of sabotage in which the Catalan

co-culture was taking advantage of their institutional power to achieve this “linguistic balance”

that actually sought to promote a pro-Catalan agenda at the expense of the quality of learning for

Castilian-speaking children. This is an interesting scenario to make note of because the linguistic

group that is dominant outside of education feels threatened by the nondominant group in one

specific sector. Thus, expecting accommodation from the Castilian culture by requiring students

to achieve a balanced command of both languages while at the same time having to

accommodate itself to the needs of Castilian-speaking students puts the Catalan co-culture as

quite transient in power depending on the societal sector.

From all of this, it could be said that Era 2 constitutes a time of significant power increase

as well as a shift from assimilative communicative goals and strategies to accommodative goals

and strategies varying in intensity towards and in perceptions from the Castilian-speaking

community. Nonassertive strategies for accommodation seem to have worked well for keeping

consensus among Catalonia’s population and for reviving the Catalan co-culture’s prominence

within the region. As the co-culture gained power and prominence, its policies would become

progressively more beneficial to Catalan but would also appear to Castilian-speaking groups as

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more similar to a nationalist agenda than to an inclusive plan for promoting equality. Such a

predicament leaves questions for how much of the backlash is from Castilian-speakers who were

negatively impacted by the policies and how much of the backlash is from Castilian-speakers

who are more concerned about sharing the prominence of the Castilian language and culture.

Does more power for one necessitate less power for the other?

Era 3 presents both the peak of Catalan co-cultural power and the era of most

intercultural conflict. At this point, the Catalan co-culture was dominant within the education

system and reaping the benefits of its normalization policies from Era 2 that led to a significant

increase in the knowledge and use of the language throughout Catalonia. Since many of those

policies were still in place for Era 3, many of the same accommodative communicative strategies

pursued in Era 2, such as increasing visibility, carried into this era as well as the perceptions that

some policies continued to sabotage the success of Castilian-speaking students. As a new wave

of immigration and a shift to multiculturalism followed the turn of the century, the

communicative goals and strategies outlined in policies like the Plan for Social Cohesion strived

to pursue a positive and cohesive integration process for the increasingly diverse cultures and

backgrounds that now shaped Catalonia’s society. Though the policies indeed desired and in

many cases achieved a positive integration experience for newcomers, they also caused many

Castilian-speakers to feel discriminated against. Because a majority of instruction in classrooms

and reception rooms was through Catalan, many immigrants unfamiliar with the asymmetric

nature of language in Catalonia felt that this was a direct means of pushing for Catalan

identification, especially if they were from other Castilian-speaking regions and felt an

acceptance of Catalan meant disloyalty to their Castilian Spanish backgrounds. So, in this case,

Catalan accommodative strategies like communicating self for an equality of presence were also

58
seen as separative strategies that exemplified the culture’s unique identity and strength while at

the same time lent itself to a perception from other cultures as seeking assimilation.

Aside from conflicts regarding immigration, the Catalan community also had conflicts

with the Spanish government after trying to pass legislation such as the Updated Statute of

Autonomy that gave the Catalan language an even higher status and presence within Catalonia

and the education system. In this situation, the Spanish government revoked the ability for the

Catalan language to be “preferential” in schools and put in place the Wert Law that aimed to

increase the presence of Castilian in schools. Tensions from the Catalan community regarding

these disagreements in the education systems combined with other socioeconomic and political

problems occuring at the time and eventually led to significant support for Catalan independence.

Though this independence was not achieved and actually led to a temporary suspension of

autonomy from the Spanish government, the communicative goals and strategies associated with

Catalan resistance and/or separation movements clearly contrasted other co-cultural tendencies

up to this time. When the Spanish government began to be more involved with and limiting of

Catalonia's policies, Catalan communicative strategies from groups in protest began

exemplifying the culture’s strengths in a more assertive manner than just promoting an individual

identity, but striving for individual statehood. This pro-group rhetoric, combined with

confronting the abuse of power from the Spanish government and giving the ultimatum of

independence, portrayed clear desires for separation of affiliation between the Catalan

community in Catalonia and the rest of Spain. As noted in earlier sections, this desire to separate

does not necessarily constitute the opinion of the majority of Catalans, but it shows how certain

co-cultural strategies may change if the power that took so long to regain is now being threatened

or taken back.

59
 Altogether, Era 3, as itself and as a build off of Era 2, provides very interesting insight for

the complexity of Catalan power in Catalonia. The transience of this co-culture’s power creates

various effects for different groups of people depending on the sector. In some ways, the policies

in Catalonia’s education system have done an amazing job at reviving a once-oppressed

co-culture and promoting social equality/cohesion amongst different co-cultures. In other ways,

the policies have discriminated against the linguistically dominant group. This exact scenario is

an example of the unique ability for certain co-cultures to be what Orbe (1998) describes as both

the “vehicle and the target of oppression” (p. 136). Another complexity of the transience of

Catalan power is evident in the contradictory nature of the goals in many education policies

where the rhetoric values diversity, linguistic balance, and cohesion but the implementation

(while it may achieve those things in various degrees) also aims for Catalan nationalism and

identification, not just an increased presence. This contradiction in policy goals and outcomes

may signify that the very communicative goals and strategies of transient co-cultures will

inherently be contradictory at times because they function in the middle of different power levels

and statuses of dominant versus nondominant.

