In today's global societies, learning a second foreign language (especially English) has become extremely relevant for people's career development. As a result, learning languages has become a primary goal for individuals, families, and education systems. Within this context, Spanish-English bilingual education programmes have spread throughout Spain over the two last decades, receiving significant levels of regional government funding in all of Spain’s self-governing regions. These programmes, promoted by the strategies for multilingualism of the EU, mostly incorporate the CLIL methodology, which integrates English language learning into the instruction of non-language subjects.

A broad body of research has analysed various issues relating to these programmes from different angles. However, thus far, little empiric and scientific research has explored the implications of bilingual programmes in terms of equity in the context of Europe and, more particularly, of Spain. This project seeks to fill this gap by examining this issue from an eminently sociological perspective and conducting a comprehensive analysis of it. To this end, it pursues the following two general objectives.