Sociology of language learning: Social biographies and school English achievement in rural Bangladesh ... the last two years of high school in a prestigious college. The train journey ...... Deakin University, Geelong, Australia. Hamid, M. O. ...
Sociology of language learning: Social biographies and school English achievement in rural Bangladesh
M. Obaidul Hamid MA (Dhaka), MA (Deakin)
A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Queensland in February 2009
School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies
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Declaration by Author This thesis is composed of my original work, and contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference has been made in the text. I have clearly stated the contribution by others to jointly-authored works that I have included in my thesis. I have clearly stated the contribution of others to my thesis as a whole, including statistical assistance, survey design, data analysis, significant technical procedures, professional editorial advice, and any other original research work used or reported in my thesis. The content of my thesis is the result of work I have carried out since the commencement of my research higher degree candidature and does not include a substantial part of work that has been submitted to qualify for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution. I acknowledge that an electronic copy of my thesis must be lodged with the University Library and, subject to the General Award Rules of The University of Queensland, immediately made available for research and study in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968. I acknowledge that copyright of all material contained in my thesis resides with the copyright holder(s) of that material.
Statement of Contributions to Jointly Authored Works Contained in the Thesis No jointly-authored works.
Statement of Contributions by Others to the Thesis as a Whole No contributions by others.
Statement of Parts of the Thesis Submitted to Qualify for the Award of Another Degree None.
Published Works by the Author Incorporated into the Thesis None.
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Additional Published Works by the Author Relevant to the Thesis but not Forming Part of it
Published 1. Hamid, M. O., & Baldauf, R. B. J. (2008). Will CLT bail out the bogged down ELT in Bangladesh? English Today, 24(3), 16-24.
The first author designed the paper and wrote the complete draft; the second author edited the whole paper and also contributed to the literature review. The contribution of the first author is 75%, and the second author 25%.
2. Baldauf, R.B., J., Graf, J., Hamid, M. O., Li, M., Nguyen, T. M. H., Ota, K., Wu, H-F. S. & YeoChua, S. K. C. (2008). Successes and failures in language planning for European languages in Asian nations. Proceedings of the 5th Nitobe Symposium on Towards equitable language policy in Asia. Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan.
The present author contributed the Bangladesh section to this paper which is entitled ‘Successes and failures in language planning in Bangladesh’.
Accepted 3. Hamid, M. O., Sussex, R., & Khan, A. (in press). Private tutoring in English for secondary school students in Bangladesh. TESOL Quarterly. Accepted on 19 February 2009.
The first author conceptualised and designed the paper, reviewed the literature, analysed the qualitative data and wrote the major portion; the second author rearranged and refocused the material, edited it extensively and contributed to the discussion and conclusion; the third author analysed the quantitative data and wrote the quantitative data analysis section. The contribution of the first author is 50%, the second author 30%, and the third author 20%.
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Acknowledgements A Bangladeshi boy from a low-income family in a remote village desired to be a ‘gentleman’. His social origins deserved a lower-class destiny, but he chose the path of education to reach a ‘higher’ social existence. The early literacy instruction that he had received as a matter of luck convinced him that education would allow him to deny social reproduction and to pursue his desire. One day he was travelling from his village to the regional town where he wished to study the last two years of high school in a prestigious college. The train journey was long. Standing on his two feet for hours in a ‘third class’ coach, he sketched his uncertain future with icons of dreams. One of these icons was a PhD. He knew not the how, the where or the when, but he knew he would be faithful to the desire. The work contained in these pages embodies this adolescent dream and also its fulfilment. The dissertation genre does not permit me to write the journey of the dream. But I must provide a brief background. I remember with gratitude Prof Jodi Crandall of the University of Maryland who accepted me in their PhD program in Language, Literacy and Culture. She also arranged financial support for my study. Unfortunately, my green passport failed to obtain official approval for the travel. We often talk about porous borders in our globalising world. Alas! The border is often so impassable for many in reality. They say that when one door is shut, another will open. I am incapable of hoping against hope, but indeed another door was opened for me. I am very grateful to Prof Roly Sussex for his interest in my PhD idea, for the hours he spent replying my emails and for his successful efforts at securing me a scholarship at the University of Queensland. Since the start of my candidature, many people have contributed to my thesis and my personal well-being in many ways. I am immensely grateful to my advisors — Prof Roly Sussex, Prof Nanette Gottlieb and Prof Richard Baldauf. I have been fortunate to have these distinguished scholars on my advisory panel. Their expert guidance and critical feedback have been crucial in turning an amorphous idea into a complete thesis. However, their contributions are not confined to its completion. They have nurtured my intellectual development and maturity, and my potential as a researcher. They have inducted me into academia, and into the craft of academic publication. The completion of the PhD is not an end to my relationship with them. I will continue drawing on their knowledge, scholarship and expertise for my further development as a researcher and academic. Outside the advisory panel I have received help, support and feedback from a number of people, especially Dr Noriko Iwashita, Dr Asad Khan and Dr Kamal Uddin. I will always remain iv
grateful to Noriko for allowing me to lecture and tutor postgraduate courses which widened the scope of my reading and learning. I owe almost all of my knowledge of statistics and SPSS to Dr Khan. His simple and clear explanation of data analysis and statistical tests, and his practical help and encouragement were very important for me. Dr Kamal Uddin of the University of Dhaka offered generous help and support with the design of some key instruments of the study. I remain in debt to him for his help. I would like to thank Prof Alan Davies and Prof Fakrul Alam for reading my confirmation document and commenting on it. I would also thank Dr Noriko Iwashita, Dr Guy Ramsay, Dr Asad Khan, Dr Delwar Akbar and Iffat Jahan who kindly read parts of the thesis. I am grateful to Laura Tolton who was my ‘thesis buddy’. Discussing with her many issues of epistemology, ethics and the PhD genre was very helpful in getting my understanding clearer. I am also grateful to the academic staff members of the University of Queensland and the University of Dhaka who contributed to the design of the study’s instruments. I thankfully remember the help and cooperation of many people at the research site. First and foremost, I would thank all students, teachers, head teachers and parents. Their interest in my work and their willingness to participate and cooperate made the fieldwork possible. I am grateful to the teachers and head teachers who provided necessary support and assistance for my work with their students. I am indebted to Tofayel Hossain and Farida Yesmin for their immeasurable help and hospitality. I appreciate the help and cooperation of Babul Prosad who has supplied important information as well as material from Dhaka. I also appreciate the help of Anamul Haque who drove me to different places for the fieldwork. The University of Dhaka and the University of Queensland provided financial support for my study. The University of Dhaka also granted me study leave for the whole period. I am grateful to both institutions for their support. We received help and support from many friends and well-wishers during our stay in Brisbane, including Asad Khan and his family, Nister Kabir, Delwar Akbar, Daniel Kim, Rabiul Islam and his family, Laura Tolton and Matthew and Linnea Webb. I take this opportunity to thank them and all others who could not be mentioned due to limitations of space. I am grateful to my parents and parents-in-law for their help, support and encouragement. My parents and siblings provided me with food and accommodation during my fieldwork. In addition to providing financial support whenever needed, my father-in-law frequently mailed book chapters, journal articles and pieces of information from Bangladesh. v
Finally, I am grateful to my wife and our son who took the PhD journey with me. Their sacrifice is indescribable and irreparable. I wish to at least partially compensate for my wife’s sacrifice by assuring her that I will be with her during her PhD study in the near or distant future.
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Dedicated to my teachers:
A.Y.M. Zarjis Abu Sayed A.K. Noor-e-Islam Tofayel Hossain Fakrul Alam
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Abstract The ‘social turn’ in applied linguistics and second language acquisition (SLA) has seen the emergence of a range of socially-oriented perspectives, such as sociolinguistic, sociocultural, sociohistorical and situated learning, yet this has not resulted in L2 learners’ social origins and backgrounds being given sufficient attention in L2 research. The present study therefore argues for taking a sociology of language learning perspective to investigate L2 learners’ social biographies and their academic achievement in English. This social perspective is informed by the sociology of education as well as critical approaches to applied linguistics. Learners’ social biographies consist of learner-internal (personal) and -external (social) factors. These factors are conceptualised as learner habitus and family educational capital (economic, social and cultural) respectively, with reference to Bourdieu’s theories in the sociology of education. The study investigates secondary school students’ English learning outcomes in relation to their habitus and family capital situations in a rural context in Bangladesh. It uses a mixed methods research design and draws on both quantitative and qualitative data. It also utilises multiple perspectives, provided by 10th grade students (n = 228) and their English teachers, head teachers and parents. The data collection instruments include a questionnaire survey, an English proficiency test and participant interviews. The study shows that aspects of family economic and cultural capital and learner habitus are significantly associated with the students’ English achievement. However, social capital, operationalised as parental input into the students’ English studies, is not associated with their academic achievement in English, although it is significantly correlated with learner habitus and parental education. The students’ perceptions of their family capital situations and the perceived impact of these situations on their academic experience were supportive of structuralist determinism. Despite the constraining effects of family capital disadvantage on academic experience, disadvantaged students can neutralise these effects by means of their habitus and thus negate social determinism in the context of their scholastic achievement. The study also shows that contrary to the widening gap in the academic achievement of students in favour of females in many social contexts, the female students in the present context performed somewhat less well than their male counterparts in the school-leaving examination. Finally, the students’ English learning and academic outcomes were embedded in their social biographies. Their academic achievement or underachievement cannot be fully understood without recourse to their familial and social worlds, their lived experiences, their desires for better futures and their disadvantage, and lack of means to pursue those desires. viii
Despite some caveats, the findings have important implications for the theory and practice of teaching English in Bangladesh and other social contexts. First, it is necessary to include both learner-internal and -external family/social factors in the investigation of L2 learners’ English learning experience and outcomes. Second, ELT policies should have provisions that address these beyond-the-school factors in order to develop English language skills across social classes and geographic locations. Finally, schools should embrace the question of inequality in English learning outcomes and devise mechanisms for the reduction of inequalities within their limited resources and capacities. The major contribution of the study is to our understanding of the factors associated with English language learning in rural communities in developing societies. In particular, the study substantiates non-cognitive, non-methodological and non-curricular approaches to EFL/ESL. Identification of these factors is facilitated by the perspective of sociology of English learning and the concept of social biography. In addition, the study designs a theoretical and conceptual framework and instruments for researching student achievement in English in relation to family capital and learner habitus.
