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After school, what changes?

Understanding young people’s relationships with Welsh after compulsory education

Daniel Strogen

Swansea University

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  • Daniel Strogen
  • PhD candidate in Linguistics
  • Welsh language use after compulsory education

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Education

But:

Many young people experience

changes in their relationship with Welsh after school

Central to Welsh revitalisation

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Why do some young people continue using Welsh while others do not?

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Outline the research problem

01

Explain the research design

02

Present preliminary findings

03

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Research Problem

01

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Growth of Welsh-medium education

Welsh statutory subject in all schools

Education = primary site of speaker production

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Many now acquire the language through:

Institutional pathways

Rather than

Family transmission

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New speakers

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Across revitalisation contexts:

Schools produce competence

But competence does not always lead to

sustained use

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Evidence from

  • Ireland

Language use often declines after compulsory education

  • Scotland
  • Other minoritised-language contexts

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Welsh data suggests similar patterns

  • Census patterns
  • Reduced opportunities for use (Hodges, 2012; 2024)
  • Declining confidence (Hodges, 2012; 2024)

Post-education period often described as a point of decline. But...

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Self-reported ability may reflect:

  • Competence
  • Confidence
  • Identity
  • Patterns of use

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Young people’s relationship is often treated as

One dimension

But in reality, it includes several aspects

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  • Competence
  • Confidence
  • Identity
  • Patterns of use
  • Opportunities for use
  • Attitudes
  • Motivation
  • Insecurity

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“Decline” may not be one process

Instead:

Multiple dimensions changing at different times and in different ways

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Research Design

02

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The phenomenon is not yet well defined

We do not yet know which dimensions are changing or how to measure them

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Exploratory sequential mixed-methods design

Phase 1: Qualitative exploration

Phase 2: Instrument development

Phase 3: Quantitative analysis

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Phase 1: Qualitative exploration

  • 40 Interviews
  • Southwest Wales
  • Participants aged 16–22

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Interviews explored:

  • Language use
  • Experiences after school
  • Social contexts
  • Timelining activity

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Findings

03

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Participants describe

after compulsory education

changes in their relationship with Welsh

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Changes are not uniform

Different dimensions change in different ways

Instead:

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Use

01

Confidence

02

Legitimacy

04

03

Identity

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Post-school Welsh use shaped by:

  • Opportunity structures
  • Social networks
  • Institutional environments

Experiences differ by educational background

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English-medium backgrounds:

Welsh largely confined to:

  • Limited classroom interaction
  • Formal educational contexts

Leaving school = little structural change

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Welsh-medium backgrounds:

Leaving school resulting in

  • Moving into English-dominant environments
  • Dispersion of Welsh-speaking peer networks

Resulting in a contraction of daily opportunities

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Confidence was influenced by:

  • Lack of use
  • Speaker comparison
  • Perceived fluency differences

Again, experiences differ by educational background

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English-medium backgrounds:

Confidence was generally stable:

  • Confidence was already low
  • Welsh already used infrequently

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Welsh-medium backgrounds:

After school

  • Lack of use led to sharp decrease in confidence

Resulting in an emergence of linguistic insecurity

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Participants reflected on:

  • Authenticity
  • Recognition as ‘Welsh speakers’
  • “real Welsh” vs “school Welsh”

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English-medium backgrounds:

Welsh framed as:

  • Something not fully learned
  • Something not belonging to them (based on class, background, or geography)

Speaker status rarely claimed.

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Welsh-medium backgrounds:

High competence does not guarantee legitimacy

  • “School Welsh”
  • Lack of use and confidence = shift in authenticity as a ‘speaker’

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Meaning of Welsh shifts after education:

Institutional requirement

to

Personal resource

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English-medium backgrounds:

After school, Welsh became:

  • Even more peripheral
  • Rarely used outside of select contexts (jobs in education or healthcare)

Welsh remains weakly integrated into identity.

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Welsh-medium backgrounds:

School-to-adulthood transition prompted re-evaluation.

  • Some = stronger identity as a Welsh speaker
  • Others = struggle to sustain identity without regular use

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1. Change is multidimensional

Post-school shift involves more than use.

Welsh-medium = structural disruption

English-medium = structural continuity

2. Educational background matters

3. Opportunity matters

Sustained use depends on opportunity for use

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Phase 1 identified key dimensions

Phase 2 will develop quantitative measures to examine these dimensions across age groups.

To better understand patterns of post-school Welsh trajectories.

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Diolch yn fawr

Thank you