How does Madrid’s bilingual program foster cultural competence in its students and how can this be translated into a secondary Spanish classroom in suburban Minnesota?

This capstone examines how Madrid´s bilingual education program fosters cultural competency in its students and how those findings can be translated into a secondary Spanish classroom in suburban Minnesota. Both cultural competency and bilingual education, in its various forms, are defined and a variety of factors that influence cultural competency are explored. The research identifies common phenomena retrieved from personal interviews with six bilingual teachers in the community of Madrid and presents how those teachers foster cultural competency in their classrooms. The paper closes by giving suggestions to improve cultural competency in secondary Spanish classrooms in Minnesota based on the findings of the research