Ultimately, comparing the communicative goals and strategies over the span of three eras

reveals a notable shift from assimilation to a mixture of accommodation and separation, the latter

two becoming more assertive and/or aggressive as co-cultural power increases. These shifts in

communicative goals and strategies correlate with an increase in power for the Catalan

co-culture as well as an increase in tensions with the linguistically dominant Castilian-speaking

group. What began as a survival and recovery movement turned into a normalization movement

and, at times, a nationalist movement. The following subsection will discuss some of the

60
implications of the research in this project, limitations of its findings, and potential research

directions for the future.

Implications, Limitations, and Directions for Further CCT Research

Exploring the progression of Catalan cultural power through the lens of Mark P. Orbe’s

Co-Cultural Theory gives new insight into the idea of transient power and how it affects the

communicative goals of co-cultures. Based on the goals and outcomes of language policies in

Catalonia’s education system since the end of Franco’s dictatorship, it can be noted that the

Catalan co-culture in particular shifted from assimilative to accommodative and separative goals

as it progressively gained institutional power within the education system and as it shifted

between nondominant and dominant status in different sectors of society. Ultimately, the ability

of the Catalan co-culture to be a minority in Spain at large but have dominant institutional power

within Catalonia’s education system shows how a single co-culture can have and exercise

varying degrees of power.

Building upon this conclusion, analysis of the correlations between policy goals for

intercultural communication and the subsequent positive or negative impacts that those policies

have on society over time can be a useful method to inform co-cultures around the world on how

to achieve balance in their own institutions, policies, or communication goals and thus have

successful co-cultural relationships. Furthermore, understanding the impacts of assimilative,

accommodative, and separative communication on overall social cohesion could help co-cultures

of various languages, races, sexualities, or religions with choosing the right communicative

option for their preferred outcomes of co-cultural interactions. For instance, considering the

various types of civil unrest within the United States in 2020, there may be specific regions,

states, or cities that may have a race or religion or overall social expectation that is dominant in

61
its own institutional environments but that lacks power in a more general context. It may prove

useful to analyze the co-culture’s varying power in different institutions to see if the

communicative structures of those institutions consider the perspectives of both dominant and

nondominant groups. Thus, exploring the structures that make up institutions (such as their

policies, goals, etc.) can provide clear foundational knowledge and direction for improving the

inclusivity of their environments for co-cultures of all kinds.

There are a few limitations to the method of analysis for this particular research topic.

Because CCT is typically used for in-person studies, and because this research deals with events

that happened in the past, there are inevitably gaps in knowledge for communicative strategies

and goals of individual people that cannot be determined in hindsight. Similarly, the perspectives

on both sides of the Catalan-Castilian policy debates are generalized and do not reflect all

opinions of Catalan or Castilian society. For instance, some Catalans may also identify with

Castilian and have no problem with using Castilian as the majority language, and plenty of

Castilian-speakers had no problem adopting Catalan and using it for social mobility.

Future research on the transience of the Catalan co-culture could apply many of the same

categorizing methods used for the language policies to more personal scenarios of the education

system such as the dynamics in individual schools or classrooms. This would provide more

first-person perspectives on the matter of transience. Another direction for future research could

explore the flipside of the people in this research. In essence, it could explore how

Castilian-speaking students could potentially represent a transient co-culture all their own, in the

opposite ways of Catalan. Castilian-speaking students are a dominant co-culture outside of

academics, but may feel as though this language inhibits their learning in Catalan-medium

education systems. Continued research on the topic of transience and education may be useful

62
for future researchers, educators, and readers alike who wish to improve their awareness of the

impacts of power and linguistics on co-cultural relations while giving specific attention to the

perspectives of less powerful groups that do not typically get to construct the communicative

structures in society.

Conclusion

The Catalan co-culture represents a complex identity with transient power and the unique

ability to be both a minority and a dominant culture, depending on which sector of society is

addressed. By analyzing the communicative trends of a transient co-cultural group in a

multilingual education system over different periods of time, this research helps to extend the

applications of CCT to multiple time frames at once, increase the knowledge of the influence that

power has on co-cultural communication, and raise awareness for the importance of creating

societal structures that value the perspectives of cultures from all levels of power.

It is necessary to continue exploring different ways in which co-cultures could exist in

order to understand and improve the structures of dominant society that impact, and are impacted

by, the communicative choices of those diverse groups. This research specifically provides

insight on how language— as opposed to religion, ethnicity, or sex— can constitute a co-culture

and impact intercultural relations. Furthermore, raising awareness for the validity of co-cultural

communicative goals and practices should, in turn, increase the ability for individuals and groups

to question and challenge the dominant cultures in society and strive for social change that

promotes cooperation amongst all.

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