Resumen de Narrative circulation, disputed transformations, and bilingual appropriations at a public school “somewhere in La Mancha”

Ana María Relaño Pastor

• This article addresses the narratives of bilingualism that emerged in ethnographic interviews with members of Sancho’s Primary in La Mancha city (Spain), whose prestige as the first MEC/British bilingual school in town has been disputed, transformed and eventually socially accepted as competitively eligible in the global market for two decades. By bringing to the fore a perspective of heteroglossia, the article discusses stakeholders’ stancetaking towards the salient tensions and dilemmas related to bilingualism in the region of Castilla-La Mancha. The analysis discusses how Sancho’s stakeholders by means of indexical meanings and heteroglossic resources come to terms with bilingualism as ideology and practice regarding who the legitimate teacher of English is, whose English-es are legitimated, which classroom practices are most valued and who can guarantee the status and prestige of bilingual programs in this region. In addition, the analysis emphasizes the validity of narratives emerging in interviews as situated, context-dependent, and contextualizing practices shaped by the conditions of linguistic ethnography, while shaping the researcher and participants’ significant values, beliefs and ideas about bilingualism and bilingual programs in Castilla-La Mancha.