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Latin American Students and Language Learning in Catalonia: What doesthe Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis show us?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 March 2014

Ángel Huguet
Ángel Huguet*
Affiliation:
Universitat de Lleida (Spain)
*
*Correspondence concerning this articleshould be addressed to Ángel Huguet. Universitat de Lleida.Departament de Psicologia. Av. Estudi General, 4. 25001. Lleida (Spain). E-mail:huguet@pip.udl.cat
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Abstract

The massive arrival in Spain of students of immigrant origin has visibly alteredthe traditional configuration of schools, where ethnic, cultural and linguisticdiversity is becoming increasingly manifest. This situation is worth beingmentioned insofar as it affects all the different autonomous communities in thecountry, even more clearly Catalonia, where the educational system is organizedunder the parameters of bilingual education. One of the theoretical constructssupporting this educational model is the Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis,developed by Jim Cummins at the beginning of the 1980s. According to the author,whenever the instruction in a given language (Lx) takes placeunder certain conditions, competence acquired in this language can betransferred onto another (Ly). Bearing this theoreticalconstruct in mind, our study focuses on a sample of 237 Spanish-speakingsubjects (123 native and 114 immigrant students) who completed a series ofparallel tests evaluating their skills in Catalan and Spanish. Drawing on thedata analyzed we can conclude that the Hypothesis accounts for the results inboth native and immigrant students with the same L1.

Keywords

interdependencetransferCatalanSpanishimmigrant children
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 17 , 2014 , E11
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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