The Joves i Català project has completed its first assessment of language use among young people in Barcelona sports clubs and municipal youth facilities, identifying a sharp gap between the Catalan used by adult staff and by young people speaking to one another.

For young residents, the findings matter because sports teams and leisure facilities are places where friendships and everyday habits are formed outside school. The project is intended to make Catalan more present in those informal peer conversations, including for young people from different linguistic backgrounds.

In sports settings, only 11.3% of interactions between young people were exclusively in Catalan, according to the diagnostic phase. The Institut d’Estudis Catalans (IEC), the academic institution responsible for the project, said the figure will provide a baseline for measuring the planned interventions.

Coaches and activity leaders identified as key

The research covered ten Barcelona sports clubs across 12 disciplines, involving about 1,400 players and nearly 200 coaches. The participating organisations together include more than 4,100 athletes and over 500 coaches.

Catalan had a strong presence in exchanges involving professionals, but its use fell when young people initiated conversations themselves. The project identifies coaches as influential because their communication can shape the language used within teams.

Eight areas of intervention have been set out for development from September 2026. They include:

  • adding Catalan to each organisation’s language commitment;
  • creating language-use protocols and training coaches for common situations in sporting activities;
  • introducing Catalan routines during training, including encouragement and recognition;
  • supporting newly arrived young people through welcome arrangements and language-support pairs or groups; and
  • monitoring changes in use through the IEC Method, the project’s evaluation framework.

Sants-Montjuïc youth facilities show a wider gap

The leisure pilot involved four municipal facilities in Sants-Montjuïc, with 60 young people and 10 activity professionals. It found that 58.5% of staff addressed young people only or mainly in Catalan, while Catalan accounted for only 4% of interactions between young people.

For users of those facilities, the proposed changes would affect informal activities as well as organised sessions. The project proposes Catalan as a starting language for conversations, staff training in language criteria and assertive communication, and spaces where young people can practise the language without pressure.

The IEC is working with Òmnium Cultural, a Catalan civic organisation, and the Unió de Federacions Esportives de Catalunya (UFEC), the federation representing Catalan sports bodies. The three organisations are preparing practical materials for the pilot participants and other interested sports and youth centres.

Teresa Cabré, president of the IEC, said a central feature of the project is that its method can be used across different youth sports and leisure activities. The next stages are the application, monitoring and evaluation of the measures.

Reported by barnadiario.com, Barna Diario.