Minority language education in unbalanced bilingual situations: A case forthe linguistic interdependence hypothesis

This paper is placed in the linguistic and sociocultural context of Eastern Aragon, a region of Spain where two contact languages (Spanish and Catalan ) coexist in an unbalanced situation favoring Spanish. The research was pro mpted by the, regulation for the teaching of Catalan in that area, by means of the Cooperation Agreement signed by the Spanish Educational Ministry (M EC) and the local autonomous Cultural and Educational Department of the Dip utacion General de Aragon in November 1986. A comparative analysis is made between Eastern Aragon students' linguistic competence bt Catalan mid Spani sh; a further comparison is established between these students and others l iving in bilingual Catalonia a,td in monolingual Aragon. We conclude by poi nting out that the Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis accounts for the r esults obtained in the study.