The impact of linguistic immersion and economic, social and cultural status on academic performance

Abstract

The question of language in school has an educational dimension of considerable social interest in Spain since a strong process of immersion in regional languages might be affecting students’ performance depending on their linguistic and socio-cultural background. In this context, the paper’s aim is to analyse the relations between economic, social, and cultural status (ESCS); the percentage of students who speak a different language at school than at home (language) and school performance in PISA (performance); and in particular to measure the predictive power of the second variable with respect to the third, from a territorial perspective. A methodology was developed based on bivariate linear regression analysis and structural equation modelling, and was applied to data regarding these three variables from the PISA 2015 and PISA 2022 databases. These secondary analyses have confirmed: (a) the importance of the predictive power of ESCS on performance consistently in both 2015 and 2022; (b) the intensification of the association between the two variables in that period; and (c) the emergence of a moderate but significant association of the language variable as a predictor of Performance at the territorial level. The impact of regional ESCS differences on performance increased significantly between 2015 and 2022, which is compatible with an increase in other territorial divides described in the literature. Moreover, the strong linguistic immersion models display significant differences between territories in terms of performance. For example, for this reason alone, Catalonia’s delay compared to Madrid is approximately one school year.

Keywords

• immersion programmes
• academic achievement
• educational equity
• educational policy
• educational assessment
• structural equation modelling