Keywords English achievement, social biography, family capital, habitus, gender, ESL/EFL, mixed methods, L2 policy and planning, sociology of language learning, Bangladesh
Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classifications (ANZSRC) English as a Second Language (50%) Applied Linguistics and Educational Linguistics (30%) Sociology of Education (20%)
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Table of Contents Cover page …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….i Declaration by author…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….ii List of works published during candidature……………………………………………………………………………………iii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….iv Dedication…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….vii Thesis abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….viii Table of contents……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………x List of Figures and Tables………………………………………………………………………………………………………………xv List of Abbreviations used in the thesis……………………………………………………………………………………….xvii Chapter 1: Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………1 1.1 Introduction and background………………………………………………………………………………………………1 1.1.1 Aim of the study……………………………………………………………………………………………………………1 1.1.2 Rationale and significance…………………………………………………………………………………………….2 1.1.2.1 Second language acquisition………………………………………………………………………………….2 1.1.2.2 Critical approaches to applied linguistics……………………………………………………………….6 1.1.2.3 Research context and contextual rationale……………………………………………………………7 1.1.2.4 Sociology of education…………………………………………………………………………………………..9 1.1.2.5 Personal and professional significance…………………………………………………………………10 1.2 Theories and theoretical framework………………………………………………………………………………….11 1.3 Research objectives and design characteristics…………………………………………………………………..14 1.4 Scope and other characteristics………………………………………………………………………………………. ..16 1.5 Overview of chapters…………………………………………………………………………………………………………17 1.6 Summary and expected outcomes……………………………………………………………………………………..18 Chapter 2: The social context: national and local………………………………………………………………………20 2.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….20 2.2 Approaches to social context……………………………………………………………………………………………..20 x
2.3 Bangladesh…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………22 2.3.1 Language situation in Bangladesh……………………………………………………………………………….23 2.3.1.1 English in Bangladesh…………………………………………………………………………………………..24 2.3.1.2 English in the colonial era…………………………………………………………………………………….25 2.3.1.3 English in Bangladesh in the Pakistani era……………………………………………………………29 2.3.4.1 English in post-independence Bangladesh……………………………………………………………30 2.3.1.5 Urban-rural disparity……………………………………………………………………………………………40 2.4 Nadiranga…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..40 2.4.1 Language situation in Nadiranga…………………………………………………………………………………42 2.4.2 Education in Nadiranga……………………………………………………………………………………………….43 2.5 Summary and conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………45 Chapter 3: Review of literature…………………………………………………………………………………………………46 3.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….46 3.2 SLA and English achievement……………………………………………………………………………………………..46 3.2.1 Major variables in SLA…………………………………………………………………………………………………46 3.3 Academic achievement and the sociology of education……………………………………………………..54 3.3.1 Bourdieu and cultural reproduction in education……………………………………………………….56 3.3.2 Critique of Bourdieu and cultural reproduction…………………………………………………………..58 3.3.3 Theoretical model……………………………………………………………………………………………………….60 3.3.4 Studies on social backgrounds and educational performance……………………………………..63 3.3.4.1 SES and academic achievement…………………………………………………………………………..64 3.3.4.2 SES-achievement in the developed world……………………………………………………………65 3.3.4.3 Qualitative studies……………………………………………………………………………………………….69 3.3.4.4 SES and academic achievement in developing nations…………………………………………70 3.3.4.5 SES and academic achievement in Bangladesh…………………………………………………….72 3.3.4.6 Summarising SES studies……………………………………………………………………………………..74 3.3.5 Academic achievement vis-à-vis capital and habitus……………………………………………………75 3.3.5.1 Cultural capital and achievement…………………………………………………………………………75 3.3.5.2 Social capital and academic outcomes…………………………………………………………………80 3.3.5.3 Habitus and academic achievement…………………………………………………………………….81 3.3.5.4 Summary of research on capital and habitus……………………………………………………….82 3.4 Gender and academic achievement……………………………………………………………………………………84 3.5 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….87 xi
Chapter 4: Research design and methodology………………………………………………………………………….88 4.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..88 4.2 Philosophical and theoretical issues of research design……………………………………………………..88 4.2.1 Research paradigms……………………………………………………………………………………………………88 4.2.2 Mixed methods…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..89 4.2.3 Why mixed methods in the present study…………………………………………………………………..90 4.2.4 Dimensions of mixed methods……………………………………………………………………………………91 4.3 Practical issues of research design……………………………………………………………………………………..97 4.3.1 Participants and sampling……………………………………………………………………………………………97 4.3.2 Instruments………………………………………………………………………………………………………………100 4.3.3 Variables and their measures……………………………………………………………………………………102 4.3.3.1 Dependent variable……………………………………………………………………………………………102 4.3.3.2 Independent variables……………………………………………………………………………………….102 4.3.4 Data collection procedures…………………………………………………………………………………..107 4.3.4.1 Pilot test…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….107 4.3.4.2 Quantitative data collection procedures……………………………………………………………108 4.3.4.3 Qualitative data collection procedures………………………………………………………………110 4.3.5 Ethical concerns………………………………………………………………………………………………………..110 4.4 Data analysis…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….112 4.5 Summary………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….113 Chapter 5: Scale development and analysis…………………………………………………………………………….114 5.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..114 5.1.1 Pre-survey stage……………………………………………………………………………………………………114 5.1.2 Post-survey phase…………………………………………………………………………………………………118 5.1.2.1 Social capital scale…………………………………………………………………………………………118 5.1.2.2 Habitus scale…………………………………………………………………………………………………120 5.2 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..122 Chapter 6: Quantitative data and analysis………………………………………………………………………………124 6.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..124 6.2 Descriptive statistics…………………………………………………………………………………………………………124 6.2.1 Economic capital……………………………………………………………………………………………………….124 6.2.2 Cultural capital………………………………………………………………………………………………………….126 6.2.3 Social capital……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..129 xii
6.2.4 Learner habitus…………………………………………………………………………………………………………130 6.2.5 English proficiency scores…………………………………………………………………………………………130 6.3 Bivariate analyses……………………………………………………………………………………………………………131 6.3.1 Family capital and learner habitus…………………………………………………………………………….132 6.3.2 Family capital, learner habitus and English achievement…………………………………………..133 6.3.3 Gender, family capital and English achievement……………………………………………………….136 6.4 Multivariate analyses……………………………………………………………………………………………………….138 6.4.1 Parental income-led models (Models A and B)………………………………………………………….141 6.4.2 Father’s education-led models (Models C and D)………………………………………………………143 6.5 Summary and conclusions………………………………………………………………………………………………..146 Chapter 7: Qualitative data and analysis…………………………………………………………………………………147 7.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….147 7.2 Data and data analysis procedures…………………………………………………………………………………..148 7.2.1 Transcribing the data………………………………………………………………………………………………..149 7.2.2 Reading transcripts and displaying data…………………………………………………………………….150 7.2.2.1 Structure-achievement relationships…………………………………………………………………150 7.2.3 Reducing data to thematic and analytic codes………………………………………………………….156 7.2.4 Identifying major themes………………………………………………………………………………………….156 7.2.4.1 School as the gateway to a better future……………………………………………………………157 7.2.4.2 Views of English and English learning…………………………………………………………………160 7.2.4.3 Perceptions of structure-achievement relationships………………………………………….164 7.2.4.4 Perceptions of private tutoring in English…..……………………………………………………..166 7.2.4.5 Talking about future: (un)certainty and (ir)resolution………………………………………..166 7.3 Teachers’ perspectives……………………………………………………………………………………………………..169 7.3.1 English teachers’ perspectives…………………………………………………………………………………..169 7.3.1.1 Factors affecting students’ English achievement……………………………………………….169 7.3.1.2 Learners’ family socio-economic situations……………………………………………………….170 7.3.1.3 Private tutoring in English………………………………………………………………………………….171 7.3.2 Head teachers’ views………………………………………………………………………………………………..171 7.3.2.1 School English teaching and student achievement…………………………………………….172 7.3.2.2 Views of PT-E……………………………………………………………………………………………………..172 7.4 Parental perspectives……………………………………………………………………………………………………….173 7.5 Summary and conclusions………………………………………………………………………………………………..175 xiii
Chapter 8: Integration and interpretation of findings……………………………………………………………..176 8.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….176 8.2 Family educational capital………………………………………………………………………………………………..176 8.2.1 Economic capital……………………………………………………………………………………………………….176 8.2.2 Cultural capital………………………………………………………………………………………………………….179 8.2.3 Social capital……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..182 8.3 Learner habitus………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..188 8.4 Gender, family capital and achievement…………………………………………………………………………..191 8.5 Social biographies and English achievement…………………………………………………………………….193 8.6 Summary and conclusions………………………………………………………………………………………………..194 Chapter 9: Implications and conclusions…………………………………………………………………………………196 9.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..196 9.2 Main conclusions……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..197 9.3 Limitations of the research……………………………………………………………………………………………….198 9.4 Implications………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………199 9.4.1 L2 learning in developing societies……………………………………………………………………………199 9.4.2 Implications for English teaching practice…………………………………………………………………201 9.4.3 Implications for ELT policies………………………………………………………………………………………202 9.5 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..204 References……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..205 Appendices…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….235 Appendix A: Student survey questionnaire……………………………………………………………………………236 Appendix B: English proficiency test………………………………………………………………………………………242 Appendix C: Student interview protocols……………………………………………………………………………….247 Appendix D: Parent interview protocols…………………………………………………………………………………249 Appendix E: English teacher interview protocols……………………………………………………………………250 Appendix F: Participant consent form…………………………………………………………………………………….252 Appendix G: Face-validity survey questionnaire……………………………………………………………………..254 Appendix H: Factor Analysis output of the subscales of social capital and habitus…………………259 Appendix I: Scale statistics……………………………………………………………………………………………………..269 Appendix J: Specimen of coding data on interview transcripts……………………………………………….272
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List of Figures & Tables Figures Figure 2.1: An inventory of contextual factors in language teaching Figure 2.2: National education structure of Bangladesh Figure 2.3: Total gross enrolment ratios for lower and upper secondary schools in South Asia, Iran and China Figure 3.1: Model of second language learner and language learning Figure 3.2: Theoretical model Figure 6.1: Levels of parental education of the student participants Figure 6.2: Distribution of social capital scores among the student sample Figure 6.3: Distribution of habitus scores Figure 6.4: Comparison of students’ SSC English grades and English test grades Figure 7.1: Conceptual framework for the analysis of the qualitative data Figure 7.2: Categories of family economic, cultural and social capital
Tables Table 2.1: Secondary education statistics Table 2.2: Villagers’ estimates of rural poverty in Bangladesh Table 3.1: Taxonomy of factors influencing L2 acquisition Table 4.1: Mixed methods design types Table 4.2: Mixed methods data integration strategies Table 4.3: Summary of mixed methods characteristics of the present study Table 4.4: Students and their schools participating in the quantitative phase Table 5.1: Preliminary subscales of habitus and social capital and constituent sub-components Table 5.2: Judges and their disciplines and affiliations Table 6.1: Percentage distribution of different aspects of economic capital Table 6.2: Percentage distribution of aspects of cultural capital Table 6.3: Percentage distribution of the use of languages in the homes of the student participants Table 6.4: Parental education in relation to social capital and habitus Table 6.5: Parental education and measures of English achievement Table 6.6: Correlations between social capital and English achievement Table 6.7: Correlations between habitus and English achievement xv
Table 6.8: Gender in relation to social capital, learner habitus and English achievement Table 6.9: Cross-tabulations of gender and parental income and education expenses Table 6.10: Cross-tabulations of gender and father’s education and mother’s education Table 6.11: Independent and dependent variables available for model construction Table 6.12: Cross-tabulations of parental education, parental income and father’s occupation Table 6.13: Ordered logistic regression estimates of the association of English grades and parental income and other aspects of economic, cultural and social capital and habitus Table 6.14: Ordered logistic regression estimates of the association of English grades and father’s education and other aspects of economic, cultural and social capital and habitus Table 7.1: Students’ family capital profiles and indicators of their academic achievement Table 7.2: Examples of transforming descriptive codes into analytical codes and major themes Table 7.3: Liking of English, English learning experience and English grades in the SSC examination Table 7.4: Educational and career plans, self-confidence and English grades in the SSC examination Table 7.5: English teachers’ ranking of factors influencing students’ academic achievement in English Case profiles Case Profile 7.1: Moumi Case Profile 7.2: Silan Case Profile 7.3: Konka Case Profile 7.4: Rajib
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List of Abbreviations used in the thesis AILA ANOVA ANCOVA BAC BANBEIS BBS BEERI BHPS BISE BRAC BTV CAMPE CI CLT DfID DSHE ELT ELTIP EM EME FFE FL FSP FSSAP GCPI GCSE GEP GER GPA GUK HSC ICT KDAB LAM L1 L2 MDG MHSS MLJ NAEM NCTB NELS NGO NLYS OECD OR PCA
International Association of Applied Linguistics Analysis of variance Analysis of covariance Basque Autonomous Community Bangladesh Bureau of Education Information and Statistics Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics Bangladesh Education Extension and Research Institute British Household Panel Study Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee Bangladesh Television Campaign for Popular Education Confidence interval Communicative Language Teaching Department for International Development Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education English Language Teaching English Language Teaching Improvement Project English medium English-medium education Food for Education Foreign Language Female Stipend Program Female Secondary School Assistance Project General Committee of Public Instruction General Certificate of Secondary Education General Education Project Gross enrolment ratios Grade point average Gram unnayan kendra Higher Secondary Certificate Information and communication technology Korean Development Agencies in Bangladesh Language acquisition management First language Second language Millennium Development Goals Matlab Health and Socio-economic Survey Modern Language Journal National Academy for Educational Management National Curriculum and Textbook Board National Education Longitudinal Survey Non-government organisations National Longitudinal Survey of Youth Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Odds ratios Principal component analysis xvii
PISA PSID PT-E RDRS SAE SCB SCT SES S/FL SLA SPSS SSC TIMSS TESOL UNDP VM
Program for International Student Assessment Panel Study of Income Dynamics Private tutoring in English Rangpur, Dinajpur Rural Service Small area estimation Standard Colloquial Bangla Sociocultural theory Socio-economic status Second/Foreign language Second language acquisition Statistical Package for the Social Sciences Secondary School Certificate Third International Mathematics and Science Study Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages United Nations Development Program Vernacular medium
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Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction and background The English language has been viewed as a tool for progress and development since the early days of British colonisation and the subsequent spread of English and English education in colonised and decolonised territories (Pennycook, 1994). As Kachru (1990, p. 1) is often quoted as saying, knowing English is like possessing Aladdin‘s lamp, which can bring material prosperity by ensuring one‘s access to education, international business, science and technology (see also Bruthiaux, 2002; Crystal, 1997; Gargesh, 2006; Graddol, 1997; Lysandrou & Lysandrou, 2003; McKay & Bokhorst-Heng, 2008; Park & Abelmann, 2004; Pegrum, 2004). It is this logic of development and modernisation (see Rappa & Wee, 2006; Tollefson, 2002a) that led Bangladesh, as it did many other former British colonies, to take a pragmatic approach (Abbott, 1990) and retain the English language beyond the nation‘s political decolonisation. More recently, Bangladesh has enhanced the status of English by awarding the language more curricular space and investing more national resources in its teaching and learning (Hamid & Baldauf, 2008). To a large extent, this has been the country‘s response to globalisation (Imam, 2005; Tsui & Tollefson, 2007). However, this policy position itself raises some key questions. For example, what have the implications of the adoption of English in the society been? Is school learners‘ academic achievement in English, as an integral part of the Grade 1-12 national curriculum, equitably distributed across social classes and groups, or does it fall along class lines? If the answer lies in the latter rather than the former alternative, given empirical evidence supporting social class-education ties (Connell, 1994, 2003; Demaine, 2003; Nieto, 2005; Peterson & Woessmann, 2007; Sirin, 2005), some follow-up questions immediately arise: Which social groups of learners are able to access the ‗benefits‘ of English, and which are left out (see Fernando, 1989)? How do rural students experience English learning and what are their levels of English achievement? How can we describe the relationships between their social backgrounds and their English learning outcomes? How does gender relate to their English achievement? Can their English learning experiences be isolated from their social worlds and their lived experiences?
