Bilingual Education on Corsica : The management of multiple and competing cultural and linguistic goals

In Corsica, bilingual schools have multiple linguistic, cultural and political goals. They include teaching Corsican children to speak, read and write Corsican, providing children with French and Corsican linguistic capital, creating a special, intimate link between Corsican identity and Corsican language and creating symbolic parity between Corsican and French. This paper examines the way that pedagogical practices in a Corsican bilingual school manage these dual, and sometimes conflicting goals by comparing and contrasting oral language practices, literacy work the teaching of grammar and orthography in Corsican and French. This analysis shows that some of these practices establish similar criteria for French and Corsican performance, and thus position Corsican and French as equally legitimate and authoritative. At the same time, other pedagogical choices subtly differentiate the two languages; in particular, children\´s performances in Corsican are structured as more collective and collaborative than individual, and are subject to more global criteria of evaluation. Finally, the presentation considers the way that a "polynomic" perspective enters into the bilingual curriculum, and how this plural and socio-political approach to language norms and standards differentiates the bilingual from the monolingual curriculum, and proposes new models of language and identity.