This study analyses the social interactions between schoolchildren in their mother tongue, known as A Fala, and a dominant European language, such as Spanish. The sample includes all the pupils at the public school in Valverde del Fresno, specifically 39 participants from pre-school education and 101 informants from primary education, which provides a representative sample of all educational stages. The approach used in this study is qualitative, applying an ethnographic method and obtaining information from participant observation in the field of study. The results reveal that language is influenced by power dynamics and school standardisation, which limits its ability to meet the challenges it currently faces. Likewise, the resistance of certain educational actors to the mechanisms of control and social oppression established in educational institutions is observed. This leads to the deterioration of multilingual education, which has consequences for students' full access to the linguistic repertoire.

On the other hand, research reveals that schools facilitate processes of acculturation and linguistic standardisation, as well as guiding students' behaviour towards the acquisition of the dominant culture. This practice reflects the position adopted by modern schools throughout the 19th century and until the last third of the 20th century, as they established and consolidated themselves as assimilationist and homogenising institutions. In other words, it became a centralist instrument of nation building that diminished the visibility of minorities and almost always marginalised many regional voices, languages and cultures (Beniscelli et al., 2019; García-García and Rina Simón, 2023; Gellner, 1983; Guo & Maitra, 2017; Hobsbawm, 1992; Tröhler, 2020, 2023). Thus, the centralised and standardising school of the modern era has been largely responsible for fostering linguistic and identity conflicts, especially where two different language repertoires coexisted.

In a context of multilingualism and multiculturalism such as the one described above, there is a need to explore the changes in linguistic register that students make between a vernacular variety, A Fala, and a hegemonic language, Spanish. The aim is to analyse how students in schools are taught a second language to be used in a completely separate way from what is known as their mother tongue (García & Otheguy, 2020). Therefore, this study seeks to analyse how learners establish different levels of interaction between two linguistic varieties with unequal consideration, arising from processes of linguistic discrimination. In other words, it seeks to understand how children activate their choice of language and its linguistic features according to the contextual factors, both formal and informal, to which they are subjected.

The framework from which to proceed addresses, the coexistence of two languages in the north of the province of Cáceres (Extremadura), on the border with Portugal (Xálima region), where there is a shared repertoire among the members of a community, both linguistic and extralinguistic in nature, which is the cumulative result of their negotiations (Meyerhoff & Strycharz, 2013). This pretext refers to the Fala de Xálima, a variety used by fewer than 3,700 speakers in three villages: San Martín de Trevejo, Eljas and Valverde del Fresno (Dondelewski, 2024). It is therefore a very small and compact linguistic community (Valeš, 2017), characterised by the use of three main varieties: mañego in San Martín de Trevejo, valverdeñu in Valverde and lagarteiro in Eljas. Differences between the three varieties still persist today.

The study presented here has employed qualitative methodology, specifically educational ethnography, focusing on the analytical description of intact cultural groups and settings (Goetz & LeCompte, 1988). Under this approach, the aim is to apply a single case study in which a detailed, systematic and rigorous analysis process is established with the objective of the study (Stake, 2007). Therefore, by applying this strategy, it will be possible to explain the behaviours and beliefs that govern bilingual contexts, as well as the presence of linguistic ideologies that represent the way in which certain groups, such as the school community, express and interpret language (Woolard, 1998). To complete this methodological section, the field study lasted for a period of five months, with a stable frequency of five sessions per week. This allowed us to meet the criteria of permanence and enforceability outlined in this type of research, as well as to collect information from participants in the context itself and the linguistic reality they experience. As for the setting, it is worth mentioning that it is a public school, Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, located in the municipality of Valverde del Fresno, belonging to the Autonomous Community of Extremadura (in south-western Spain) and characterised by its local dialect known as A Fala. Returning to the ethnographic strategy, we can highlight the use of a resource included within it. In this case, it is participant observation, a method that allows us to understand observable linguistic trends, attitudes, and behaviours. This approach also allows speakers to be seen as agents of knowledge, since it is the interlocutors who can reveal the phenomena that occur in the cultural scene. To collect this information, the study is complemented by field notes, which highlight the communication styles used by children depending on the communicative situations in which they find themselves. Finally, I would like to highlight that the research is complemented by the technique of discourse analysis, as this can provide answers to the dynamics of power, hegemony and injustice that are established in communicative exchanges between individuals (Crotty, 2012). Similarly, this theoretical position allows us to respond to the impact of monoglot and hegemonic linguistic ideologies that guide current language education.

At first glance, it can be said that the research confirms that language constructs technologies of power, such that a standardised language is imposed to the detriment of the vernacular variety spoken by schoolchildren. In this sense, a standardised language, Castilian Spanish, is established to discipline students, which leads to the necessary application of heteroglossic teaching aimed at bilingual literacy in the school community. Therefore, it is essential to adopt a multilingual education, which requires a certain curricular organisation to make room for all languages within teaching. From this position, educational institutions will adapt to the linguistic characteristics of the student body, allowing them to access their full linguistic repertoire. This will contribute to the linguistic community of A Fala having the right to speak their mother tongue and receive a quality education in the language of instruction (Hélot & Cavalli, 2017). On the other hand, in response to the research question outlined in this study, it has been found that children activate their choice of language and its linguistic features according to the educational contexts, both formal and informal, in which they are immersed. Therefore, this work has made it possible to show how linguistic compartments appear to be shaped by the ideologies present in certain groups, such as the school community. Likewise, it has been verified that language constructs technologies of power, capable of guiding speakers towards the adoption of the majority norm. This leads to the presence of certain mechanisms that have an impact on speakers and their communication, namely (self-)surveillance, (self-)discipline and normalisation. Therefore, the education system must offer a series of guarantees for the multilingual expression of students, including the teaching of regional or minority languages such as the variety of A Fala.

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