Fighting Words: Catalonia at the Language Instruction Crossroads

The schism between Spain and Catalonia obscures a struggle over the teaching language for non-linguistic subjects in Catalonia\u27s public schools. The recent two decades decanted into Catalan society two Spanish Constitutional Court rulings mandating a Castilian-Catalan conjunctive instruction model—with Catalan as the center of gravity —and tasking the Catalan legislature with configuring that center. Pleasing none and spurned by all, the Constitutional Court duology emboldened activist lower courts to bypass the Catalan legislature, while schools in Catalonia continued to teach almost exclusively in Catalan. With the Castilians alienated and the Catalans defiant, language instruction in Catalonia turned into a festering wound for which a radical rethinking must be prescribed. Across the Atlantic, Quebec offers an instruction scheme where two languages co-exist in concord. Drawing from the two regions\u27 legal and social similarities, this Note contends that Catalonia should emulate Quebec, where public schools are split into two tracks—French-medium as the default, English-medium by election