Imposing, restricting, and alluding to monolingualism

Abstract

Abstract Teachers in Brussels Dutch-medium schools at first blush seem to be mindlessly reproducing a monolingual ideology, given their severe imposition of Dutch. This chapter gradually deconstructs this image by showing that these teachers did not impose Dutch unthinkingly. Two intervening levels interfaced with that imposition: the tension between authoritarian and egalitarian pedagogies, and the interactional organization of classroom order and flow. As a result, moments of eye-catching policy imposition alternated with attenuated requests, humorous hints, and restrictions of the area for policy application. It will be suggested that, rather than revealing their reactionary nature, these teachers were demonstrating their modernity—that is, their adherence to current, egalitarian pedagogies. The argument will be that this adherence creates dilemmas when pupils massively fail to comply with the egalitarian expectation that they self-regulate their language use: this causes a punitive response from teachers but also discomfort about their use of power.