1.1.1 Aim of the study This study both raises and sheds light on these social and economic questions in relation to English learning. It concerns the sociology of language learning (Stern, 1983; see pp. 5-6 for 1
details). The purpose of the study is to examine relationships between secondary school students‘ social biographies and their English proficiency achievement in a sub-national context in Bangladesh (see pp. 7-9 for the context). The concept of social biography is introduced to conceptualise a) learners‘ personal and psychological characteristics; and b) their family economic, social and cultural capital. In other words, social refers to the familial and social origins and contexts of learners, while biography denotes their personal and psychological characteristics and tendencies. Social biography thus denotes the totality of learners‘ life-situations, including psychological, biographical, familial, cultural and socio-economic aspects. These aspects of social biography are based on the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu‘s (1930-2002) concepts of capital and habitus, which constitute his model of cultural reproduction (see Section 1.2). In Bourdieu‘s conceptualisation, capital is both monetary and non-monetary, which can be understood from its different forms – economic, cultural, social and linguistic (Bourdieu, 1986; Anheier, Gerhards & Romo, 1995). Habitus, on the other hand, refers to a set of habits, perceptions, dispositions and cognitive structures guiding the actions and preferences of an agent (Bourdieu, 1998). Family educational capital (economic, cultural and social) and habitus constitute learners‘ social biographies. Their social biographies are given both quantitative and qualitative dimensions in the present study.
1.1.2 Rationale and significance The rationale of the study derives from the empirical status of learners‘ social background issues in relation to their L2 learning outcomes in second language acquisition (SLA) as well as in the sociology of education. In addition, the justification for the study comes from the need for empirical evidence of the poor performance of rural students in English as a second/foreign language (S/FL)1 in national school-leaving examinations in Bangladesh. Furthermore, critical approaches to applied linguistics and the researcher‘s personal and professional interests provide motivation for this research on L2 learners‘ social backgrounds and English achievement. 1.1.2.1 Second language acquisition One of the aims of the discipline of SLA is to explain ‗why most second language learners do not achieve the same degree of proficiency in a second language‘ (Gass & Selinker, 2001, p. 1). This aim calls for an understanding of learner variables of different sorts – individual, psychological, cultural, social as well as economic (Block, 2003; Breen, 2001). However, social background variables, as potential factors in second language proficiency achievement, have received relatively less attention in SLA theory and research. To a large extent, SLA has sought to
1
Whether English in Bangladesh is a second or a foreign language is debatable. See p. 30 for details.
2
explain differential L2 achievement in cognitive psychological terms, with reference to what are known as ‗within-person variables‘ (Williams, Burden & Al-Baharna, 2001, p. 171), such as attitudes, motivations, learning styles and personality (Oxford, 2002). Learners do indeed differ in terms of cognitive, affective and individual characteristics, and these differences can lead to differential L2 proficiency achievement. However, English L2 learners also differ from one another in terms of social backgrounds, which have the potential to influence their English proficiency achievement. As Pittaway (2004, p. 205) writes, ‗language learners possess varying degrees of symbolic, cultural and linguistic capital conferred on them by their socioeconomic status, educational background, and other social factors‘. The present study therefore argues for examining these less-studied social variables together with learner-internal (habitus) variables as a way to understand L2 learners‘ English learning outcomes. The sociology of English learning, as introduced in the present study, represents a social response to the cognitive-social debate in SLA (Block, 2003; Firth & Wagner, 1997, 2007; Lafford, 2007; Zuengler & Miller, 2006). From its origin in the late 1960s, SLA has been dominated by linguistics and cognitive psychology. As Long and Doughty (2003) state in the Handbook of second language acquisition: For SLA to achieve the stability, stimulation, and research funding to survive as a viable field of inquiry, it needs an intellectual and institutional home that is to some degree autonomous and separate from the disciplines and departments that currently offer shelter. Cognitive science is the logical choice. (p. 869)
As a consequence of the ‗hegemony‘ of cognitive psychology (Lafford, 2007), current SLA is characterised by the absence of a socio-historic footing. Consequently, language learning has come to be viewed largely as what goes on in the head of the language learner: Mainstream twentieth-century linguistics and applied linguistics have operated from a predominantly scientific, cognitively-oriented model of language learning. The learner in this model is an individually bounded cognitive performer, and language learning is seen to happen primarily inside this individual learner's head. (Carr & Pauwels, 2006, p. 31)
This SLA orthodoxy, however, has been critiqued by socially-oriented scholars and researchers. The first critique emerged from sociolinguistics, when Dell Hymes (1972) proposed the concept of communicative competence as a substitute for the more narrowly conceived notion of linguistic competence (McKay & Bokhorst-Heng, 2008; Savignon, 1997). Communicative competence, with all its different interpretations (e.g., Canale & Swain, 1980; Canale, 1983; Bachman, 1990; Bachman & Palmer, 1996; Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei & Thurrell, 1995), has been 3
widely accepted as the principal goal of L2 instruction, as evidenced by the introduction of communicative language teaching (CLT) in many parts of the world. SLA theories, however, have not paid sufficient attention to factors related to language performance and to social and contextual variables (see Section 3.2.1). In addition, there have been criticisms from sociolinguistically oriented SLA research (e.g., interlanguage variation studies) in the 1980s, which show how phonological, morphological and syntactic features of interlanguage change in response to contextual parameters such as interlocutors, tasks and topics (see Tarone, 1988, 2000, 2007 for review of this line of research). Perhaps the most significant challenge to the cognitive base of SLA was from Vygotskian sociocultural theory (SCT), which posits that knowledge, cognition and learning are socially and culturally mediated. This socially-oriented perspective emerged in the 1980s (Frawley & Lantolf, 1985). Key publications that introduced SCT to SLA include Lantolf and Appel (1994) and the 1994 special issue of the Modern Language Journal (MLJ) on ‗sociocultural theory and second language learning‘ (Lantolf, 1994). Those holding sociolinguistic and sociocultural perspectives found themselves in debate with the cognitively-oriented mainstream SLA. The debate received wider attention when MLJ published an influential article by Firth and Wagner (1997) emanating from a debate that actually took place at an AILA (International Association of Applied Linguistics) symposium in 1996 (see Zuengler & Miller, 2006). This socially-oriented paper made a strong case for: 1) reconceptualising SLA, taking social and contextual factors into consideration; 2) taking an emic perspective (i.e., incorporating learners‘ views of L2 learning) in SLA research; and 3) broadening the traditional SLA data base – i.e., using data from instructed L2 learning as well as naturalistic L2 interaction. Responses to Firth and Wagner (1997) from scholars on the cognitive and the social side were also published in this and a subsequent issue of MLJ (Firth & Wagner, 1998; Gass, 1998; Hall, 1997; Kasper, 1997; Liddicoat, 1997; Long, 1997). Recently, the cognitive-social debate was replayed when MLJ published a special issue (2007) on Firth and Wagner (1997), with contributions from a range of authors (see Lafford, 2007 for an overview). The different authorial views and perspectives on the debate suggest that the cognitive-social divide is not about to be replaced with ‗a theoretically and methodologically richer, more robust enterprise, [which is] better able to explicate the processes of S/FL acquisition, and better placed to engage with and contribute to research commonly perceived to reside outside its boundaries‘ (Firth & Wagner, 1997, p. 286). Mainstream SLA may continue being dominated by cognitive psychology, as Long and Doughty (2003) suggest, but the social is on the ‗ascendancy‘ (Lafford, 2007), as is evidenced by the growth of situated learning, language socialisation and
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poststructuralist views, in addition to sociolinguistic and sociocultural perspectives (see Section 3.2 for details). These growing social perspectives have introduced a range of social issues to SLA theory and research not covered in mainstream SLA. For example, they have produced evidence for, among other things: 1) the social nature of learning and cognition; 2) learning as participation in social interaction; 3) the social situatedness of language use; 4) language learning as identity construction; 5) the multiplicity of language learner identities; 6) language learning as personal investment; and 7) learner agency in language learning. Nevertheless, learners‘ social background variables have not been fully addressed by these approaches: Even when the social dimensions of language are acknowledged, the social reality of language learning and teaching is represented from a narrow perspective where social context is only treated as who is talking to whom about what. The complexity of social conditions students and teachers find themselves in is not given serious consideration and some of the grim facts that are part of the human condition, such as poverty, disease, domestic violence, racial, or ethnic discrimination, are ignored. If education in general and ELT in particular are going to make a difference, then the totality of the experiences of learners needs to be addressed. (Akbari, 2008, p. 278, emphasis in the original)
Akbari‘s call for attending to the totality of learners‘ experience is for L2 pedagogy, rather than SLA theory. However, the argument can be extended to SLA theory building as well because if theories are to be viable, they should be based on the actual condition of learners, language learning and learning outcomes. Only then can SLA have ‗real relevance for the practicalities of the classroom‘ (Widdowson, 2006, p. 93). Therefore, the present study argues for taking a different social perspective on SLA – the sociology of English learning. ‗The sociology of language teaching and learning‘ is discussed by Stern (1983) in the context of L2 pedagogy. This perspective derives from the sociology of language (Fishman, 1972) which describes the distribution of languages and dialects and language contacts within a speech community, relates the language situation to other social factors, accounts for such phenomena as language maintenance, language shift, and language conflict, and, by means of language planning, proposes social action in order to deal with linguistic problems. (Stern, 1983, p. 269)
The sociology of language operates at the macro level (Fishman, 1972), and ‗has hitherto paid relatively little direct attention to a society‘s deliberate attempts to develop second-language competence and bilingualism by its educational policy‘ (Stern, 1983, p. 269). Stern contends that a sociological perspective is particularly important for an analysis of the social context of language 5
teaching and learning and for L2 planning. The present research extends his sociological perspective on L2 pedagogy to L2 research in order to examine the influence of social factors on L2 learning outcomes. The sociology of English learning is also inspired by the field of sociology of education, which examines social variables that affect academic outcomes of students from different social backgrounds (Sadovnik, 2007). However, the sociology of education examines learners‘ social background factors largely in isolation from individual learner characteristics, such as learner attitudes and motivations. Thus, it can be argued that whereas SLA has given more emphasis to individual-centric variables and less emphasis to beyond-the-individual social/family background factors, the sociology of education has placed more emphasis on socio-economic status (SES) issues (see pp. 9-10) than on the within-the-individual psychological and affective variables. The present study combines both sets of variables in researching English learning outcomes of secondary school learners in rural Bangladesh. Accordingly, the concept of social biography, as deployed in the present study, contains variables from SLA as well as from the sociology of education. The concept aims to advance empirical work on learners‘ social backgrounds by arguing for a simultaneous investigation of their family/social situations as well as their habitus. This argument is in line with the call for research with a broader understanding of learners‘ social backgrounds (Gonzalez, 2001; Khayyer & DeLacey, 1994; Marjoribanks, 2002; Yang & Gustafsson, 2004): If educational policies and practices that attempt to reduce inequalities in students‘ attainment are to be more cogent, then we need to increase our understanding of the complexity of relationships among social and cultural contexts, family and school learning environments, students‘ individual characteristics and school outcomes. (Marjoribanks, 2002, p. 2)
In addition, the present study combines SLA and the sociology of education from a methodological point of view. Illustrations of the use of social biography can be found in the call for utilising language learning stories in SLA (Block, 2003, 2007; Pavlenko, 2001; Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000) and biographical methods in the social sciences (Bertaux, 1981; Chamberlayne, Bornat & Wengraf, 2000; Goodley et al., 2004; McNaughton, 2006; Roberts, 2002). 1.1.2.2 Critical approaches to applied linguistics Finally, the sociological approach argued in this study is inspired by critical approaches to applied linguistics (Hall & Eggington, 2000; Pennycook, 2001, 2004; Tollefson, 1991, 1995, 2002b). In particular, the present study acknowledges the relevance of a critical pedagogical approach to research, which constitutes one of the paradigms in TESOL research and is 6
