Linguistic Acculturation Preferences of Autochthonous Students Toward Their Latin American Peers in Western Catalonia

ABSTRACT

Located in the province of Lleida (Catalonia, Spain), this study aims to identify and analyze the predictors of linguistic acculturation preferences of autochthonous high-school students toward their peers of Latin American descent. Autochthonous high-school students (N = 349) filled a questionnaire measuring linguistic acculturation and a series of linguistic and social-psychological variables (i.e. multicultural ideology, ethnic tolerance, attitudes toward minority languages, identification with Catalan culture and identification with Spanish culture). A k-means cluster analysis identified that autochthonous students endorse two linguistic acculturation preferences toward their Latin American peers: assimilation and multilingual preferences. Meanwhile, a logistic regression model found that participants with higher scores on attitudes toward minority languages have more likelihood to endorse a multilingual preference. The results highlight the importance and need to further work for a genuine intercultural educational model that allows the integration of Latin American students as well as of other minority groups. Particularly, this study found the importance of boosting the use of minority languages through educational approaches such as translanguaging and language architecture.

KEYWORDS:

• Multicultural education
• latino/a children and families
• languages
• Spanish
• bilingual education
• sociolinguistics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Multilingual is used to refer to a linguistic integration acculturation preference.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the [Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness] under Grant [EDU2017-82479-R]; [the Agency for Management of University and Research Grants – AGAUR of the Government of Catalonia] under Grant [2017 SGR 322] and [University of Lleida] under Grant [scholarship resolution number 247/2018 of the Government Council October 30th, 2018].