Study of teacher-training students’ attitudes towards Catalan in Aragon

Abstract

Although Catalan is one of the regional languages of Aragon and the 2019/2020 academic year marks the 35th anniversary of its introduction in formal education, there is not any mention of Aragonese plurilingualism in the teacher training curriculum. With the aim of analyzing to what extent this could affect the evolution of future teachers, we conducted a survey with 834 teacher-training students at Zaragoza University. The sample was formed by first- and fourth-year students from its three campuses. The results show neutral attitudes towards Catalan albeit with a clearly unfavorable trend, even though there is a positive evolution between the first- and fourth-year cohorts. Additionally, the data show the positive influence of previous contacts with Catalan on the teachers’ attitudes towards this language. Thus, those who have studied it or use it with their family and/or friends had much more positive attitudes.

Keywords: linguistic attitudes, Catalan in Aragon, teacher training.