When language becomes power: Russian-speaking teachers in the bilingual general education system in Estonia

Abstract

After the re-establishment of independent Estonian statehood in 1991, Russian lost its privileges as the dominant and official language in Estonia, and Estonian continued as the only official language. This paper attempts to map the position of a Russian-speaking teacher within the sociological categories of power and language, based on the analysis of legislative acts and strategic documents within the domain of language policy and language legitimization practices in historical retrospective. The main focus of the study stresses an attempt to elaborate on to what extent the low self-efficacy of Russian-speaking teachers as the agents of legitimization of the Estonian language in Russian-speaking schools, and their low position in power relations within the Estonian education system, can be explained in the categories of power and language, as conceptualized on the basis of the social theory of Bourdieu.

Keywords:

• power
• language policy
• Estonia
• Russian-speaking teachers

Notes

1. Roger Brubaker (2002, 164–165) draws attention to the fact that there is ‘a tendency to treat ethnic groups, nations and races as substantial entities to which interests and agency can be attributed’ (2002, 165). Following Brubaker’s explorations, ethnic groups in this paper are seen as a rule within the structuralist approach as constructed, contingent, and fluctuating. In the present paper the specific features of the general education domain in Estonia and the sociology of teacher’s profession are taken into consideration.