Across a thick white line: The relationship of a Welsh medium school and a low income neighbourhood in the south Wales valleys

Abstract

Two of the most important social policy agendas of the Welsh state in the contemporary period are the attempt to revitalize the Welsh language – through the promotion of Welsh medium education, in particular – and the effort to eliminate regional inequality and poverty – most recently, through the government’s Communities First programme. This article recounts the history of a cool and sometimes fractious relationship between a Welsh medium secondary school and a low income, Communities First neighbourhood in the south Wales valleys, in order to highlight some limitations in each of these agendas, and the problems that can arise when these agendas have not been fully integrated. The disconnection between the projects of language revitalization and neighbourhood regeneration may be seen as a local manifestation of a more general split, in Wales as elsewhere today, between what Nancy Fraser calls a ‘politics of recognition’ and a ‘politics of redistribution’.