Welsh Journals

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the main research project which concentrates on the issue of resources in relation to secondary education. Whether one adopts a consensus or a conflict view of social change, education is central to the cultural reproduction of minority groups because it serves as the basis for ideological formation and the legitimisation of values and positions within multicultural societies (Williams, G. 1980a; Williams, C.H. 1984a). In combination with other societal forces education can be used in three alternative ways to effect change in the minority group. First it can be used to assimilate cultural minorities, to reorientate their group goals and priorities, to frame an externally-derived but internally-appropriated self-image within a larger society, and to institutionalise patterns of behaviour and social control which support the dominance of the majority culture and its related state apparatus. The second opportunity lies in the minority control of education which can serve as a basis for collective opposition to state incursions, as a means of exclusion, and as a counter- ideological mode of resistance, as happened within the Basque ikastolas which became both the symbol of Basque resistance and the breeding ground for nurturing the memory of collective suffering and nationalist action (Williams, C.H. 1984b; 1985a). A third possibility involves the minority culture using its own language to reproduce a partial form of resistance couched within a larger framework which reproduces the majority culture's messages, albeit within the minority's medium of communication. This third choice summarizes the current Welsh situation. In general, Welsh-medium education reproduces elements of both indigenous Welsh values and aspirations together with bilingual versions of the dominant British culture and behavioural norms. Reducing its form and direction to either an exclusively resistance stance, or an alternative pale imitation of English-medium education is a gross misrepresentation of current reality and we should be wary of any attempts to do so. WELSH-MEDIUM EDUCATION The relationship between education and cultural group reproduction is both complex and confounding. In Wales the question of education has aroused strong passions and deep divisions between supporters and opponents of the Welsh language. In crude terms opponents claim that the establishment of Welsh-medium schools is divisive as it segregates a minority of children from their peer group in the rest of the U.K. and can lead to exposure to nationalist-inspired ideas. They further claim that the promotion of Welsh is at best a pious artificial hope to resist modernisation, and, at worst, an irresponsible waste of resources in attempting to regenerate a dying culture. Supporters view education as one