Social science learning and gender-based differences in clil. A prelimirary study

ELIA 19, 2019, pp. 177-204 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2019.i19.08 Estudios de lingüística inglesa aplicada SOCIAL SCIENCE LEARNING AND GENDER-BASED DIFFERENCES IN CLIL. A PRELIMIRARY STUDY EL APRENDIZAJE DE LAS CIENCIAS SOCIALES Y LAS DIFERENCIAS BASADAS EN EL GÉNERO EN AICLE. UN ESTUDIO PRELIMINAR Esther Nieto Moreno de Diezmas University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain esther[email protected] Thomas Matthew Hill University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain thomasmatthew[email protected] DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2019.i19.08 This article shows the preliminary results of a longitudinal study that aims to (i) determine the impact of bilingual education on the acquisition of contents related to social sciences, and (ii) its effect on the reduction of gender-based achievement differences. To this end, the results of students in the 4th year of primary education (n = 119) of one bilingual and one nonbilingual school located in an urban area were compared. It was guaranteed that the groups were homogeneous in terms of socio-economic level, that they had received a similar teaching methodology and same amount of social science teaching hours (3 hours a week). The results showed (i) the students who received the subject of social sciences in English had acquired knowledge in a similar manner to those who had received it in their mother ELIA 19, 2019, pp. 177-204 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2019.i19.08 Social science learning and gender-based differences in CLIL… 178 tongue and (ii) the bilingual education levelled the gender differences observed in the non-bilingual school in favour of males. Key words: CLIL, bilingual education, primary education, social science, gender En este artículo se muestran los resultados preliminares de un estudio longitudinal que se dirige a (i) determinar el impacto de la enseñanza bilingüe en la adquisición de los contenidos relativos a las ciencias sociales, y (ii) su efecto en la reducción de las diferencias de logro basadas en el género. Para ello se compararon los resultados de alumnos de 4º de educación primaria (n=119) de una escuela bilingüe y otra no bilingüe situadas en una zona urbana. Se garantizó que los grupos eran homogéneos en términos de nivel socio-económico, que habían recibido una metodología docente similar y el mismo número de horas de ciencias sociales (3 horas semanales). Los resultados mostraron (i) los alumnos que recibieron la asignatura de ciencias sociales en inglés habían adquirido conocimientos similares a los que la habían recibido en su lengua materna y (ii) la enseñanza bilingüe niveló las diferencias de género observadas en la escuela no bilingüe en favor de los varones. Palabras clave: AICLE, educación bilingüe, educación primaria, ciencias sociales, género 1. Introduction CLIL (Content and language integrated learning), the European label to bilingual education, has rapidly disseminated throughout the continent, where CLIL provision has become mainstream for most countries (Eurydice, 2006; Lasagabaster & Doiz, 2015; Lyster & Ballinger, 2011). In Spain, 25% of students are learning subjects through a foreign language, according to a recent MECD report (2018), and in the autonomous community of Castilla-La Mancha, a monolingual region located in central Spain, where this study is set, more than 600 linguistic programmes are currently running at primary and secondary schools. Underpinned by international institutions, such as the EU, and strengthened by earlier research results, CLIL has firmly emerged in the 179 Esther Nieto Moreno de Diezmas & Thomas Matthew Hill ELIA 19, 2019, pp. 177-204 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2019.i19.08 language learning scenario, being considered to be “the potential lynchpin to counter Europe’s deficient language standards” (Pérez Cañado & Ráez Padilla, 2015, p. 1), “the ultimate opportunity to practice and improve a foreign language” (Pérez-Vidal, 2013, p. 59) and “an advantageous setting for intense cognitive activity” (Rumlich, 2017, p. 111). CLIL provides increased exposure to a second language in more communicative meaningful learning environments, and is connected to additional benefits such as development of problem solving strategies, cultural awareness, global citizenship (Coyle, 2007; Coyle, Hood & Marsh, 2010) and increased motivation (Lasagabaster & Doiz, 2015; García Fernández, Nieto Moreno de Diezmas & Ruiz-Gallardo, 2017), and all this, within school hours. However, after an initial moment in which CLIL researchers nearly exclusively focused on highlighting