English in times of crisis. Mobility and work among young Spaniards in London

© 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This article examines the role of English in the decision of young Spaniards to leave Spain at the height of the economic crisis in 2012 when youth unemployment reached over fifty per cent. These young people in their twenties and thirties belong to one of the best trained generations in Spanish history and yet were obliged to migrate in order to try to fulfil their professional aspirations and to learn English in the hope of finding work. In this paper I analyse the ideologies that guide the decisions of these youths and the consequences of investing in a neoliberal logic where the stakes to learn English are high for those without the material and symbolic resources to survive in the city of London.