“We were that small, special group in that large school with »normal« classes” Education in a Minority Language in the Context of Hungarians From Zagreb

The latest research conducted in the Hungarian community of the City of Zagreb has shown that the Hungarian language is slowly losing its communication functions in informal domains (family, friends, the sphere of intimacy) and is withdrawing before Croatian, i.e., that language shift is in progress. As one of the key factors affecting language shift, school is mentioned as support in families in intergenerational language transmission and language preservation in the community. Croatia has ensured an institutional framework for education in minority languages to its minorities through a series of regulatory acts. However, exercising this right is often followed by numerous difficulties. In case of the Hungarian minority, this is due to geographical dispersity. Nevertheless, during the 1990s, a  Hungarian group in kindergarten, a  bilingual class and nurturing language for primary- and secondary-school pupils were launched in Zagreb. In order to obtain a clearer image of how various class models in a minority language actually function and which problems their participants are faced with, we conducted a preliminary research among younger members of the community who attended classes in Hungarian at least at one point during their education. We completed the results with information obtained through informal conversations with preschool and school teachers as well as through immediate observations of the community.