national hearing The article first presents the scientific framework for an ethnographic interpretative study of linguistic and cultural plurality. Firstly, the study of the conditions for adapting and acclimatising French to different contexts provides an opportunity to question the ‘standard language’, which is the result of artificial development for socio-political purposes. The ‘sacralisation’ of these standardised forms is one of the causes of linguistic insecurity for speakers who use other varieties or languages. French symbolic hegemony was first established by colonisation and then faced with competition from standard Arabic, fortified by its religious component, so that standard Arabic has at the same time rejected the varieties of amazigh as illegitimate, both national and religious, until recently. Secondly, the article presents the steps by which the mononormative approach was interpelled by a plurinormalist didactic approach, which truly takes into account pupils’ linguistic and cultural practices. The challenge of this educational renewal is to stop the school’s introduction of language insecurity, which is a factor in school failure. An extract from the field study gives an overview of the effects of school monolinguism on Berberophone students in the Maghreb. In conclusion, the article refers to the conditions under which a renewal of sociolinguistic approaches and pedagogical practices could promote the educational success of students from the Maghreb on both shores of the Mediterranean.