ENSEÑANZA EN LENGUAS REGIONALES Y SENTIMIENTO DE PERTENENCIA A LA ESCUELA

Abstract

Sense of belonging at school is relevant both to academic results and to student wellbeing; it hardly depends on social and organizational factors, and it seems to be rather a personal trait. Nonetheless, it is in Spain clearly lower in bilingual regions, according to PISA data. In this paper we try to explain this difference.  First we test the hypothesis of different languages being spoken at school and at home (school-home diglossia); empirical evidence forces us to reject it as well for PISA countries as for Spanish regions. Then we find that all students in schools using regional languages have lower scores in sense of belonging, with no influence whatsoever of their domestic language. We also find that regional language at school explains most of the differences among regions.  Once these facts have been established, we advance some hypotheses in terms of school-society diglossia: the sense of belonging at school suffers when the teaching language is the one of lower social preference or less social use.