Attaining inclusion in bilingual programs: Key factors for success

Abstract

This article carries out a comparison of frontline stakeholder perspectives in order to determine the most successful practices to cater to diversity in bilingual education. It conflates school effectiveness research and attention to diversity in CLIL programs for the first time and reports on a cross-sectional concurrent trian gulation mixed methods study with 2,093 teachers and students in 36 Primary and Secondary schools across the whole of Spain. It employs data, methodological, investigator, and location triangulation in order to determine the potential of CLIL to provide diversity-sensitive teaching on the main curricular and organizational levels of bilingual programs. On the basis of this data, it then sets forth an original framework of key success factors for attention to diversity in CLIL, comprising 22 indicators, grouped into input and success factors, macro-/meso-/micro-levels, and encompassing seven main fronts which range from policy and ideological issues to school and teaching practice. Three overarching take-aways ensue from our findings. First, a conspicuous overall alignment of teacher and student views can be discerned as regards successful strategies for inclusive CLIL programs, something which points to the fact that their opinions are a realistic snapshot of grassroots practice. A second conclusion is that headway is notably being made in this area, as key factors for success have increasingly been identified as present in CLIL classrooms by both cohorts. And, finally, there are certain recurrent issues which the specialized literature has repeatedly identified as niches to be filled, but which still stand in need of being adequately addressed (e.g. time for coordination within teachers’ official timetables or the preparation of language assistants). The main pedagogical implications accruing from the data are signposted and future pathways for progression are mapped out to continue reinforcing a success-prone implementation of diversity-sensitive teaching in the CLIL classroom.