Activities per year
Abstract
Between 1997 and 2011, parents and other language activists in Edinburgh engaged in a long and difficult campaign to establish a dedicated Gaelic-immersion primary school in the city. The parents and other activists organized their campaigns in the face of a powerful and pervasive ideology in Edinburgh, rooted in the Scottish Enlightenment, that understands Scottish Gaelic as a vestigial Highland language that has no place in Scotland’s modern and cosmopolitan capital city. As such, the debates around the development of Gaelic-medium education in Edinburgh were strikingly contentious, and it is perhaps not surprising that it took more than a decade to convince the City of Edinburgh Council to approve a dedicated Gaelic school. This social history of that campaign draws on a wide range of data that includes newspaper coverage, letters to the editor and blog/newsgroup posts, official reports, City of Edinburgh Council meeting minutes and consultation documents, consultation submissions and commissioned research, as well as data from extensive archives of documents collected and preserved by the activists themselves, including correspondences with officials and politicians, meeting minutes of activist groups, drafts of speeches, newsletters, campaign plans and lobbying documents. In addition, interviews were conducted with 13 key activists involved at different stages of the campaign. Together, this data provides us with a detailed picture of a grassroots language-revival initiative as one element of a broader social movement to promote the Gaelic language in Scotland, and over the course of this campaign, we will see how grassroots Gaelic activists challenged received notions of Gaelic's value and place in Edinburgh in support of more ambitious Gaelic development in the city.
Translated title of the contribution | From the Grassroots: A History of the Gaelic School Campaign in Edinburgh, 1998-2011 |
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Original language | Scottish Gaelic/Gàidhlig na h-Alba |
Publisher | Clò Ostaig |
Number of pages | 192 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780956261564 |
Publication status | Published - 24 Feb 2020 |
Keywords
- 26ref2021
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Timothy Currie Armstrong
- Sabhal Mòr Ostaig UHI - Ollamh Co-cheangailte ann an Cànanachas Gnìomhaichte - Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics
Person: Academic - Teaching only
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Workshop with primary and secondary GME teachers in Edinburgh
Armstrong, T. C. (Speaker)
24 Feb 2020Activity: Talk / Presentation / Podcast / Webinar › Invited talk
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Identity, Activism and Gaelic Medium Education
Armstrong, T. C. (Speaker)
24 Feb 2020Activity: Talk / Presentation / Podcast / Webinar › Invited talk
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Foundation for Endangered Languages Annual Conference
Armstrong, T. C. (Keynote speaker)
24 Sept 2020Activity: Talk / Presentation / Podcast / Webinar › Invited talk
File
Prizes
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Shortlist for the 2020 Dòmhnall Meek Award for Gaelic Nonfiction
Armstrong, T. C. (Recipient), Sept 2020
Prize: National/international honour