its beneficial effects, in recent times, more critical views have appeared in the CLIL research arena (Bruton, 2011a, 2011b, 2013, 2015; 2017; Cenoz, Genesee, & Gorter, 2013; Paran, 2013). This trend has been identified as “a pendulum effect” in CLIL research (Pérez Cañado 2016a, 2016b) described as a shift from a “celebratory rhetoric” (Paran, 2013, p. 334) to “a dismal, pessimistic outlook on the feasibility of CLIL implementation” and “the validity of the research conducted” (Pérez Cañado, 2016b, p. 2). The debate about CLIL and the focus on the problematic issues of bilingual education, as it has been lately spurred by the media, has become viral among families and schools, turning it into “a love-it-or-hate-it topic” (San Isidro, 2018, p. 3) not only amongst academics, but also for society as a whole. Results seem to indicate that CLIL may not be panacea for language and content learning we had thought, but to adopt a dismissive stance on this educational innovation may be not fair either. It is necessary, as Pérez Cañado points out (2016a, 2016b), to find the balance between “Pollyannas (harboring an exclusively positive outlook on CLIL)” and “Scrooges (maintaining an overly pessimistic view of the future of CLIL)” (Pérez Cañado, 2016b, p. 15), and to do this more research is needed, and particularly, more empirical studies would help clarify this panorama. In addition to this, most of the research has tapped into the effect of CLIL on language learning, possibly, given the fact that “many of the researchers involved in CLIL studies have been applied linguists” (Merino & Lasagabaster 2018, p. 2), and also that “the main rationale behind CLIL ELIA 19, 2019, pp. 177-204 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2019.i19.08 Social science learning and gender-based differences in CLIL… 180 provisions is the improvement of second language learning” (Nieto Moreno de Diezmas, 2019a, p. 74). Therefore, research literature has identified several areas of CLIL implementation which deserve further scrutiny. This is the case of the acquisition of the mother tongue (Nieto Moreno de Diezmas, 2018a); Pérez Cañado, 2018; San Isidro & Lasagabaster, 2018); the effect on development of key competences (Nieto Moreno de Diezmas, 2018b); the impact on motivation and affective factors (Lasagabaster & Doiz, 2015), the assimilation of content (Dallinger, Jonkmann, Hollm, & Fiege, 2016; Fernández-Sanjurjo, Fernández-Costales & Arias Blanco, 2017; Pérez Cañado, 2018), and the impact of CLIL on gender-related differences. The preliminary analysis of an ongoing longitudinal study shown in this paper will try to fill the aforementioned gaps by comparing 9 to 10 year-old CLIL and non-CLIL students (n=119) regarding their social science knowledge, and examines the effect of CLIL on gender-based differences in content learning. This paper is organized as follows. After framing the topic against the backdrop of prior research on CLIL and content learning, and CLIL and gender, the article goes on to describe the research methodology. The next sections will be devoted to presenting and discussing the results, while the last section will be focused on stating the main conclusions to be drawn from the investigation carried out. 2. Literature Review 2.1. Content Learning in CLIL Settings The analysis of the research on the effects of CLIL on content learning confirms the so-called “pendulum effect” described by Pérez Cañado (2016b). Thus, the main conclusion derived from the earlier studies conducted in the field is that CLIL does not negatively affect subject matter acquisition, whereas, in contrast, recent investigations offer a critical perspective on the assimilation of content in CLIL settings. Finally, a couple of fairly recent studies on content acquisition seem to “redress the balance” and show CLIL does not hinder the assimilation of the subjects taught through a second language. 181 Esther Nieto Moreno de Diezmas & Thomas Matthew Hill ELIA 19, 2019, pp. 177-204 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2019.i19.08 Among the first group of investigations, it is worth mentioning Admiraal, Westhoff and de Bot’s (2006) longitudinal study set in The Netherlands in which no negative effects were found in the results of CLIL students in their school leaving exams at the end of secondary education for the subjects which had been taught through English. In turn, Jäppinen (2005) carried out a longitudinal study in Finland with 669 learners from the age of 7 to 15 and concluded that, except for younger CLIL students showing some cognitive difficulties when dealing with abstract scientific concepts, the evolution of CLIL and non-CLIL learners regarding their acquisition of mathematics and science content