‗fundamentally concerned with questions of schooling and inequality‘ (Cumming et al., 1994, p. 691). This line of research ‗promotes the study of a range of questions concerning the relationship between L2 education and race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation, minority languages, literacy, cultural difference, and so on‘ (pp. 691-692). Such a critical approach will allow the study to examine relationships between rural learners‘ social backgrounds and their English learning outcomes, and to provide a socially-informed critique of L2 education policy and practice in Bangladesh and other developing societies. 1.1.2.3 Research context and contextual rationale This critical, sociological approach to English learning has contextual significance. The issue of the connection between learners‘ social backgrounds and English achievement intersects with social, pedagogical and language policy concerns in Bangladesh. At the social level, the problem concerns students and their parents, who are the study‘s principal participants. Sociologically, relationships based on social backgrounds and academic achievement point to issues of social (in)equalities which are reproduced through educational (in)equalities. Pedagogically, linking learners‘ achievement in English to family/social situations places school teachers of English in a double difficulty: 1) they already work under resource constraints, and 2) learners‘ social backgrounds, which introduce structural issues, are beyond their means to address. From the language policy perspective, if it can be shown that there are patterned relationships between social backgrounds and English achievement, then policy planners need to rethink the principles of meritocracy and social equity, and reassess the logic behind making English compulsory for all students, irrespective of social backgrounds and geographic locations, unless they are prepared to consider preferential resourcing of educational provision for rural, disadvantaged students. Thus, the rationale for the study also relates to its social context. This context is a rural subdistrict called Nadiranga, a pseudonym adopted for ethical reasons and anonymity, which is located in northern Bangladesh (see Chapter 2). This subdistrict is peripheral both in a geographic and socio-economic sense. Geographically, its remoteness from the capital (in Dhaka, the centre) has prevented this region from receiving optimum attention for social development from the centre. Socio-economically, Nadiranga (as well as other subdistricts in the northern region) has remained far behind many urban areas in terms of economic activity, educational opportunities, literacy rates and infrastructure.2 These structural inequalities have implications for both the penetration of English and for the extent to which the language can be achieved by different learner groups. Harlech-Jones, Sajid and Rahman‘s (2003) study of the spread of English in two subdistricts in the northern region of Pakistan – Hunza and Chilas – serves as an illustration. These researchers claim 2
This is not to ignore urban poverty or the fact that other remote areas in the country are also disadvantaged.
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that during the period 1980-2002 English penetrated more in Hunza than in Chilas, mainly because of differences in people‘s religious beliefs and practices: The restricted presence of English in Chilas is a reflection of conservative and isolationist practices, whereas the burgeoning spread of English in Hunza is based on beliefs […] that are liberal, inclusive, and open to external contacts and influences. (Harlech-Jones et al., 2003, p. 199)
However, the difference in the presence of English and in children‘s English proficiency can also be attributed to structural differences between the two subdistricts. For instance, compared to Chilas, Hunza offered more economic activity and more investment in education. Unlike Chilas, it was also open to tourists and other external influences. Differences between metropolitan and rural areas in terms of poverty and other socioeconomic indicators have implications for education, educational performance and research. DeYoung (1987) shows how American education has been biased towards the urban context and has failed to look into educational issues in rural areas until very recently. In the case of Bangladesh, the urban-rural gap in income and wealth (Karim, 2005) is reflected in educational performance in the national school-leaving examinations. For example, over the last couple of decades the results of the national school-leaving examination called Secondary School Certificate (SSC) have shown differences between the performance of urban and rural students. Reports show that a total of 356,428 students (47.43%) failed in the 2005 SSC examination, and the highest proportion of these failures occurred in rural areas and small rural towns (Mahmud, 2005). Conversely, not only were the best performing 15,631 students (GPA 53 holders) countrywide on the examination from a few selected urban schools, but in addition a large number of them were actually from the capital city. More recent statistics show a similar urban-rural divide in terms of students‘ performance in the SSC examination (Deabnath, 2008; Sweety, 2007). However, there has been little research in Bangladesh to examine whether there are associations between rural students‘ social backgrounds and their academic achievement. Nor has there been much work on the teaching and learning of English in rural Bangladesh to draw on the experiences and perspectives of peripheral learners, and to identify factors impacting on their English achievement. The present study was set in Nadiranga partly in response to this contextual, empirical need. The selection of this particular subdistrict was based on the small area estimation (SAE) approach used in development economics (Kam et al., 2005) as well as in education (Bernhardt, Pullum & Graham, 1983). This approach allows for mapping social or educational phenomena in small areas and examining them in-depth for recommending interventions. It is widely used to identify ‗pockets of poverty‘ in Bangladesh at the subdistrict level (see Kam et al., 2005). It is also used in 3
GPA (grade point average) 5 marks the highest overall performance of students in the SSC examination.
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educational work, for instance, for examining school enrolment patterns in a small area and predicting enrolments in other areas (Bernhardt et al., 1983). Taking the SAE approach, the present study investigates the teaching and learning of English in Nadiranga and relates school learners‘ English learning outcomes to their social background factors. 1.1.2.4 Sociology of education The local, sub-national focus of the present study gives it empirical coherence. It also achieves wider significance from the way it aims to inform the relevant disciplines which bear on this area of enquiry. For example, to view English achievement as a dependent variable is not a common practice in the sociology of education research, although academic achievement in reading literacy, along with science and mathematics, has been one of the most recurrent dependent variables (Sirin, 2005). The focus on English, which is studied as a S/FL subject in the Bangladeshi education system, can provide new insights into research on learners‘ social backgrounds and scholastic achievement. In addition, the relationships found between learners‘ social biographies and their English learning outcomes can inform L2 pedagogy in diverse EFL contexts. Substantial research has been carried out on the effects of social backgrounds, particularly of socio-economic status (SES), on learners‘ academic outcomes, i.e., broadly in education. In fact, SES is arguably the most common variable studied in the sociology of education (Sirin, 2005). However, much of this research has been carried out in industrialised and economically developed countries. In fact, as Richardson (1986, p. ix) has noted, the field of sociology of education is mostly based on empirical work and theories developed in the UK, USA and France. There are theoretical, empirical and methodological implications of this research, which is concentrated in a small number of countries with broadly similar socio-economic and cultural values. Morrish (1978) discusses the methodological implications of this factor, and warns that ‗[e]ducational methods which are fully applicable in one society are not necessarily so in another, and educationalists must be fully aware of the dangers of ―cultural transplantation‖‘ (p. 39). Theoretically and empirically, knowledge and theories drawn from studies in a limited number of social contexts may not have wider application and validity. However, developing societies are not necessarily a long way behind their developed counterparts in researching social backgrounds and academic outcomes. In fact, the review by Buchmann and Hannum (2001) shows that there has been substantial work on social backgrounds and academic outcomes in the developing world. But there has been less work on SES vis-à-vis academic achievement compared to that on SES and academic attainment. Academic achievement refers to the quality of schooling measured by school grades and/or achievement tests, while attainment refers to the quantity of education (i.e., years of schooling or qualifications attained) 9
(Feinstein, Duckworth & Sabates, 2008; Hauser, 1971). For Bangladesh in particular, although some work has been done on SES and the quantity of education, little research has been undertaken on learners‘ social backgrounds and educational achievement in general and English achievement in particular (see Section 3.3.4.5). 1.1.2.5 Personal and professional significance The present research has a personal significance in that by planning to investigate the social biographies of secondary school students, their life-situations and habitus and their sociocultural and educational context, I draw on a social context with which I am familiar by virtue of my birth, upbringing, early socialisation and education. It is out of my personal as well as professional interest that I want to throw light on the students‘ life chances in a society where resources and opportunities are very limited; where competition for access to higher education and the job market is extremely high; and where English holds a significant gate-keeping role in both. Thus, the study‘s rationale comes from my professional interest in exploring and understanding the life-situations and educational outcomes of learners in my own former social surroundings. While the study is related to my personal and professional interests, these interests are consistent with a non-biased and objective authorial stance relative to the investigation. Phillips and Burbules (2000, pp. 52-55) distinguish between 1) external (extra-scientific) and internal (intrascientific) and 2) epistemologically relevant and epistemologically irrelevant values concerning impartiality and objectivity in research. They contend that the question of how any research project (including its focus and context) is decided comprises its external and epistemologically irrelevant values. As they explain, epistemologically relevant values are those which directly affect research findings, such as features of research design and type of data used. On the other hand, epistemologically irrelevant values (such as the researcher‘s personal, professional and political interests) are external to research, and these values do not necessarily contaminate the epistemological integrity and objectivity of research. In other words, selection of research work inevitably serves specific interests (e.g., personal professional interests, interests of funding bodies). But these interests can be kept external to the research and do not automatically damage its internal validity. While the line dividing internal and external, and epistemologically relevant and irrelevant, values may not be easily drawn, research which is attributed to personal professional interests and which focuses on familiar social contexts can still avoid bias and value judgements on the part of a researcher who is determined to be as objective as possible. Indeed, rather than being a source of contamination, the personal dimension in the present study is a resource to serve the study purposes. I was able to take a ‗local‘ and ‗insider‘ perspective because I belong to Nadiranga by social origin, by early education and socialisation, and by emotional attachment and loyalty. 10
1.2 Theories and theoretical framework Research on the relationships between learners‘ social backgrounds and their academic achievement has identified a wide range of theoretical and conceptual material taken from such diverse fields as economics, the sociology of education, and social and developmental psychology. The present work draws mainly on Bourdieu‘s model of cultural reproduction in education. Specifically, the relationship between learners‘ social biographies and academic performance is modelled on his theory of structure-habitus-practice (Bourdieu, 1977, 1990a; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990; Nash, 2002a). Bourdieu‘s model, as applied in this study, posits that the location of learners‘ families in the social space is determined by the amount and forms of capital (economic, cultural and social) possessed by them. Being socialised within the parameters of this social space, learners are endowed with a particular kind of educational habitus which is both structured and structuring, in that the habitus is an outcome of the structural properties of the social position as well as the determinant of educational performance, in this case in English. Thus, social inequality in education is largely perpetuated because students from low-capital families, for example, have lower educational achievement, while students from high-capital families have higher educational outcomes. This can be so because 1) families which have more economic, social and cultural capital at their disposal can invest more in their children‘s education; 2) the habitus developed in children because of socialisation in these families is more disposed to education and educational values; and 3) schools reflect and reinforce the cultural capital and habitus of high-status families to a greater extent than those of low-status or working class families (Barone, 2006; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990). This line of argument may appear overly deterministic, as it presents human beings, that is, school learners, as ‗social puppets‘, apparently without the agency to resist or disrupt social class determinism in education. Indeed, critics like Collins (1993), Giroux (1983), LiPuma, (1993), Muzelis (2000), Noble and Watkins (2003), Pennycook (2001) and Sullivan (2000, 2002) have been quick to find fault with Bourdieu‘s model on these deterministic grounds. However, to a large extent such criticisms are based on the critics‘ own understanding as well as misunderstanding of the concept of habitus (Lizardo, 2004; Nash, 1999). As I discuss at some length in Chapter 3, habitus is neither absolutely rigid nor static within Bourdieu‘s own conceptualisation, neither is it impervious to influences coming from outside of the family. Rather, one‘s habitus is dynamic and transformable, as one can adjust it in response to new influences and experiences. Contrary to the inherent rigidity or determinism which can appear to be a consequence of his position, Bourdieu is actually regarded as an ‗ambiguous‘ theorist (Nash, 2005). This element of ambiguity implies that Bourdieu‘s theoretical ideas are neither entirely consistent nor conceptually determinate.
