Classifying Gaelic-medium education: Language use in pre-school, primary school and secondary school settings

This paper presents the results of a research project on language use in Gaelic-medium pre-school, primary school and secondary school provision in Scotland, which was conducted in the 2011-12 school year. The research investigated language use in five domains: (i) in the classroom, (ii) in the school, (iii) in the playground, (iv) in extra-curricular activities and (v) in communication with parents. Section 1 of the paper situates the issue of classifying Gaelic-medium education within its policy and research contexts and in so doing outlines the rationale for the present project. Section 2 details the methodological approach employed in the study. Section 3 presents the results, and Section 4 discusses the implications of the findings for policy, practice and future research.