Bilingual Beyond School: Students’ Language Ideologies in Bilingual Programs in South-Central Spain

Abstract

This article examines adolescent and late adolescent discourses on bilingualism, bilingual education and the role of English and other additional languages in the current out-of-school lives and future trajectories of Spanish students enrolled in bilingual education programs. The data is part of a larger critical sociolinguistic ethnographic project on the implementation of bilingual education programs in secondary education (organized as English-Spanish CLIL) in Castilla-La Mancha, a region in South-Central Spain. Discourses were mainly elicited through a series of workshop-type and group discussion activities held in classrooms from two semi-private and two public schools, as well as an additional focus group conducted with university students. In total, 12 group events, involving approximately 300 students, were organized and documented through video-recordings, audio-recordings, photographs and fieldnotes. Students’ language ideologies around bilingualism are examined through an inductive qualitative / grounded theory approach. Three themes are identified: (a) the definition of bilingualism and bilingual competence, (b) the place of English (and other additional languages) in students’ current lives and social experiences and; (c) the role assigned to English in future employment and mobility opportunities. These discourses are discussed in relation to recent critical sociolinguistic work on the interconnection between language, multilingualism and neoliberalism. The paper closes with some methodological thoughts regarding the place of linguistic ethnography in the analysis of students’ collective discourses.

Gatekeeping the interactional order: field access and linguistic ideologies in Content and Language Integrated Learning–type bilingual education programs in Spanish secondary schools

“…They revealed aspects of the linguistic ideologies surrounding learning and using English in the plurilingual/bilingual programs that are currently receiving so much support from Spanish regional governmental authorities. They point to how English use was tied to unfolding 30 parental, student and teacher identities (Relaño-Pastor, 2018;Poveda, 2019;Fernández-Barrera, 2017). They show how English emerges as a commodity in the institutional image and social history of schools (Relaño-Pastor and Fernández-Barrera, 2019).…”

El debate del bilingüismo. Percepciones de las familias sobre el Programa Educativo Bilingüe en la Comunidad de Madrid

“…Por ejemplo, no contar con el dere cho a examen de certificación de inglés de sus hijos de manera financiada es un aspecto que presiona económicamente a las familias de los centros no adscritos al Programa Educativo Bi lingüe, y que agudiza más si cabe la brecha en tre las familias y también entre los centros. Resultados que son coherentes con los aporta dos en el estudio de Poveda (2019), donde se indica que las familias se ven afectadas por su nivel socioeconómico en el ofrecimiento de ex periencias culturares relacionadas con la edu cación bilingüe.…”

Bilingual Education and Training Courses Abroad: Key Factors for Linguistic Success. Educación bilingüe y cursos formativos internacionales: factores clave para el éxito lingüístico

“…For this reason, national and international scholars have attempted to analyse the evolution of bilingual/multilingual education (e.g., Madrid-Fernández et al, 2019;Renau-Renau & Mas-Martí, 2019). They have also examined the diverse manifestations existing the country and the differences in implementation of the programs resulting from the freedom of regions to decide over education (e.g., Pena, 2019;Poveda, 2019;Vila et al, 2017). Likewise, so far research has mainly focused on the benefits of bilingual/multilingual education for stakeholders (e.g., Gómez-Parra, 2018;Hughes & Madrid, 2020).…”