ABSTRACT
This chapter presents and comments on examples of the commodification of housing, the celebration of private property, the practice of taking on a mortgage and the central role of the banks and consumerism that appear in Catalan textbooks. Through a variety of language learning activities, textbooks expose students to expert knowledge about the world of finance and the real estate sector, without any mention of the consequences of the Spanish property bubble, the collapse of which affected hundreds of thousands of people from working-class and middle-class backgrounds. In this way, materials often prepare students for roles as consumers and bank clients in Catalan society. The chapter argues that Catalan textbooks emerge as disseminators of a neoliberal fairytale, presenting the topic of housing mainly from a positive perspective and concealing the negative impact of neoliberal housing policies on working-class and middle-class citizens and residents.
