Linguistic Citizenship: Immigration, Social Cohesion, and Education in Barcelona, Spain
   Saúl Mercado
   (Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Anthropology, UCB)


   This paper puts forth the concept of Linguistic Citizenship in order to effect an inquiry
   into Barcelona’s aules d’acollida (welcoming classrooms) at the secondary school level,
   which serve as a main site for the social and linguistic incorporation of increasing
   numbers of foreign immigrant youth.  The aim of the program is not ethno-nationalistic
   incorporation, but social cohesion through Catalan language maintenance, monolingual
   instruction, and use, which demands the active participation of all citizens in Catalonia,
   native- or foreign-born.  This effort is constrained by the ghettoization of immigrant
   students and the continued dominance of Spanish in their daily milieu inside and outside
   the classroom.  Transcript data from the aules demonstrate that fomenting social cohesion
   through Catalan Linguistic Citizenship is failing as Catalan continues to succumb to
   Spanish dominance despite forty years of active Catalan language maintenance campaigns.
   While progress has been made, in the classrooms observed, Catalan is an executive language
   instead of serving as a ‘cohesive’ linguistic and metalinguistic mode of interaction amongst
   immigrant adolescents.