Jessica McDaid

I am a PhD Candidate at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). My PhD thesis, supervised by Dr Eva Codó, explores young mobility for immersion language learning abroad among the varying Catalan/Spanish social classes from a critical ethnographic perspective. Through a multi-sited ethnography of young teenagers ‘doing’ study abroad EFL immersion experiences, my thesis examines ideologies of English and language acquisition for parents who invest in these products and their teenage children who consume them, by paying particular attention to the relationship class, gender, and affect have on these two roles.

My PhD is a further exploration into novel “immersion-abroad” products currently available within the Spanish context of English ‘Frenzy’ (Park, 2011), which I began analysing in my MA Thesis. This preliminary exploration of EFL experiences analysed young Catalan/Spanish mobility attending a “Rugby+English” summer camp scheme in Ireland. This piece of work was selected for the 7th Edition of Nous Talents en Sociolinguïstica Catalana organised by Societat Catalana de Sociolinguïstica (SOCS-IEC).

I hold an MA in Advanced English Studies (Multilingualism and Acquisition of English) and a BA in English Studies, both at UAB. I have been teaching in the undergraduate English Studies programme at the Department of English and German at UAB since 2017.

My research interests include ethnographic explorations of language acquisition, mobility, and the role of the political economy and social class in the (re)production of social inequality. I am particularly interested in working with young teenagers as they navigate endeavours of language acquisition and the complexities of governing and managing their (language) skill assets as they make their way into young adulthood.