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This paper examines the relationship between policy and politics in relation to the development of public-sector primary education through Breton and Gaelic, considering closely the patterns of power through which such provision is delivered. Brittany and Scotland present many similarities as culturally distinctive territories, contained within larger state-nations, which until recently allowed very little scope for minority language education. Initiatives to develop public-sector education through Breton and Gaelic were finally launched in the 1980s and have now became significantly institutionalised, even if they remain small in scale. The dynamics of institutionalisation have been very different in the two territories, however: parallel problems have been tackled in different ways, and issues that have proved fraught in one have presented few complications in the other. Both case studies demonstrate the importance of "bottom-up" dynamics as a source of innovative energy.