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The conflicting claims of rigidity and ambiguity in Bourdieu‘s theories can be exemplified by referring to another of his concepts – cultural capital: A closer reading of Bourdieu and Passeron‘s work on cultural capital suggests that the authors group under this concept a large number of types of cultural attitudes, preferences, behaviours, and goods, and that the concept performs different roles in their various writings. (Lamont & Lareau, 1988, p. 155)
The empirical ramifications of the hybridity or ambiguity of the concept of cultural capital are clear: ‗We are now reaching a point where the concept could become obsolete, as those using it equate it with notions as different as human capital, elite culture, and high culture‘ (Lamont & Lareau, 1988, pp. 153-4). Lamont and Lareau sift through the differing meanings of cultural capital in Bourdieu‘s writings (Kingston, 2001, p. 89), and trace its ‗original‘ meaning, which refers to various highstatus cultural signals that serve as the basis for social and cultural exclusion (Lamont & Lareau, 1988, p. 156). In other words, cultural capital refers to exclusive cultural practices which mark social class identities and distinguish one class from another. However, cultural capital in this sense of elitist and exclusionary cultural practice is arguably francocentric and specific to the context of France (Barone, 2006; Dumais, 2002; Gunn, 2005), and may not apply equally to mark class boundaries in other societies. Bourdieu acknowledged this francocentricism, but he responded that his concepts are not meant to be ‗immutable‘; rather, they are to be ‗reworked‘ when putting them into practice in different social contexts (1993, p. 271). Thus, Bourdieu himself asserted that his concepts allow flexibility of interpretation and that this interpretation will be informed by the social context. Reading Bourdieu in this way suggests that the deterministic critique needs to be reanalysed, as his concepts allow for flexibility and multiplicity of interpretations. However, it is also possible to critique Bourdieu‘s concepts of capital and habitus by pointing to the inherent difficulty of operationalising these constructs for empirical inquiry (Sullivan, 2000, 2002). In fact, operationalising these abstract concepts constitutes an empirical challenge for researchers because it is difficult to ascertain 1) what sort of indicators will capture the essence of each of these concepts; and 2) how many of these indicators researchers should deploy to measure what they set these indicators to measure. As the review of studies in Chapter 3 shows, different researchers have addressed these issues by operationalising these concepts in different ways, depending on the context of study. Archer and Francis (2006, p. 44) rightly argue that ‗capitals are context specific and will not necessarily hold a static value across boundaries of time and space‘. The present study refines Bourdieu‘s concepts of economic, cultural and social capital and habitus, and operationalises them in ways which are relevant to the specific Bangladeshi context. 12
For instance, we take Bourdieu‘s concept of social capital in a sense which is closer to that advocated by Coleman (1988), which refers mainly to parental involvement in children‘s education (see Ball, 2003; Portes, 1998 for distinctions between Bourdieu and Coleman). The present study emphasises aspects of parental involvement as indicators of social capital (Li, 2007; McNeal, 1999; Peterson & Heywood, 2007) because it can be argued that one of the ways in which social privilege in academic achievement in Bangladesh is maintained is through educated parents‘ involvement in their children‘s education. The argument is tenable because uneducated parents cannot participate in their children‘s education to the same extent as educated parents can. Thus, the investigation will shed light on whether children of educated and uneducated parents differ significantly in their English learning outcomes. Based on similar arguments, cultural capital in this study refers to those family educational values and cultural and educational resources which are relevant in Bangladesh. But why use Bourdieu in particular? As I show in more detail in Chapter 3, despite all criticisms, Bourdieu‘s concepts, which have strongly influenced the sociology of education (Kingston, 2001; Nash, 2002a), can provide a broadly based model for examining relationships between learners‘ social histories and their English learning outcomes. Moreover, forms of capital and habitus, as they are integrated in the concept of social biography, lend themselves to a broader conceptualisation of learners‘ social backgrounds. This wider view of learners‘ social backgrounds has seldom been followed up in SLA or the sociology of education research (see Chapter 3). Nonetheless, this study does not take Bourdieu‘s theories for granted. Rather, it aims to investigate whether there are systematic relationships between family educational capital, habitus and English achievement of secondary school learners in the Bangladeshi context. Based on Bourdieu‘s theoretical concepts, this study develops a model of social biography and academic achievement (Figure 3.2) discussed in Chapter 3. The model illustrates that learners‘ social biographies consist of family economic, cultural and social capital and their habitus. It is argued that an understanding of learners‘ social backgrounds requires us to adopt measures of family capital as well as learner habitus and to show their associations with academic outcomes. This is because both sets of variables (capital and habitus) interact with each other in the actual context of schooling and student achievement. For example, while low family capital or adverse socio-economic realities may constrain and demotivate learners in the pursuit of their education, the same unfavourable conditions may also reinforce their determination to continue their studies in spite of significant barriers. As Marjoribanks argues, learner habitus can act ‗as a mediator between family influences and academic outcomes‘ (2006, p. 229). In other words, habitus can moderate the effects of family capital factors on the students‘ English learning outcomes.
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1.3 Research objectives and design characteristics The present study, then, aims to shed light on whether and to what extent a model of social biography and English achievement (Figure 3.2) based on Bourdieu‘s structure-habitus-practice explains relationships between L2 learners‘ social backgrounds and their academic achievement in the Bangladeshi context. In this sense the research has confirmatory objectives. The study also investigates the nature of the relationships found between the different variables with reference to qualitative data (see Chapter 7). This objective makes the study explanatory as well. At the same time, the study is also exploratory: it explores whether it is appropriate to apply the concepts of habitus, capital and social biography, and whether the way the concepts are operationalised makes sense in research on learners‘ social backgrounds and their English learning outcomes. Research questions Based on the purpose of the study and on the theoretical issues clarified in the previous section, the study adopts the following set of research questions: 1) What are the relationships between different aspects of economic capital, social capital, cultural capital and the students’ academic achievement in English? 2) How are family capital-achievement relationships perceived by different agents including students, parents and English teachers and head teachers? 3) What is the relationship between learner habitus and English achievement? 4) How does gender relate to family capital, habitus and academic achievement in English? 5) How do the students’ English learning experience and academic achievement in English relate to their social biographies?
A detailed review of studies in Chapter 3 on forms of capital and habitus and on gender in relation to academic achievement provides the rationale for these research questions. A closer scrutiny of the questions points to some important characteristics. First, the list includes both statistically analysable (quantitative) and non-statistical (qualitative) questions. This mixed nature of the questions itself points to the need for adopting a mixed methods design for carrying out the research. Second, the questions suggest that the investigation requires multiple participants and multiple perspectives. This is for an in-depth investigation of the phenomena of interest in the social context. Finally, the questions highlight the situated nature of the study, since they refer to students in a specific social context.
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Research design: Mixed methods A mixed methods design is selected for the investigation. Mixed methods work is a class of research in which the investigator(s) collect and analyse data, integrate research findings, and draw inferences using both quantitative and qualitative methods in a single study with the overall goal of presenting a more detailed and insightful understanding of complex social or educational phenomena (Greene, 2007; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Johnson, Onwuegbuzie & Turner, 2007; Teddlie, Tashakkori & Johnson, 2008). The mixed methods approach constitutes the ‗third paradigm‘, after positivism and constructivism (Denscombe, 2008; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Plano Clark et al., 2008). This alternative paradigm is underpinned by the philosophy of pragmatism, which
finds a middle ground between philosophical dogmatisms and scepticism and a workable solution to many longstanding philosophical dualisms about which agreement has not been historically forthcoming;
recognizes the existence and importance of the natural or physical world as well as the emergent social and psychological world that includes language, culture, human institutions, and subjective thoughts;
views knowledge as being both constructed and based on the reality of the world we experience and live in;
endorses eclecticism and pluralism (e.g., different, even conflicting, theories and perspectives can be useful; observation, experience, and experiments are all useful ways to gain an understanding of people and the world). (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004, p. 18)
While further details about mixed methods are provided in Chapter 4, this brief introduction aims to show why this alternative design is an appropriate choice for this study, which aims to generate a broader understanding of the secondary school students‘ English learning outcomes in relation to their social backgrounds. This aim fits in with the goal of mixed methods research. As previously noted, the research questions guiding the work call for quantitative as well as qualitative evidence. The study posits that research evidence can be objective as well as subjective in nature. This can be understood from the major concepts deployed and operationalised in the research. For instance, while family educational capital can be objectively measured, habitus can be understood only through participants‘ representations of their dispositions and other within-person attributes. Likewise, while some research questions can be answered with reference to objective, statistically analysed evidence (e.g., question #1), others require participants‘ (subjective) views, judgements and perceptions (e.g., question #2).
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Moreover, the present study relies on multiple perspectives and multiple sources of data. The main participants of the study are 10th grade students from eight secondary schools in Nadiranga. In addition, samples of parents, English teachers and head teachers make up its participants. Likewise, the principal instrument for collecting data is a questionnaire survey. At the same time, data are also generated by a researcher-administered English proficiency test, the students‘ English grades from the school-leaving examination (SSC), and crucially, from interviews with students, parents, English teachers and head teachers (see Chapter 4). This multiplicity of data sources and perspectives also calls for a mixed methods design. Mixed methods approaches are increasingly used in research in social sciences and education. However, they are yet to be fully exploited in SLA or applied linguistic research. As Duff (2008, p. 42) argues, referring to Lazaraton (2000), ‗studies that effectively combine methods are rather few and far between in applied linguistics […], and there is a need for more, and better, mixed-method studies in the field‘. Using mixed methods for the present research represents an innovative approach on methodological grounds.
