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This paper examines issues related to the important impact of language policy in the Basque Country in recent decades. Basque, a minority language that was not allowed in the public space until the late 1970s, is an official language along with Spanish in the Basque Autonomous Community. The development of Basque has been most significant in education where it is not only a school subject but also the main language of instruction for most children. The paper briefly summarises this development and then moves to a focus on the use of Basque at the university level. The legal and organisational bases supporting the use of Basque are explained as well as the challenges faced by a minority language in higher education. The paper discusses the tension between internationalisation and the use of Basque for teaching and research in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spain took in more immigrants than any other European country in 2005, a fact which has had a clear impact on the education system. This paper examines the language attitudes held by 125 local or autochtonous (42.4%) and immigrant (57.6%) students in the Basque Country. The results showed that both groups of students held rather negative attitudes towards Basque,whereas their attitudes towards Spanish were very favourable. As for English, immigrant students' attitudes were far more positive than those of their local counterparts. Finally, the immigrant students' attitudes towards their own languages were the most positive in the battery. The participants' responses confirm the need to include a language awareness component in the Basque secondary education curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we will present the main principles behind language planning in the Ikastolas (Basque medium Schools), where a plurilingual school model has been developed as a way of promoting minority languages in a globalised world. We will start by contextualising the Ikastolas' language policy, briefly tracing their history from their beginnings as schools which ensured the right to education in the minority mother tongue (forbidden at that time), to the current Integrated Plurilingual School model, which involves the teaching and use of four languages. This model started as an Integrated Language Curriculum for language teaching, and it is now facing the challenge of creating a global framework - the School Language Project - which considers the various domains of language use within the school context (i.e. classroom management, break times, administration, school-family relations, etc) as active factors in the development of the communicative competence of the students, and therefore subject to a comprehensive school language planning policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]