was similar. Parallel results were found in Switzerland by means of the qualitative research conducted by Stohler (2006). The author examined several schools in which German or French were used for the instruction of content subjects, and after asking in interviews CLIL and non-CLIL students to demonstrate their knowledge about the conceptual fields taught in class, concluded that “the teaching of non-linguistic topics in a second language (L2) does not impair the acquisition of knowledge” (Stohler, 2006, p. 41). In Cyprus, Xanthou’s (2011) reported on two experiments with 6th graders which compared the acquisition of vocabulary and content related to the subject of science conveyed in the mother tongue and in a second language (English). The author concluded that “findings seem to provide support for the positive impact of CLIL on content and L2 vocabulary development”, although it is acknowledged that “linguistic interaction carried out exclusively in L1 can allow more opportunities for interaction than in L2” (Xanthou, 2011, p. 124). Other studies revealed even more optimistic results. For example, Wode (1999) in Germany, after comparing CLIL and non- CLIL students enrolled in secondary education, observed that the former outperformed the latter in history and geography learning. Some years later, another investigation (Madrid, 2011), carried out in Andalusia (Spain) on social science competence of primary school students, unveiled that CLIL students enrolled in bilingual private and public schools did it better than students in monolingual public schools in a social science test designed ad hoc, and differences were significant in favour of the bilingual private stream. The author claimed that CLIL students “can perform at the same level or higher than those who take it in the mother language” (Madrid, 2011, p. 211). In the same vein, and this time at the end of secondary school, Bergroth (2006) looked into the results in the general studies test of ELIA 19, 2019, pp. 177-204 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2019.i19.08 Social science learning and gender-based differences in CLIL… 182 the matriculation examination in Finland and concluded that “immersion students as a group perform as well as or even better than their peers in regular programs” (Bergroth, 2006, p. 132). Similarly, in Switzerland, Serra (2007) detected that primary school students in CLIL outstripped non-CLIL learners in mathematics. The same subject was under scrutiny in Surmont, Struys, Van Den Noort, and Van De Craen’s (2016) study conducted in Flanders (Belgium). Monolingual students and CLIL learners were tested before entering the bilingual French programme in the first year of secondary school by means of a mathematical test and no differences in mathematical knowledge were found. However, after ten months, CLIL learners’ progress in mathematics was significantly better than the progress of the mainstream branch, and differences in favour of the CLIL group were already visible after a very short period of time of three months. On the downside, some of the aforementioned studies detected some flaws in CLIL implementations. For example, Madrid (2011) revealed that while at primary school, CLIL methodology was more effective for social science learning than regular programmes, at secondary school, the tables were turned, and the semi-private monolingual school provided a significantly better development of geography and history competence than the public and the private bilingual schools where the sample of the study was collected. In turn, Bergroth (2006) ascertained that none of the CLIL students got the highest grade in the matriculation exam of mathematics, although, in return, none of them had failed the test either. The potential of CLIL to promote the gathering of students in intermediate bands of achievement and the reduction of very low levels of proficiency among CLIL groups, has been confirmed in subsequent research conducted at university level (Hernandez-Nanclares & Jimenez-Muñoz, 2017) and with primary school learners in Spain (Nieto Moreno de Diezmas, 2019a) and Finland (Seikkula-Leino, 2007). However, in all the studies mentioned, the proportion of CLIL student in the excellence level of performance was also lower than in the non-CLIL group. In recent times, the idea supported by the aforementioned research literature that, in general terms, CLIL is not detrimental for the acquisition of content has been contested in three studies. Anghel, Cabrales, and Carro (2016) compared the performance of CLIL and non-CLIL students enrolled in primary schools of Madrid in three standardized test conducted in Spanish (the mother tongue): Spanish, mathematics and science. Results 183 Esther