1.4 Scope and other characteristics The present study has several other distinctive characteristics. First, it is an interdisciplinary work (Finkenthal, 2001; Moran, 2002). It is located within applied linguistics, which is ‗interdisciplinary by definition‘ (Widdowson, 2006, p. 94; see also Grabe, 2002; McDonough, 2002). As is characteristic of applied linguistic work, it implicates multiple fields such as SLA, S/FL pedagogy and language policy and planning. More importantly, it draws on theoretical insights from the field of sociology of education in shedding light on learners‘ English learning outcomes. For instance, the concepts of capital and habitus are borrowed from sociology to conceptualise learner-external and -internal characteristics. Furthermore, the study aims to contribute to the sociology of education, by recommending the use of English learning outcomes as a measure of academic achievement. Second, the study is situated in a specific socio-historic context, and so it can be called a case study of that context. As such, the study aims for an in-depth investigation of the school learners‘ English learning achievement in relation to their social background factors within this bounded location. This situated nature of the study means that it does not deal with a large, nationally representative sample of students, and therefore its findings can only be generalised in a limited sense. We argue that rural areas within Bangladesh and in other developing countries can benefit from the insights generated for the teaching and learning of English in those contexts, and from the implications of these insights for language policy and teaching.
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Finally, the study focuses on family/social as well as learner-internal issues in understanding English learning outcomes of the students. However, school variables are also important factors in understanding their academic achievement. Although the study draws on English teacher and head teacher perspectives, not all variables related to school and school English teaching could be considered because of the scope and time-frame of the study.
1.5 Overview of chapters The thesis is organised in nine chapters. Chapter 1 is a general introduction to the whole work. It specifies the research focus by articulating a set of research questions relating to learners‘ social origins and the outcomes of their English learning in the Bangladeshi context. It also draws out the significance of the study from different perspectives, and argues for a theoretical and epistemological view embodied in the sociology of English learning. Moreover, the chapter introduces theoretical and conceptual issues and aspects of research design and methodology. Finally, it delimits the scope of the study, points out its major characteristics and explains how the study can contribute to empirical knowledge in the fields of SLA and the sociology of education. Chapter 2 is devoted to a detailed description of the context of the study in terms of its social, political, economic, cultural and educational issues. After a macro-level representation of the context it moves to the specific locus of the study in Nadiranga. The main focus of the chapter is on the nation‘s social and economic conditions, the public education system with a specific focus on secondary education, the status of English in the national curriculum, and the role of English in higher education and the job market. The goal is to provide rich background information on the social context so that the variables and sub-variables, their measures and the empirical insights generated can be located within the socio-historic context for a better understanding and appreciation. Chapter 3 provides the justification for undertaking the research by constructing its theoretical and empirical basis. The chapter discusses the concepts of capital and habitus and develops a conceptual model of English achievement based on these concepts. It also reviews a large body of literature from SLA as well as from the sociology of education, and establishes links between the two fields. The review of studies from these two fields shows the rationale for using the concept of social biography, which calls for examining the combined effects of learners‘ family capital and their habitus on academic achievement. The review of studies also justifies the specific focus of the investigation underlying the research questions. Chapter 4 discusses research design and methodological issues. It introduces mixed methods research and presents the justification for selecting this research paradigm. It also describes the research participants, the instruments utilised for data collection, and the data collection procedures. 17
The methodological discussion is continued in Chapter 5, which concerns the development and analysis of the scales of social capital and habitus from their constituent components. This chapter operationalises the concepts of social capital and habitus and demonstrates the development of socially and contextually sensitive instruments for empirical work. The data, their analyses and the findings of the study are presented in Chapter 6 (quantitative) and Chapter 7 (qualitative). The numerical data are first presented using descriptive statistics which are followed by bivariate and multivariate analyses. The qualitative data are analysed using qualitative content analyses and the findings are presented in different formats – select case profiles, summary tables and key themes. The findings from these two chapters are integrated and discussed in Chapter 8. The chapter also relates the findings to relevant work in the literature. Chapter 9 presents a summary of the main findings and draws out their implications for the practice and policy of English language teaching on the one hand and the theoretical and methodological insights and instruments generated by the present study on the other. The chapter also discusses the contribution of the work to the theory and practice of L2 teaching in developing societies and provides directions for further research on the topic.
1.6 Summary and expected outcomes Applied linguistics and SLA have witnessed a number of social perspectives on L2 learning over the last few decades. Increasingly, these perspectives have placed the cognitive orthodoxy in SLA under pressure. Although the claims of the social approaches are yet to lead to redefining SLA by broadening its scope, they have paved the way for introducing various social and contextual issues that implicate learners‘ L2 learning, use and achievement. The present study argues for another social perspective – the sociology of English learning. It is argued that this social perspective will enable the examination of the relationships between secondary school students‘ social biographies and their English achievement in developing countries. It is also argued that the personal and social issues constructing learners‘ social biographies have not been fully addressed by the existing social perspectives on SLA. The investigation is facilitated by Bourdieu‘s model of structure-habitus-practice and his concepts of different forms of capital that determine family position in the social space. The study is based on mixed methods design and multiple sources of data and perspective in order to arrive at an in-depth understanding of the relationships between learners‘ social worlds and their English learning outcomes within the Bangladeshi context. The outcomes of the study contribute to its social context and to the disciplines involved in some decisive ways. First, the measures of English proficiency of rural and peripheral students provide quantitative outcomes of the teaching and learning of English in Bangladesh which may 18
then inform macro-level English language policy and planning efforts in the country. More significantly, the outcomes of the investigation of the relationships between learners‘ social biographies and their English achievement will serve as a basic framework for the relevant state authorities to use in designing policies for reducing social inequalities in education in Bangladesh. Second, the findings of the study shed light on the impact of non-cognitive social and individual factors on students‘ English learning experience and outcomes. This impact indicates whether SLA theory-building as well as L2 pedagogy need to consider family, social and contextual variables, which have so far remained underrepresented in the different social approaches to L2 studies. Third, the findings of the study suggest implications for its conceptual and methodological tools. For instance, the study operationalises the concepts of cultural and social capital and habitus and designs their scales using socially and contextually appropriate indicators. The outcomes of the study suggest the appropriateness and feasibility of these instruments for investigating learners‘ English learning outcomes in relation to their social backgrounds in future research. In addition, the outcomes provide substantial evidence for the viability of a model of academic achievement based on sociology of English learning. Finally, the outcomes of the study have implications for rural education in general and S/FL education in particular for Bangladesh and other developing societies. The findings should encourage education policy makers, education experts, teachers and researchers in these societies to address the question of inequalities in academic achievement based on socio-economic and geographic factors and to formulate socially responsive policies and practices for combating inequalities in English learning outcomes. These policies may, for instance, relate to decentralising the national curriculum and educational management, and to the provision of special incentives for rural English education, and of socio-economic support to disadvantaged learners.
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Chapter 2 THE SOCIAL CONTEXT: NATIONAL AND LOCAL 2.1 Introduction This chapter describes the social context of the study introduced in Chapter 1. The chapter is divided into three sections. The first introduces different perspectives on the social context in L2 research, and selects an appropriate framework for describing different ‗dimensions‘ and ‗layers‘ of the research context. The second considers socio-economic and educational issues in Bangladesh from a national perspective. The same issues are then examined from the perspective of the peripheral context of Nadiranga in the third section. The national (Bangladesh) and the local (Nadiranga) contexts are contrasted in terms of a broad range of issues in order to justify a subnational level investigation into English and English language achievement by students in relation to their social backgrounds.
2.2 Approaches to social context Social contexts and their roles are defined and evaluated in different ways, depending on the research perspective. Mainstream SLA, as introduced in Chapter 1, does not recognise the importance of the social context to the extent that SLA insights are argued to be contextindependent and generalisable across space and time (see Block, 2003). Therefore, social contexts in SLA are often described in uni-dimensional terms, with primary reference to the nature of L2 input available in the environment: for example, whether the context is that of second language (e.g., learning English in Australia) or foreign language (e.g., learning English in Japan or Korea), or naturalistic (i.e., acquiring an L2 without instruction). Block (2003) provides a compelling critique of these simplified categories, because their underlying assumptions are often unrealistic. For instance, the ‗second language‘ environment by itself cannot guarantee sufficient input to all L2 learners (see Norton, 2000). Similarly, the ‗foreign language‘ environment can be substantially different for different learners given their social class backgrounds, geographic locations and institutional affiliations. In addition to L2 environment (second or foreign), Oxford (2002) refers to ‗large culture‘ and ‗small culture‘ in order to characterise the social context. These cultural categories constitute some of the potential factors that contribute to variations in L2 learning outcomes. Large culture applies to the national level, which often describes a society in dichotomous terms (collectivist or individualist: Oxford, 2002), while small culture applies to the immediate classroom context. Oxford argues that the culture of the classroom (i.e., views of 20
knowledge and learning, teacher and learner roles, and teaching and learning principles) is informed by the large culture (see McKay, 2002). However, describing a society or a classroom in dichotomous terms is overly simplified and unhelpful, if not stereotypical, because societies as well as classrooms represent complex and often divergent views and perspectives. For instance, Canagarajah‘s (1999) classroom ethnography in Sri Lanka shows how the same English instruction appeals differently to two students in the class who were from different social class backgrounds, and had different views and perspectives on English and their future goals. Kachru‘s (1990) World Englishes perspective which divides the global context of English use into three concentric circles – the Inner Circle, the Outer Circle and the Expanding Circle – is helpful in understanding the diversity and plurality of English (McKay & Bokhorst-Heng, 2008). English is used as the L1 in the Inner Circle (e.g., UK, USA), L2 in the Outer Circle (e.g., India, Singapore) and FL in the Expanding Circle (e.g., Japan, Korea). However, these macro-level categorisations do not take account of variations within a particular Circle (Bruthiaux, 2003). For instance, Japan, Denmark or the Netherlands, theoretically, belong to the Expanding Circle. In reality, however, the use of English varies substantially in these three societies. In sum, the categories based on culture, L2 input, and the use of English discussed in this section provide only broad-brush descriptions of social contexts. However, these are established categories, and are widely used in the literature. Therefore, the present chapter retains many of these categories, but they are used to complement a more comprehensive framework (Figure 2.1), which guides the description of the social context of the present research.
Figure 2.1: An inventory of contextual factors in language teaching (reproduced from Stern, 1983, p. 274).
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To a large extent, the present chapter is informed by Stern‘s (1983) inventory of contextual factors in language teaching. This framework (see Figure 2.1) is his adaptation of Mackey‘s (1970) ‗scheme of contextual analysis to language teaching‘ and Spolsky et al.‘s (1974) diagram of the analysis of social variables in language teaching. There are several reasons for using this framework. First, it represents a sociological perspective (see Stern, 1983), which aligns with the focus of the present study (see Chapter 1). Second, it focuses on multiple dimensions of the social context, such as linguistic, economic, geographic, political, educational and sociocultural. Finally, the framework is realistic because the context is argued to be influenced by forces within local, regional, national and international arenas.
