Participation in bilingual education programs as a key factor to linguistic success: the Spanish case

Abstract

As in other countries, bilingual/multilingual education has become widespread in Spain. However, research either focuses on Spanish programs’ implementation, students’ performance or teacher training, but not on their contribution to graduates’ self-perceived linguistic success (understood as a combination of intercultural competence, international mobility and employability). Therefore, this paper studies whether Spanish bilingual education results in higher self-perceived competences. An instrument examining these three elements is applied, and Facebook Audience Insights is used for sample targeting. Findings prove that Spanish bilingual education graduates have higher self-perceived intercultural competence and international mobility. In terms of gender, women who have participated in Spanish bilingual education show higher self-perceived intercultural competence, whereas men who have studied in these programs consider themselves more interculturally competent and mobile. Conversely, there is no evidence of more positive self-perceived employability than in monolingual education. All in all, participation in a Spanish bilingual program is demonstrated to be an influential factor in self-perceived global linguistic success, employability, and intercultural competence.