In the context of an internationalized multilingual and multicultural undergraduate classroom with full EMI in Catalonia, this mixed methods study focuses on the interaction between students' (a) self-adscription to either localist or cosmopolitan identities, (b) development of intercultural sensitivity, and (c) plurilingual practices and educational background.
This study aims to investigate whether the context of a multilingual and multicultural undergraduate classroom with full EMI fosters the development of cosmopolitan and plurilingual identities, and in what ways. A university in Catalonia was chosen as an ideal research site for several reasons (Escobar, 2018; Trenchs-Parera, 2019): the local official bilingualism, the wide-spread use of English as lingua franca in Barcelona, the increasing numbers of students on mobility and the presence of undergraduates with heritage languages. The study belongs to a wider funded project (The TRANSLINGUAM-UNI Project) researching transcultural competence along four dimensions: (1) linguistic, (2) attitudinal, (3) affective, and (4) identitary. Specifically, this study focuses on the interaction between [a] first-year students' self-adscription to either a localist or a cosmopolitan (linguistic) identity, [b] the development of their intercultural sensitivity, and [c] the impact of their plurilingual practices and educational background on both identity and sensitivity. Following a mixed-methods approach, data were collected with (1) semi-structured interviews with students of different cultural and linguistic origins, (2) a profile questionnaire, and (3) a multi-dimensional questionnaire (Chen & Starosta, 2000; Yashima, 2009; Türken & Rudmin, 2013). The design includes a control group and a case study classroom, as well as a longitudinal component. Both thematic analysis and descriptive and inferential statistics were used. Results show complex interactions between identity adscription, language background and plurilingual communicative practices; they are all shown to contribute differently to the development (or not) of a cosmopolitan identity. These results may inform university instructors who want to address both local and international students' needs and make educational spaces more cohesive. Furthermore, such understanding may prove useful for university administrators as well as educational and language policy makers who wish to better adjust their policies to present-day classrooms and to promote higher degrees of transcultural competence among their citizenship.
