The massive arrival in Spain of students of immigrant origin has visibly altered
the traditional configuration of schools, where ethnic, cultural and linguistic
diversity is becoming increasingly manifest. This situation is worth being
mentioned insofar as it affects all the different autonomous communities in the
country, even more clearly Catalonia, where the educational system is organized
under the parameters of bilingual education. One of the theoretical constructs
supporting this educational model is the Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis,
developed by Jim Cummins at the beginning of the 1980s. According to the author,
whenever the instruction in a given language (Lx) takes place
under certain conditions, competence acquired in this language can be
transferred onto another (Ly). Bearing this theoretical
construct in mind, our study focuses on a sample of 237 Spanish-speaking
subjects (123 native and 114 immigrant students) who completed a series of
parallel tests evaluating their skills in Catalan and Spanish. Drawing on the
data analyzed we can conclude that the Hypothesis accounts for the results in
both native and immigrant students with the same L1.