Towards the light – tua’r goleuni: Welsh medium education for the non-Welsh speaking in south Wales: A parent's choice

Abstract

The Welsh-medium education system has long been seen as an effective tool of Welsh language production in Wales. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of Welsh medium education in one south Wales Valley, ‘Cwm Rhymni / RhymniValley’. The main reasoning behind the primary research is to focus on the reasons why non-Welsh speaking parents chose Welsh medium education for their children. The research focuses on education but recognises the over lapping nature of the main language transmission spheres within Welsh language planning, i.e. family, community and workplace. This study adopts a mainly qualitative research strategy by administering 60 unstructured interviews to parents who chose Welsh medium nursery, primary and secondary schools for their children. However, as a secondary methodological tool, a semi-structured questionnaire was given out prior to the interviews and the interview sample was then drawn from these. Moreover, Welsh language resurgence within Anglicized areas of South Wales is a fairly unexplored field, this study is hoped to be a catalyst for many more future studies in this field and attempts to address the existing lacunae.