Nieto Moreno de Diezmas & Thomas Matthew Hill ELIA 19, 2019, pp. 177-204 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2019.i19.08 showed that no differences were found in the acquisition of Spanish and mathematics, which were taught in Spanish, but for science, which was taught in English, the bilingual programme had a significant negative effect over the score, particularly for children whose parents had less than uppersecondary education. However, the authors acknowledge that the fact that the tests were in Spanish could have affected the results: “there is a confound, because it is possible that the students do not know less, but simply they do not know how to express it in Spanish” (Anghel, Cabrales & Carro, 2016, p. 1204). Similarly, Fernández-Sanjurjo, Fernández-Costales and Arias Blanco (2017) in a study based in the region of Asturias (Spain) with a sample of 709 6th year of primary education students evinced that students enrolled in non-CLIL schools clearly obtained better results in a natural science ad hoc test, than their bilingual partners. In addition, results suggest that CLIL was particularly detrimental for students with low socioeconomic status (henceforth SES). In Germany, Dallinger et al. (2016) examined history learning at the end of primary education, and concluded that “CLIL-classrooms need to invest substantially more time to achieve comparable learning outcomes” (Dallinger, 2016, p. 23), since, although no differences were detected between CLIL and non-CLIL learners, the former had received three hours of instruction a week instead of two, and therefore “a negative CLIL effect might be found if both student groups are given the same number of History lessons” (2016, p. 30). Two recent studies seem to “redress the balance” and offer a more positive outlook on the effect of CLIL on content learning. In the first place, the study of Pérez Cañado (2018) represents a valuable contribution to the investigation on natural science acquisition in CLIL, on several grounds. It worked with a substantial sample of 2024 students from twelve monolingual provinces in Spain; it examined natural science knowledge of primary and secondary education learners; it guaranteed the homogeneity of CLIL and non-CLIL groups in terms of motivation, verbal intelligence, and English level; and it considered the type of school, setting, and SES as intervening variables. Results revealed that at the end of primary education no differences were detected in the score of CLIL and non-CLIL groups in the natural science test, while at the end of secondary education CLIL ELIA 19, 2019, pp. 177-204 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2019.i19.08 Social science learning and gender-based differences in CLIL… 184 students did it better than their non-bilingual counterparts and differences were significant, which suggests that in the long term, CLIL is beneficial for the assimilation of subject matter. Despite working with a considerable lower sample (n=44), San Isidro and Lasagabaster’s (2018) findings are similar. This two-year longitudinal study, based in rural Galicia (Spain), guaranteed the homogeneity of the CLIL and non-CLIL samples before the implementation of the CLIL programme and showed that after two years, CLIL students at the end of secondary education outperformed the non-CLIL group regarding their social science knowledge. 2.2. Gender and Content Learning in CLIL When it comes to examining the impact of gender on language learning, second language research has revealed that “gender differences showed enhanced performance of women on verbal tasks” (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1979). Girls are more intrinsically motivated, whereas males express more extrinsic reasons for language learning (Schmidt, Boraie & Kassagby, 1996), and the former are more positively inclined to language learning than the latter (Kobayashi, 2002; Lasagabaster & Sierra, 2009), thereby outperforming their male counterparts (Pavlenko & Piller, 2008; Sunderland, 2000). However, boys seem to have more interest in studying science than girls (Clark, 1972), and find it easier to learn science content than their female partners (Keeves and Kotte, 1992). The fact that females outperform males in language learning, but they are left behind in science content learning could affect performance inside a bilingual programme such as CLIL, in which language and content learning are integrated and combined. Therefore, CLIL methodology might contribute to levelling gender differences both in language and in content learning. The modicum of studies tapping into gender and learning outcomes in CLIL has exclusively focused on language learning. For example, Merisuo-Storm (2007) looked