For new arrivals to the Catalan immersion education system, the school
represents a gate-keeping institution that socialises students through language classes.
The study found that learning Catalan represents not only a gain in communicative
ability: proficiency also carries social capital, underlies identity construction, represents a
process of socialisation and signifies an investment in a new language and culture. The
learner’s pursuit of advanced L2 proficiency can best be interpreted in terms of the
participant’s surroundings and relationships