Bilingual Education and Identity

Ramon Caminal, Antonio Di Paolo and Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell
Additional contact information
Ramon Caminal: Institute of Economic Analysis, CSIC, and BSE, Spain.
Antonio Di Paolo: AQR-IREA Research Group, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain.
Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell: Institute of Economic Analysis, CSIC, and BSE, Spain.

No 202509, IREA Working Papers from University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics

Abstract: We present new evidence on the impact of a reform that introduced bilingual education in Catalonia on identity formation. Specifically, we revisit the findings of Clots-Figueras and Masella (2013, The Economic Journal) by examining how exposure to bilingual education affects identity and political preferences. To do so, we use more recent data from repeated cross-sections and multiple alternative sources. Furthermore, we explore an overlooked dimension of identity: self-identification language. At the aggregate level, we find a small but negative effect of bilingual education on the likelihood of identifying as exclusively Catalan. Our results are robust to a battery of sensitivity checks and falsification tests. However, they differ significantly from those of Clots-Figueras and Masella. Our replication of their results reveals a lack of robustness, primarily due to their definitions of identity, as well as to other aspects of their model specification. Our analysis of heterogeneous effects shows that the small negative impact of the reform on identifying as only Catalan is entirely driven by individuals from non-Catalan backgrounds, whether in terms of native language or parental origins. For this group, exposure to bilingual education also reduces the likelihood of adopting Catalan as the language of self-identification and support for the independence of Catalonia. These findings suggest that the language-in-education reform might have triggered a backlash effect.

Keywords: language-in-education reform; bilingual education; identity; language; political preferences. JEL classification: I28, J15, Z13. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 49 pages
Date: 2025-01
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ub.edu/irea/working_papers/2025/202509.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ira:wpaper:202509

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IREA Working Papers from University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Alicia García ().