into development of boys’ and girls’ learning attitudes in CLIL, and concluded that, after four years of implementation, there was a significant difference in the attitudes of the boys and the girls 185 Esther Nieto Moreno de Diezmas & Thomas Matthew Hill ELIA 19, 2019, pp. 177-204 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2019.i19.08 in the monolingual classes towards reading and writing. However, this was not the case in the CLIL classes, in which boys were as motivated as girls for language learning. Thus, CLIL seems to be effective to encourage motivation of males, thereby levelling gender-based differences, as it was confirmed in subsequent studies (Fernández Fontecha & Canga Alonso, 2014; Heras & Lasagabaster, 2015). Continuing to focus on language learning outcomes, it is worth mentioning Lasagabaster’s (2008) attempt to check if CLIL helps to diminish the differences observed in favour of girls in language learning. Results were mixed, since no significant differences were detected in overall English competence and in oral production between males and females enrolled in CLIL programmes in secondary education, but, contrary to the author’s expectations, female students still significantly outperformed their male counterparts in writing, listening and grammar. Similarly, in the study conducted by Roquet, Llopis, and Pérez-Vidal (2016), it was observed that 12 to 14-year-old female students enrolled in CLIL programmes, still outperformed their male peers in productive and receptive skills. However, no gender-related differences were observed regarding amount of compensatory strategies 5th and 6th graders used, although there were differences in the type of strategies boys and girls preferred (Basterrechea, Martínez-Adrián and Gallardo-del-Puerto, 2017) All in all, although CLIL seems to contribute to levelling genderbased differences related to motivation and affective factors, this vanishing effect of CLIL on gender-related difference regarding language learning outcomes has not been largely confirmed yet. In addition to this, the impact of CLIL on gender-based variations regarding content learning has been so far neglected in CLIL research and still remains uncharted territory. Against this backdrop, this study is of interest because (i) it deals with content acquisition of CLIL primary students younger than in the research conducted so far (9 to 10-year-olds); (ii) it provides evidence on CLIL effect on gender-based differences in content learning, and (iii) it is based in Castilla-La Mancha, a monolingual Spanish region in which few investigations on the impact of CLIL have been conducted so far. ELIA 19, 2019, pp. 177-204 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2019.i19.08 Social science learning and gender-based differences in CLIL… 192 These results support the idea that CLIL methodology did not hinder the acquisition of content compared to when it is taught in the mother tongue, even if CLIL students have to face to double cognitive effort made when learning new concepts through a new language. This extra requirement seems to have a positive effect on the understanding and mental integration of content (Halbach, 2009), so that “rather than being a hindrance, L2 processing actually has a strong potential for the learning of subjectspecific concepts” (Dalton-Puffer, 2008, p. 143). This way, our results suggest CLIL students would have become more efficient learners (de Jabrun, 1997), and developed more cognitive and learning strategies (Nieto Moreno de Diezmas, 2016). Findings revealed in this study go in line with previous studies that looked into the acquisition of social or natural science in primary education settings, in similar sociolinguistic contexts and similar CLIL programmes. For example, our results are in keeping with the studies conducted in some Spanish monolingual autonomous communities (as it is the case of Castilla- La Mancha), such as Madrid’s (2011) and Pérez Cañado (2018) investigations. Madrid (2011) evaluated the assimilation of social science contents in Andalusia, and the analysis of data collected from primary education learners evinced that public bilingual schools were as effective as non-bilingual ones for guaranteeing the acquisition of contents, and even bilingual students from private schools significantly outperformed the public monolingual learners. Pérez Cañado (2018), in turn, analysed data coming from three monolingual regions: Andalusia, Extremadura and The Canary Islands regarding natural science performance, and results from primary education learners confirmed CLIL did not hinder content learning. Similarly, our findings are also congruent with San Isidro and Lasagabaster’s (2018) study with secondary education learners in Galicia, a bilingual Spanish autonomous community. However, our results diverge from two studies also conducted in Spain and set in primary education: Anghel, Cabrales, and Carro’s (2016) and, Fernández-Sanjurjo, Fernández-Costales and Arias Blanco’s (2017) investigations in Madrid and Asturias respectively, since in both cases a detrimental effect of CLIL for content learning was detected. Similarly, our outcomes are not in line with the findings of Dallinger et al. (2016) in Germany, since CLIL learners under scrutiny in their study received more teaching time to be able to catch up with non-bilingual learners. 