2.3 Bangladesh Bangladesh is a South Asian nation. With a population of over 158 million in an area of 144,000 sq. kms, it is one of the most densely-populated countries in the world. As part of ancient India, this territory was ruled successively by Hindu rulers, and then by Muslim conquerors from Persia and Central Asia, until it became a British colony in the late 1750s. In 1947 British rule came to an end with the emergence of India and Pakistan as two independent states based on religion (Hinduism and Islam respectively). Being Muslim-dominant, the present Bangladesh, then known as East Pakistan, was unified with Pakistan. The two wings of Pakistan, the West and the East, were separated not only by languages (see p. 29) and cultures, but also by 1600 kilometres of Indian territory. The future of the federation was anything but certain: East Pakistan seceded from West Pakistan to emerge as independent Bangladesh on 16 December 1971 (see Thompson, 2007 for more details). Bangladesh is what is called a ‗low-income‘ country whose annual per capita income is US$ 411 (BANBEIS, 2004). Over half of its population aged seven years and over are illiterate (the national literacy rate is 45.3%: BANBEIS, 2004). In terms of the Human Development Index, which measures the quality of life, Bangladesh stands 137th in a roll of 177 nations (UNDP, 2006). Nearly half of its total population live below the poverty line (World Bank, 2002a). Considering these indicators, a typical picture that is drawn about this country is that ‗extreme poverty, high birth rate and mortality rates, disease and natural disasters, and a generally poor quality of life characterize Bangladesh‘ (Bangladesh Country Review, 2006, p. 79). This representation echoes an earlier description by the World Bank: ‗Bangladesh is a country of paradoxes. It is a homogeneous nation with a rich culture, yet it remains one of the poorest nations in the world‘ (World Bank, 2002b, p. i). Bangladesh is indeed a nation of paradoxes, but the paradox may not lie in the assertion that it remains poor despite its rich culture and cultural homogeneity. After all, neither cultural richness nor homogeneity is essential for a nation‘s economic development. The paradox 22
actually lies in the fact that the country is both developed and underdeveloped, rural and urban; its people are both literate and illiterate. While some Bangladeshis live in abundance and luxury, many others live in scarcity and hunger. In other words, it is, like many other developing nations, a divided society, and the gap between the haves and have-nots lies, among other factors, in the traditional realms of education and English as well as geographic location (see Hasan, 2003).
2.3.1 Language situation in Bangladesh When Bangladesh is described as a homogeneous nation, it is usually with reference to its national language, Bangla, which is spoken by 98% of the population (BANBEIS, 2004). The religious composition of the population may also suggest this homogeneity. Muslims constitute 89.7% of the total population; Hindus, Buddhists and Christians are 9.2%, 0.7% and 0.3% respectively (BANBEIS, 2004). Because of the dominance of Bangla, Bangladesh is often called a monolingual nation (Banu, 2002; Choudhury, 2001a). However, according to the 1991 census, 1.2 million (1.13%) Bangladeshis are non-Bengali speakers (Mohsin, 2003, p. 83), who belong to several dozen ethnic groups. The number of languages spoken by these communities varies. Sikder (2007) lists 26 ethnic languages, while Wasif (2006) observes that 50 of these languages were endangered. In addition to ethnic minorities, there are 300,000 Urdu-speaking Pakistanis in Bangladesh (Wasif, 2006), who have not been repatriated to Pakistan since the war in 1971. Furthermore, Bangla is divided into a number of dialects (Maniruzzaman, 2006). Although these regional dialects are not mutually unintelligible, the question of dialect is critical because Standard Bangla is the language of literacy as well as the medium of instruction at different levels of education (see Section 2.3.1.4.d). Bangla, the national language, is a sensitive issue in Bangladesh (Baldauf et al., 2008). It is at the heart of Bangladeshi nationalism, and it is this nationalism that led the nation to its independence from Pakistani rule in 1971 (Hossain & Tollefson, 2007; Mohsin, 2003; Musa, 1996; Thompson, 2007). The 21st of February, which is the International Mother Language Day, is actually the National Martyrs‘ Day in Bangladesh. On this day in 1952, five Bangladeshis were killed by Pakistani police while they were protesting against the imposition of Urdu as the state language of Pakistan. As Thompson explains:
What had begun as a Language Movement in the late 1940s and early 1950s, propelled by the Pakistani leadership‘s unwillingness to recognise Bangla as a national language, therefore led on to a widespread Bengali nationalism, which finally achieved full independence for East Bengal/Pakistan, showing very clearly how instrumental language and identity issues can be in the initiation of struggles towards political self-determination. (2007, p. 47)
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Language policies in Bangladesh do not recognise minority languages, let alone take steps to protect them (Mohsin, 2003; Wasif, 2006). In this particular respect, Bangladeshi state policies are comparable to those in Japan, which also ignores the existence of minority languages in its promotion of Japanese (Hashimoto, 2007). For Bangladesh, it is ironical that the nation which sacrificed lives for its national language would deny the same rights to certain sections of its own population (Mohsin, 2003).
2.3.1.1 English in Bangladesh Approximately 3% of the population of Bangladesh speak English, and these users are located predominantly in Dhaka and, to a lesser extent, in other metropolitan areas (Banu & Sussex, 2001a; Hossain & Tollefson, 2007; Thompson, 2007). This is not a high figure. Nevertheless, the language is entrenched in Bangladesh, as in other South Asian countries, and is a means to social, cultural and economic progress and prosperity. From the point of view of World Englishes, Bangladeshi English or ‗Banglish‘ is one of the varieties that constitute the regional variety called ‗South Asian English‘ (Banu & Sussex, 2001a; Baumgardner, 1993; Kachru, 2005). The distinctiveness of this variety, Kachru (2005, p. 43) argues, is marked by its linguistic features as well as its contextual and pragmatic functions. First, English is an additional language in the region, which adds to the linguistic repertoire of South Asians. Second, the language is learnt in typical sociolinguistic, educational and pragmatic contexts of the region. In other words, the use of English is confined to selected domains and functions within the countries. Third, in the education system of the region, reading and writing skills in English have been more emphasised than listening and speaking. From the language policy point of view, the major national players in South Asia had similar language experiences. For instance, in all these countries [t]he removal of British rule was followed almost at once by debates to remove English progressively from its position of prestige, authority, and dominance in public life, administration, law, education, media, cultural, commercial, and everyday life. (Banu & Sussex, 2001a, p. 123)
However, none of the South Asian nations have been able to do away with the colonial language since their independence. As Schiffman observes: In polity after polity (India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Singapore) attempts to eradicate English and replace it with some indigenous language seemed to stir up resentments that planners saw only as the complaints of disgruntled elites annoyed at the loss of their privileges. (1999, p. 439)
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2.3.1.2 English in the colonial era English came to Bangladesh, as to many other contemporary postcolonial societies, in the wake of British colonial rule in India (1757-1947). The first encounters between the Indians and the British date from the 1630s, when English trading factories were set up at Balasore and then at Hughli in Bengal. Initially, English was a language of trade used between the English factors and the local go-betweens (Zaman, 2003, p. 486). As such, the learning of English was a matter of private effort and circumstances. There were no commercial or institutional opportunities for learning the language as yet. The scope of English learning was widened with the establishment of schools in Kolkata for European children. The first school was set up in 1731 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. This was followed by another in 1759. With the establishment of the Free School Society of Bengal in 1789, Kolkata became the centre of English-medium education, as schools mushroomed in and around this town (Zaman, 2003). The Hindu College was established in 1816 by local elites. It became a distinguished seat for the spread of Western knowledge, English literature and the English language. Although English was gaining ground in the colonised territory, the East India Company gave little encouragement to educational development in the late 18th and early 19th centuries (Evans, 2002, p. 262). However, the Company became more directly involved in Indian education when the Charter Act of 1813 proclaimed: And be it further enacted that it shall be lawful for the Governor-General-in-Council to direct that out of any surplus revenue that may remain a sum of not less than one lac [i.e., one hundred thousand] of rupees in each year shall be set apart and applied to the revival and improvement of literature and the encouragement of the learned Natives of India and for the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences among the inhabitants of the British Territories in India. (quoted in Spear, 1938, p. 79)
Despite some ambiguity, this Act was couched in Orientalist terms and had dual aims: reviving and improving Indian literatures and languages, and introducing Western knowledge and sciences to India. Both these aims need to be emphasised, since the much-discussed Orientalist-Anglicist debate is often naively situated on dichotomies between Oriental learning and Western learning, between Indian languages and English (Evans, 2002; Pennycook, 1994; Schiffman, 1999; Zaman, 2003). From the beginning of British occupation, the Orientalists, including T. H. Wilson and Warren Hastings, ‗wanted India to be governed in the prevailing Indian tradition, and stood for noninterference in the religio-social institutions of the country‘ (Ali, 1993, p. 5). The emphasis was on Indian institutions and learning, as exemplified by the establishment of a college for Arabic and 25
Persian studies at Kolkata and another for Sanskrit studies in Benares. This Orientalist policy was maintained until the first quarter of the 19th century. Challenges to Orientalist views came from Evangelists and Benthamite Radicals (known as Anglicists), who denounced Indian customs, traditions and religious practices as barbaric and superstitious. ‗With the coming of William Bentinck as Governor-General (1825-35)‘, Ali (1993) notes, ‗there was a complete reversal of policy, and the patronage of ‗Indian‘ learning practised by Hastings was replaced by Bentinck with ‗Western‘‘ (p. 6). The forum of the Orientalist-Anglicist debate, in India at least, was the General Committee of Public Instruction (GCPI), which was formed in 1823, and was responsible for spending the money previously mentioned for the education of the natives. The Orientalists on the Committee did not differ from the Anglicists on the question of introducing Western knowledge through English education; neither did they deny the superiority of Western science over Eastern. Where they differed was in the value attached to education: To the new school [Anglicist], English was the open sesame of Western civilization, the charm to admit India to the cloud-capp‘d towers and gorgeous palaces of the new sciences; to the older men [Orientalists] it was mainly a utilitarian convenience for the purpose of a career. (Spear, 1938, p. 81)
The Orientalists wanted to see English education exist side by side with Oriental learning; but the Anglicists, as Macaulay‘s oft-quoted Minute of 1835 shows, attached no value whatsoever to indigenous knowledge and learning, and wanted to spend all the money exclusively on English and Western education. Macaulay is given credit for putting an end to the Orientalist-Anglicist controversy. However, both Spear (1938) and Evans (2002) downplayed his role in introducing the Anglicist policy: Macaulay has been too much praised and too much blamed; his contribution was like the lightning flash which vividly illumines the storm and reveals the landscape, albeit in fantastic proportions and bewildering lights, but which neither directs its course nor ordains its conclusion. (Spear, 1938, p. 83)
A more instrumental role was that of William Bentinck, the Governor General (on whom Macaulay had some influence), and of the Company Directors at India House in Britain. Bentinck was more or less decided on the new policy of introducing English education before Macaulay‘s arrival on the scene. He was influenced by the weight of popular demand for English teaching as an aid to a career. More crucially, English-proficient local employees were required to fill the lower rungs of the colonial administration. These positions were originally filled by British officials, which was expensive but not strictly necessary. On the other hand, the Company Directors at India 26
House, who were imbued with utilitarian and evangelist ideas and sceptical about Oriental learning, wanted to promote English education in India for pragmatic as well as missionary reasons. Macaulay‘s Minute of 1835, which severely denigrated Oriental learning in favour of English education, and which aimed to create ‗a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect‘ (quoted in Evans, 2002, p. 271), won Bentinck‘s support in India and the Directors‘ approval in Britain (Kachru, 2005, p. 37). The Resolution of 7 March 1835 brought the controversy to a close in favour of the Anglicist cause: His Lordship-in-Council directs that all the funds […] be henceforth employed in imparting to [the] Native population knowledge of English literature and science through the medium of the English language […]. (cited in Kachru, 2005, p. 38)
Spear (1938) summarised four aspects of the government‘s education policy. First, the proper content of higher education was Western literature and science, and public funds would be made available only for this content. Second, since the vernaculars were too crude and unsuitable to teach Western content, English would be the medium of instruction. Third, English would replace Persian, which had been the official language of Muslim rule in India. Fourth, the principle of the percolation of knowledge from above to the masses would be followed, so funds were to be spent on English education at the higher level rather than at the elementary level. This education policy, Spear (1938) noted, conveyed some clear messages. Indian languages and learning were of no value, and so were replaced with English and Western education. Furthermore, the colonial administration would value only English, which was required for careers, and for progress and upward mobility. Naturally, ‗English came more and more to be a desideratum for an educated man‘ (Spear, 1938, p. 90). The new policy augmented the demand for English and English education in India. However, English remained confined to the local elite and the emerging middle class, who could afford English education. More crucially, it was limited to urban centres. This class- and geographicspecific penetration of English was in line with policy projections: The funds which would thus be placed at our disposal would enable us to give larger encouragement to the Hindoo [Hindu] college at Calcutta, and to establish in the principal cities throughout the Presidencies of Fort William and Agra schools in which the English language might be well and thoroughly taught. (Macaulay, 1835, n.p., my emphasis)
