This paper examines the political controversy concerning the use of languages in the Catalan education system. Aiming at social cohesion and immigrant integration, Catalan is used as the only language of instruction in publically funded schools. This policy is criticised by some political actors for allegedly infringing the right to be educated also in Spanish. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and parliamentary debates, the article situates the competing linguistic claims within the existing literature on language and nationalism. My main argument is that the controversy is anchored around a reinterpretation of linguistic nationalism, understood as the idea that the ‘autochthonous’ language of the nation must be the predominant ‘common language’ in the nation’s public life. In Catalonia, this results in conflicting aspirations of linguistic prevalence between Catalan and Spanish. I put an emphasis on the tension between social cohesion and the recognition of cultural pluralism.