193 Esther Nieto Moreno de Diezmas & Thomas Matthew Hill ELIA 19, 2019, pp. 177-204 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2019.i19.08 At the other extreme, our results also run counter to studies which detected that CLIL significantly benefitted the acquisition of content, such as Wode’s (1999) investigation in Germany, or Bergroth’s (2006) findings in Finland, both of these conducted in secondary education. Our study is more congruent with Stohler’s (2006) and Xanthou (2011) investigations, in the sense that no negative nor positive effects were observed in the acquisition of social science related knowledge whether conveyed in the mother tongue or in a second language. 5.2. RQ 2. How does CLIL Impact Gender Related Differences in Terms of Academic Performance in the Social Science Subject? In the non-bilingual group, males scored significantly higher (p value=0,016) than females in the social science test. However, in the bilingual group although males still slightly outperformed their female peers, differences were not significant (p=0,849), which suggests CLIL methodology helped level out the variations found in mainstream education between male and female learners’ achievement in social science (Table 3). Social science marks Group N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean Non-Bilingual Group Boy 33 5,85 2,123 ,370 Girl 41 4,71 1,861 ,291 Bilingual Group Boy 25 4,76 2,087 ,417 Girl 20 4,65 1,663 ,372 Table 3. Average social science marks by gender Analysing individual questions, boys from the non-bilingual group outperformed their female partners in 9 questions, 1 of them significantly (p=0,014), whereas girls only performed superiorly in 1 question, not showing significant differences. Meanwhile, in the bilingual group, results were a lot more homogeneous, boys performing better than girls in 4 questions, girls outperforming their peers in 4 questions, and both genders performed equally in 2 questions. None of these differences were significant (Table 4). ELIA 19, 2019, pp. 177-204 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2019.i19.08 Social science learning and gender-based differences in CLIL… 194 Non-Bilingual Group Bilingual Group Q N Mean Std. Dev Std. Error Mean N Mean Std. Dev Std. Error Mean 1. Boy 33 ,94 ,242 ,042 25 ,92 ,277 ,055 Girl 41 ,98 ,156 ,024 20 1,00 0,00 0,000 2. Boy 33 ,42 ,502 ,087 25 ,64 ,490 ,098 Girl 41 ,37 ,488 ,076 20 ,75 ,444 ,099 3. Boy 33 ,67 ,479 ,083 25 ,52 ,510 ,102 Girl 41 ,59 ,499 ,078 20 ,55 ,510 ,114 4. Boy 33 ,27 ,452 ,079 25 ,40 ,500 ,100 Girl 41 ,17 ,381 ,059 20 ,15 ,366 ,082 5. Boy 33 ,45 ,506 ,088 25 0,00 ,000 0,000 Girl 41 ,29 ,461 ,072 20 0,00 ,000 0,000 6. Boy 33 ,79* ,415 ,072 25 ,48 ,510 ,102 Girl 41 ,51 ,506 ,079 20 ,45 ,510 ,114 7. Boy 33 ,64 ,489 ,085 25 ,28 ,458 ,092 Girl 41 ,51 ,506 ,079 20 ,35 ,489 ,109 8. Boy 33 ,76 ,435 ,076 25 ,60 ,500 ,100 Girl 41 ,66 ,480 ,075 20 ,60 ,503 ,112 9. Boy 33 ,55 ,506 ,088 25 ,52 ,510 ,102 Girl 41 ,46 ,505 ,079 20 ,50 ,513 ,115 10. Boy 33 ,36 ,489 ,085 25 ,40 ,500 ,100 Girl 41 ,17 ,381 ,059 20 ,30 ,470 ,105 *Differences are significant. Table 4. Social science individual question scores by gender in non-bilingual group 195 Esther Nieto Moreno de Diezmas & Thomas Matthew Hill ELIA 19, 2019, pp. 177-204 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2019.i19.08 The results verified that male students in mainstream education performed significantly better in social science, which is in line with previous studies in the field (Clark, 1972; Keeves and Kotte, 1992). However, in CLIL settings female learners acquired social science content to the same extent than boys did, thereby evincing the potential CLIL had for vanishing gender-based differences in learning. CLIL, being this dual-focused approach, may carry over females’ better performance (Pavlenko & Piller, 2008; Sunderland, 2000) and their higher interest in foreign language learning (Kobayashi, 2002; Lasagabaster & Sierra, 2009; Merisuo-Storm, 2007) to content subjects, such social science, which were taught by means of a second language, helping them catch up to the differences