If there is one study option that undergoes societal pressure, it is the study of classical languages (CLs). I will first clarify the position of the CLs within the Western educational system and society at large, and then discuss some of the existing tensions in light of empirical evidence.

For centuries, Latin and Ancient Greek were the basis of all Western non-vocational education (Wachter 2008). The tradition of instructing youngsters in these ancient languages and their corresponding literatures and cultures persists to this day. Although official bodies allocate less and less class hours to it and enrolment is steadily dropping, a non-negligible number of pupils still spends a considerable amount of time on Latin and/or Ancient Greek (Vereeck 2020). In some countries, among which Croatia, Serbia and Greece, these courses are even mandatory for all pupils. In numerous other European countries, they are a compulsory part of academically oriented streams. Elsewhere there are no governmental obligations, but the CLs continue to stand their ground nonetheless. Flanders is a striking example thereof: this tiny region alone counts tens of thousands of CL-pupils.

Throughout the twentieth century, however, the CLs gradually lost the self-evident status and time-honoured prestige they previously enjoyed, and with that their privileged position in education as well (Sparks et al. 1995). Especially since the post-war period the educational value of the CLs has been openly and incessantly questioned. The principal criticisms that have been voiced against CL-education are inspired by either one of two societal tendencies which are found worldwide: egalitarianism and utilitarianism.

Thus the value of CL-instruction became the subject of an international public debate  which keeps raging on. To briefly summarise the two main criticisms, the egalitarian argument consists of the accusation that CL-education is elitist, while the gist of the utilitarian argument is that these so-called dead languages are not useful in contemporary society and therefore not worth the time spent on them. The latter is also connected with the economic demand for more technically schooled employees. Very often Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) studies, which have been actively promoted by European authorities in recent years, are presented as the modern and useful counterpart of CLs (Duyck et al. 2017).

Both criticisms have been vigorously countered by classics teachers and other proponents of CL-education. Interestingly, in response to the utilitarian argument, they have long claimed that besides the linguistic and cultural-historical knowledge you acquire, there are also indirect uses of studying CLs. According to these proponents, it improves language ability in both native and foreign tongues, hones various reasoning skills, fosters critical and independent judgement et cetera. Such indirect benefits are referred to as “transfer” (Barnett and Ceci 2002).

But does the study of CLs really transfer to other cognitive domains? So far, we have no convincing evidence for this claim. It is a fact that (former) CL-pupils tend to outperform their peers on a variety of measures (Bracke and Bradshaw 2020), from standardised language tests, over medical entrance exams, to success rates in higher education. The key question here is whether this is due to a transfer effect from CL-study or to preselectivity, i.e. to a higher cognitive ability present a priori in said pupils.

The aim of my talk is to shed new light on the aforementioned arguments and counterarguments. I will do so by touching upon current tendencies in CL-instruction and, above all, by sharing the first results of a seminal study on the cognitive impact of CL-learning I am presently conducting. The data collected so far will show to which extent preselectivity can actually explain higher achievement in CL-pupils.

For the first time, I am applying successful psycholinguistic research paradigms to CL-learning. With the aim of assessing the potential cognitive transfer effects of studying CLs, I am conducting a longitudinal observational study with repeated measures. It takes places in Flanders, Belgium. Across multiple schools of general secondary education, a cohort of pupils is being followed up for three consecutive years. Part of them has opted to study Latin and/or Greek, part of them has chosen a study option without CLs. Inevitably, as time passes, there will be some dropout of participants out of the enlisted schools or their CL-programs. Each school year there is one measurement. Per measurement the pupils are administered a non-cognitive questionnaire, an intelligence test, and a test on native language ability in Dutch. The non-cognitive predictors are grit, self-control and motivation. The intelligence test includes several broad cognitive abilities, both verbal and non-verbal. The language test covers multiple facets too: vocabulary, spelling, reading comprehension and so on. In addition, the pupils’ course grades of that term are requested from the school board. Compared to previous inquiries into the matter, my study is highly innovative. The majority of previous research was executed in the United States in the course of the last century (e.g. Masciantonio 1977). It is heavily outdated not just because of age, but on account of several methodological flaws as well, like for instance the short duration and narrow scope of the studies. The main shortcoming of this body of research, however, is its inability to convincingly rule out the preselectivity hypothesis. As stated above, we are still faced with the conundrum whether higher achievement in CL-pupils is due to cognitive transfer or to preselectivity. I will tackle this pressing issue by using a matched comparison group design. The final samples of CL-pupils on the one hand and non-CL-pupils on the other will be matched on a range of variables, among which gender, socio-economic status and, most importantly, initial cognitive ability at the start of the research study. Only such an approach allows to isolate the effect of CL-study and determine its cognitive impact. Conversely, exploration of the first-year data prior to the matching process tells us whether on average pupils who opt to study a CL differ from non-CL-pupils in terms of cognition, or possibly other characteristics. Indeed the outcome of this data exploration will be the focal point of my talk.

At the time of writing, the collection and processing of data is ongoing. By summer, the analysis of the first batch of data will undoubtedly be completed, resulting in valuable information on the backgrounds, linguistic and general-cognitive abilities, school achievement and non-cognitive profiles of the pupil groups. Current expectations are that a certain degree of preselectivity is at play, which would show up as higher test scores and course grades on the part of the CL-pupils. Any significant differences in the distribution of background variables are not expected to be found, since both the program groups and the comparison groups are in the same schools as well as the same educational type, being general (non-vocational) secondary education. After all, in present-day Flanders there is not such a strong connection between CL-programs and elitism as perhaps there still is in other parts of the world; the public debate centres around utilitarian concerns. The results of the non-cognitive questionnaire are eagerly awaited, for this is completely untrodden terrain in the context of CL-education. Apart from the preselectivity hypothesis dealing with cognition, it is not unlikely either that not so much the smartest pupils, but rather the ones who are grittier and more motivated for school take up the challenge of studying one or two CLs.

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