Switzerland is often mentioned as an unusual “success story”, particularly in terms of its handling of linguistic and cultural diversity. Foreign observers tend to be more appreciative of Swiss pluralism (e.g. McRae, 1983; Laponce, 1992) than the Swiss themselves (e.g. Froidevaux, 1997). Switzerland has certainly been spared the acrimonious language debates characteristic of other multilingual states in the Western world, such as Belgium or Canada; however, very positive assessments of Swiss pluralism may in part reflect the fact that many of its aspects have not been explored before. Most of the work published to date, whether in Switzerland or abroad, focuses on institutional, historical and sociolinguistic issues, and the status of language minorities is studied almost exclusively in this light. Little is known about the relative socioeconomic status of language minorities, which restricts our ability to provide a full assessment of the treatment of these groups.