between boys and girls detected in mainstream education. Although the leveller effect of CLIL on gender-related unbalance in content learning had already been put forward by authors such as Coyle (2007), this assertion has not been empirically confirmed so far. The main reason behind this, is that the few studies which tap into this issue are focused on the impact of CLIL on improving male students’ foreign language competence to catch up with their female peers, area where findings are inconclusive (Lasagabaster, 2008; Roquet, Llopis & Pérez- Vidal, 2016). In contrast, our study looked into an area which had been greatly neglected by researchers: the effect of CLIL on encouraging female content learning, thereby shrinking gender-based differences in social science acquisition. Interestingly, while the leveller effect of CLIL on language learning in favour of male students has not been confirmed, our findings have revealed that CLIL did exert this effect on content learning in favour of female learners. 6. Conclusion The preliminary analysis of data gathered for a two-year longitudinal study presented in this paper aimed to provide empirical evidence on two fundamental issues in the implementation of CLIL: the acquisition of content, and the effect on gender-based learning differences. Data regarding social science learning in bilingual and nonbilingual students enrolled in the 4th year of primary education was ELIA 19, 2019, pp. 177-204 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2019.i19.08 Social science learning and gender-based differences in CLIL… 196 collected and compared, and no significant differences were found between both groups’ performance. The homogeneity of both groups in terms of SES was guaranteed, bearing in mind the well-documented connections between school achievement and SES. The fact that both cohorts received the same amount of social science hours at school, that teaching methodology was similar in both settings and that both schools were located in an urban area was also controlled. These results are focused on a critical aspect of CLIL programmes, in line with San Isidro and Lasagabaster (2018, p. 4), who state “the effective learning of the content subject taught through CLIL is a key feature of any successful CLIL implementation”. In addition, our investigation contributes to provide information about the effectiveness of CLIL programmes in Castilla-La Mancha, a Spanish region in which there are no empirical studies tapping into content learning, and every context requires specific research, since in bilingual education “generalizability from one situation to another is (…) limited” (Pérez Cañado, 2012, p. 318). Secondly, the present study explores a new area within CLIL research, which is the impact of the integrated curriculum in genderrelated differences in social science content learning. While there are very few investigations that focus on the impact of CLIL on shrinking gender-based differences on language learning, to our knowledge, there are no studies on gender-related variations in content assimilation. Against this backdrop, the present investigation concludes that CLIL did exert a positive effect on levelling male and female performance in social science, since in mainstream education it was detected male learners significantly outperformed their female peers, while no significant differences were observed between males and females in the bilingual cohort. These findings suggest CLIL promotes equal opportunity and gender equality to a greater extent than regular education programmes. These findings have to be taken with caution, mainly because of the size of the sample, and more quantitative and qualitative research is needed to better understand the acquisition of content in bilingual settings. Particularly the new line of research this study opens related to CLIL and gender deserves further scrutiny. 197 Esther Nieto Moreno de Diezmas & Thomas Matthew Hill ELIA 19, 2019, pp. 177-204 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/elia.2019.i19.08 Acknowledgements This investigation has been supported by the UCLM (GI20174101). We would also like to thank the participating management teams and teachers for granting the access to schools, and for their generous help and assistance. References Admiraal, W., Westhoff, G., & de Bot, K. (2006). Evaluation of bilingual secondary education in the Netherlands: Students’ language proficiency in English. Educational Research and Evaluation, 12, 75-93. https://doi. org/10.1080/13803610500392160 Anghel, B., Cabrales, A., & Carro, J. M. (2016). Evaluating a bilingual education program in Spain: The impact beyond foreign language learning. 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