Sociolinguistic and cultural components in the educative process of immigrant students

Abstract

In the Spanish educational system, immigrant students are one of the principal groups with high rates of school failure. In this situation we assume that part of the difficulties of these students can be explained by their ignorance of cultural codes and the communication mediators in which the school is organized which can impede their access to the curricula, their communication, their participation and their social and educative inclusion. Our study aims to identify similarities and differences in the understanding of sociolinguistic and sociocultural components among immigrant students whose mother tongue is Spanish compared to their peers of compulsory secondary education. To test this, a sample of 247 students from Salamanca was selected. Of these 141 students were immigrants. The results show that immigrant students who speak Spanish have more difficulties inferring the meaning of the vocabulary and the expressions that appear in their teaching resources. This leads us to think about the educational practices that we are developing in order to respond the needs of those students.

Keywords

• alumnado inmigrante
• diversidad sociolingüística y cultural
• educación intercultural
• fracaso escolar