Between egalitarianism and diversity in CLIL programmes: What do teachers think?

Abstract

Voices have been raised warning of the possibility that the approach Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) may produce some differences between students, favouring those who are better prepared and leaving aside those who are not. This position is supported by studies, mostly quantitative, which who try to demonstrate that this approach can lead to inequality in the classroom. We believe that to enrich knowledge about the extent of these potential problems it may be beneficial to have first-hand knowledge from teachers. To this end, the responses of 376 teachers from all monolingual regions of Spain and from all types of education (public, charter and private) were analysed to find out their perceptions of whether CLIL encourages segregation and neglect of disadvantaged students. The data obtained are quantitative in nature, providing relevant and complementary information on the role played by students' social extraction and the degree of teacher satisfaction with how CLIL addresses issues related to equality and inclusion. The results of this analysis show that there are notable differences in teachers' perceptions, but at the same time indicate that teachers are explicitly confident about the measures that need to be taken to prevent these potential problems from arising.

Key words: Content and Language Integrated Learning, egalitarianism, socio-economic status, segregation, learning differences, teachers’ concerns.