Immigration, Catalan language immersion and school performance: two research studies reviewed

Abstract

After considering, with the provision of empirical facts, the assertion that a country’s language is the gateway to the host society for immigrants, two research studies on academic success and Catalan language are reviewed. The first study deals with the academic records in a primary school in the Vallès region in the period extending from seven years before the enactment of the Catalan Language Law of 1983 up to the school year 1983-1984. The second study is a survey among students from different Balearic secondary schools on their adaptation to the country during the period under the Catalan Normalisation Law of the Balearic Islands enacted in 1986. In both cases the academic results are presented on the basis of the mother tongue (Catalan or Spanish) or of integration indicators. The following conclusions are reached: 1) The acquisition of the Catalan language has not a mere communicative function but above all it facilitates the acquisition of the subjective culture of the country. 2) Increased Catalan language immersion at school improves proportionally the academic results of the children of Spanish immigrants. 3) School progress, in Balearic high schools, is positively and significantly correlated to the use of the Catalan language and to students’ integration into the subjective culture of the country.

Keywords: Language immersion, Catalan, immigrant, school performance, integration, subjective culture.