Andalusia’s bilingual education system is facing a striking geographical paradox: the schools most likely to offer instruction in English are concentrated in the region’s largest municipalities, while students in small towns and rural areas often have far fewer opportunities to enroll in them. A new study by researchers at the University of Córdoba (UCO), Pablo de Olavide University and the University of Santiago de Compostela has mapped this uneven distribution across more than 4,100 schools. Its findings suggest that a program originally designed to democratize foreign-language learning may be reinforcing territorial inequalities instead. In practice, a child’s access to bilingual education can depend heavily on the size and location of the municipality where they live.
The study, published in the Journal of Education Policy, examines the distribution of bilingual primary and compulsory secondary schools throughout Andalusia, Spain’s most populous autonomous community. Researchers Alberto Álvarez Sotomayor, David Gutiérrez Rubio, Juan M. Gómez Espino and Carlos Lubián analyzed data from more than 2,500 primary schools and approximately 1,600 compulsory secondary schools. Their work forms part of the EQUIBIL project, which investigates the equity implications of bilingual education policies. Rather than measuring only how many bilingual schools exist, the researchers compared their availability across municipalities of different population sizes. This approach allowed them to identify a systematic urban bias that can remain hidden in regional averages.
The overall figures reveal a clear gradient. Across Andalusia, 41.8% of primary schools offer bilingual instruction. However, in municipalities with more than 20,000 inhabitants, the proportion reaches 48.7%. In communities with fewer than 3,000 residents, it falls below 20%. The pattern is even more pronounced in secondary education. Although 56.1% of secondary schools across the region are classified as bilingual, the figure rises to 66.7% in municipalities above the 20,000-inhabitant threshold and drops to just 25% in the smallest towns. These differences are not simply statistical variations: they represent thousands of students whose access to an English-focused educational pathway may be determined by geography rather than academic interest or family choice.
Bilingual education in Spain generally involves teaching some non-language subjects through English, rather than limiting English to conventional language classes. Depending on the school and program, subjects such as science, geography or physical education may be delivered partly in English, requiring teachers to coordinate content learning with additional-language development. This model can increase students’ exposure to English and create more frequent opportunities for meaningful communication. Yet it also depends on a complex infrastructure: trained teachers, language-capable staff, curriculum planning, teaching materials and stable student enrollment. Those requirements can be difficult to meet in small or remote schools, especially where staffing is limited and teachers may cover several subjects or travel between facilities.
The researchers identify several rural “blind spots” where bilingual education is particularly scarce. These areas include Los Vélez in Almería, the Sierra de Cádiz, Los Pedroches in Córdoba, the Lecrín Valley in Granada, the Cuenca Minera in Huelva, much of the Sierra de Segura and Sierra Mágina in Jaén, the Serranía de Ronda in Málaga and the Sierra Norte in Seville. The term “blind spot” refers to a territory in which the potential benefits of a policy are largely absent, not necessarily because every school lacks bilingual instruction, but because access is so limited that entire communities are effectively excluded. In some cases, these areas are extensive rural regions rather than isolated villages, making the disparity a structural feature of the education system.
The urban concentration of bilingual programs may be linked to the competitive dynamics of larger municipalities. Cities and densely populated towns typically contain more schools competing for families, students and institutional reputation. Offering a bilingual pathway can help a school distinguish itself from nearby alternatives and attract enrollment. In areas with a large potential student population, this incentive is amplified: schools may view bilingual education as a way to signal quality, international orientation or academic ambition. By contrast, rural schools often face less direct competition, but they also operate with fewer resources and a smaller pool of prospective students. Establishing a bilingual program may therefore appear more difficult to justify or sustain, even when local families would welcome it.
The role of private, state-subsidized schools, known in Spain as colegios concertados, may further widen the gap. These schools are disproportionately present in urban areas and, according to the researchers, tend to offer bilingual instruction more frequently than public schools. Their concentration in cities means that families living in larger municipalities may have several bilingual options, while families in rural communities may have none. Access is also shaped by the ability to travel. A student whose local school does not offer bilingual education might theoretically attend a program elsewhere, but long distances, limited public transport and family work schedules can make that option unrealistic. Formal availability, therefore, does not always equal practical access.
The findings also connect bilingual education to broader patterns of rural educational disadvantage. Small communities may already have fewer specialized courses, extracurricular opportunities, advanced facilities and transportation options. When bilingual programs are added unevenly to this landscape, the result can be a cumulative disadvantage rather than a single isolated inequality. Students in urban areas may encounter English through school, private language academies, international media and extracurricular activities, while students in rural areas may have fewer opportunities across all of these settings. The researchers caution that the issue is not simply whether bilingual education improves language learning, but who is positioned to benefit from it and who is left outside the program.
The study does not argue that bilingual education should be abandoned. Instead, it challenges policymakers to rethink how such programs are planned, funded and evaluated. Regional averages can create the impression of broad coverage while concealing municipalities where bilingual schooling remains rare. A more equitable approach could include targeted support for rural schools, incentives for teachers with the necessary language and subject expertise, shared teaching teams across neighboring municipalities, distance-learning infrastructure and transportation policies that make access genuinely feasible. It could also require education authorities to monitor bilingual provision by territory, school type and socioeconomic context. Without such measures, the promise of “English for all” risks becoming an urban privilege. The Andalusian case offers a warning for education systems everywhere: a policy intended to widen opportunity can reproduce inequality if its geographical distribution is left to competition, resources and local capacity.
Subject of Research: People
Article Title: “English for all? Examining the urban bias of a bilingual education program in Spain”
News Publication Date: 2-Jun-2026
Web References: University of Córdoba EQUIBIL project: http://www.uco.es/investigacion/proyectos/equibil/index.php/es/; Article DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2026.2683387
References: Álvarez Sotomayor, A., Gutiérrez Rubio, D., Gómez Espino, J. M., and Lubián, C. “English for all? Examining the urban bias of a bilingual education program in Spain.” Journal of Education Policy. DOI: 10.1080/02680939.2026.2683387
Keywords: bilingual education, English learning, education policy, educational inequality, rural education, urban bias, Andalusia, Spain, multilingualism, language education