The policy of controlling the demand and supply of English – making people crave for it but not making it widely available – was in the interest of colonial rule (Pennycook, 1994; Rahman, 1998). The Company was neither interested in nor capable of spending a huge sum of money for the 27
education of the masses. On the other hand, it needed English-proficient Indians to run the administration. However, since the Company could employ only a limited number of Englishproficient locals, the acquisition of the language by locals had to be controlled. Controlling the spread of English also meant dividing the population: English was made accessible to the local elite but denied to the masses (see Pennycook, 2007). The policy of divisive education became more obvious in Wood‘s Despatch in 1854, which formed the basis of the English language policy until 1919, when the control of education was transferred to Indian ministers and provincial legislatures (Evans, 2002, p. 276). The Despatch also marked a significant shift in British policy. The filtration theory was abandoned, and the education of the masses was brought under government purview. The downward filtration theory had been adopted in Macaulay‘s 1835 Minute. It was anticipated that the class of people to be educated in English would disseminate their knowledge and learning to the masses. However, there was no institutional provision for this policy to work. As a result, English-proficient locals, who were mostly confined in Kolkata and other cities, looked forward to judicial and administrative jobs, rather than teaching. The new policy denounced downward filtration and shifted towards Orientalist lines: English would remain the principal medium of instruction at the tertiary and secondary levels, whilst Western knowledge at the elementary level was to be imparted through local languages. The introduction of English language education in 1835 and the subsequent changes in 1854 had far-reaching social consequences. The English-proficient class could not identify with the masses, as the former ‗was divided by a wall of literary pride and supposedly useful knowledge‘ (Spear, 1938, p. 98). Vernacular education was introduced in 1854, but this was no match for the demand for English generated by earlier policies. Moreover, elementary vernacular-medium education received less attention than secondary education. On the other hand, English-medium elementary education was still available. In fact, as Kachru (2005, p. 38) notes, ‗by 1882 over 60 percent of primary schools were imparting education through the English medium‘. At the turn of the century, the deleterious consequences of English education were conspicuous: […] the most serious effects of British language policies and practices were the excessive emphasis on English in the schools, the neglect of the vernacular languages as subjects and instructional media, and the unrealistically early introduction of English as a teaching medium. (Spear, 1938, p. 277)
The effects of British language policy and practice perpetuated the disadvantage of rural Bengal, which was inhabited mostly by poor, landless Muslims. Rahim (1992) explains that the medium of instruction in local indigenous schools was Bangla, and so rural people did not have access to English. On the other hand, ‗Muslim masses in rural areas were overwhelmingly poor and 28
lacked the means to send their children to subdivisional or district towns where secondary schools and colleges were located‘ (Rahim, 1992, p. 319). As the description of Nadiranga will show in the second part of this chapter, rural students in Bangladesh are still caught up in similar situations. At the time of Partition in 1947, primary and secondary education was in the vernacular, while the medium of instruction at the University of Dhaka, the sole higher education institution in what is now Bangladesh, was English. English-medium missionary schools were still functioning. One could also sit the school-leaving examination in Bangla, Urdu or English (Zaman, 2003). It is understandable which social groups chose English and which ones chose Urdu or Bangla, and what were the underlying reasons behind this pattern of choices. As independent nations, both India and Pakistan retained English, and the ‗veritably unbridgeable gulf between the new English-using elites and the impoverished masses‘ (Raina, 1994, p. 279) created by colonial policies.
2.3.1.3 English in Bangladesh in the Pakistani era Bangla was the dominant language in East Pakistan. West Pakistan, on the other hand, had a number of provinces where languages such as Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Siraiki, Urdu and Balochi were spoken (Banu, 2002; Haque, 1993; Rahman, 1998; Thompson, 2007). None of these languages were spoken in East Pakistan. Furthermore, Bangla had no speakers in West Pakistan. Thus, although efforts were made to restore national languages to their rightful places in education and other realms of national life, English retained its second language status and served as the link language between the two wings of Pakistan (Kachru, 2005; Moss, 1963; Zaman, 2003). The West Pakistani rulers‘ persistent attempts to establish Urdu, a minority language (as of 1981, only 7.6% of the total population in Pakistan spoke Urdu: Rahman, 1998) as the state language of Pakistan, and the consequent Bangla language movement in 1952, overshadowed the question of English in the tumultuous years of the Pakistani era. In fact, the entire period of Pakistani rule (1947-1971) saw political unrest in East Pakistan over linguistic (i.e., national language issue), political (i.e., power sharing between the two wings of Pakistan) and economic (i.e., economic deprivation of East Pakistan) issues (see Thompson, 2007). However, across Pakistan itself the existence of Englishmedium schools in urban seats (often headed and staffed by British persons: Moss, 1963) and vernacular-medium schools in non-urban settings reinforced the divide between the elite and the masses. In East Pakistan, Bangla was the medium of education at primary and secondary levels. From the 11th grade onward, it was replaced with English. English was also introduced as a subject from the 3rd grade. Whilst English was just a second language for most students in secondary schools, many of the students who went to English-medium schools spoke English at home in addition to their mother tongue (Moss, 1963, p. 65). Since English teaching in vernacular-medium 29
schools, particularly in rural areas, was far from satisfactory (Rahman, 2007), the system reproduced the earlier advantage of the upper and upper-middle classes in developing the proficiency required in English.
2.3.1.4 English in post-independence Bangladesh The separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971 saw a significant shift in the status and role of English in Bangladesh. English was no longer required for internal communication in a predominantly Bangla-speaking country. Kachru (1990) placed Bangladesh in his so-called Outer Circle where English is a second language. However, whether English is a second or a foreign language in post-independence Bangladesh, particularly because it is no longer needed for internal communication, is a matter of debate. Recently, Kachru (2005) has revised the earlier status of English given to Bangladesh: ‗Bangladesh has not adopted a consistent policy towards the role of English; it falls between an ESL and EFL country‘ (p. 67). The British Council has similar views: ‗[A]lthough Bangladesh can no longer be considered as an ESL (English as second language) situation, neither does it qualify as purely EFL (English as a foreign language) one‘ (British Council, 1986, p. 2). Bangladeshi scholars are divided in their understanding of the role and status of English. Some argue that Bangladesh is now an EFL country and should belong to Kachru‘s Expanding Circle (e.g., Khan, 2002; Rahman, 2007), while others see English as a second language (see Khan, 2004; Zaman, 2003, 2004). By considering the different views, Yasmin concludes that English in Bangladesh shares ESL as well as EFL status (2005, p. 48). Assigning this multiple status to English is more plausible, because although English in Bangladesh is not as visible as in India, an ESL country, English is more rooted and visible in Bangladesh than in Japan or Korea, two typical EFL countries. The ESL-EFL debate in the country problematises the categories of L2 input and concentric circles discussed in Section 2.2. Language policies in the early 1970s reduced the role of English to a substantial degree (Banu & Sussex, 2001a; Hamid, 2006b; Rahman, 1991). Bangla was needed for the formation of national identity (Thompson, 2007). The new nation also needed to pay homage to Bangla, which placed a high value on the sacrifice of the Language Movement martyrs of 1952. Not surprisingly, it was made the sole national language and was awarded constitutional recognition in 1972 (Alam, 2002; Banu & Sussex, 2001a). Furthermore, Bangla was to become ‗the medium of instruction at all levels of education‘ (Ministry of Education, 1974, p. 15). Finally, a 1975 government order introduced Bangla as the language of internal communication in government, autonomous and semi-government offices (Alam, 2002, p. 525), which was later reinforced by the ‗Bengali Introduction Law‘ in 1987 (Banu & Sussex, 2001a; Rahman, 1999). The Act made it clear that
30
‗Bengali was to be used in all spheres and at all levels for government purposes‘ (Banu & Sussex, 2001a, p. 126). The institution of Bangla in government and education meant the relegation of English (Banu & Sussex, 2001a). The promotion of the national language did not of necessity have to be at the expense of English, but, as Alam (2002, p. 522) observes, English has been conceptualised as being in opposition to Bangla. In fact, the Bangla-English dichotomy is the creation of language policies which cannot be separated from language politics in the country (see Baldauf et al., 2008). Hamid (2000, 2006a) provides an example of Bangla-English politics. In 1998 the University of Dhaka introduced an English foundation course for the first year undergraduates in the Faculty of Arts in order to improve their English proficiency. At the same time, university authorities introduced a similar course in Bangla, the L1 of these students. The introduction of the Bangla course was a political requirement for balancing the emphasis given to English. The consequence of the politics of promoting Bangla at the expense of English is noted by Rahman: ‗English hitherto dominating the educated, commercial and social scene was relegated, due to a shift in emphasis and in national outlook, to a secondary position‘ (1991, p. 47). ‗Nevertheless‘, she continues, ‗English survived in two forms – in a stilted, sterile but compulsory presence in the school curriculum and through the surreptitious patronage of an elitist minority‘ (p. 47). English may not have been on such a minor key in education or in other domains. In fact, as the datasets in Banu and Sussex (2001a) show, despite the official introduction of Bangla, English had a place of prominence alongside Bangla in government administration, education and in law. Khan (2002) observes that ‗currently English in Bangladesh is used for interpersonal, professional, academic, commercial as well as recreational purposes like all other developing countries‘ (p. 328). a) English in government administration As noted in Section 2.3.1.4, Bangla was introduced as an official language to be used in different departments and offices of the government throughout the country. Nevertheless, English persists in this important domain. As the analysis in Banu and Sussex (2001a) shows, ‗[h]istorical pressure from the colonial past and demands of a future, where English is recognised as a global language, guarantee the continuation of English within the government in varying ways‘ (p. 129). Moreover, there has been renewed awareness of the importance of English since the 1990s owing to globalisation, satellite television, the growth of the IT industry and the Bangladeshi garment industry (see Imam, 2005; Zaman, 2003). There are also other reasons for the growth of English in the government. First, being aid-dependent, the Government of Bangladesh has to work with officials of different donor organisations and multinational bodies (Banu & Sussex, 2001a). Second, as one of the consequences of globalisation, the government‘s interactions with the outside world 31
for export, import, foreign investment and a multitude of other purposes have dramatically increased. Both have advanced the necessity of English in the government. Third, since 2002 Bangladesh has gradually introduced eGovernment ‗to improve the efficiency, responsiveness, transparency, and accountability of government‘ (Sobhan et. al, 2004, n. p.). eGovernment aims to provide services to people through the Internet, which will significantly reduce the flow of people to government offices for these services. This has led to a greater necessity for English as the websites and their contents are written mostly in English so that they are accessible to overseas as well as local clients. The necessity of English in government, as in many other sectors, can hardly be overemphasised. For instance, Shahidullah (2002b) quotes a Ministry of Establishment order which reads: It is noted that due to weaknesses in English many candidates selected for foreign training/higher studies are not acceptable to funding countries or agencies. Such a situation is embarrassing both for the selected candidates and for the government. In order to avoid such situations practice of English side by side with Bengali should be encouraged at all levels of the government. (Shahidullah, 2002b, n. p.)
Shahidullah also observes that ‗more than average proficiency in English is still a necessity in the administrative services in Bangladesh‘ (2002b, n.p.). English is a requirement for all government recruitment in Bangladesh – be it for an office assistant or a class one civil servant. ‗There is a general perception that almost all jobs regard English as an asset and give preference to candidates with good command of spoken and written English‘ (Khan, 2002, p. 327). b) English in the private sector In contrast to the limited but growing use of English in the government sector, the booming private sectors as well as the large network of donor-funded Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) show extensive use of English. In fact, some private enterprises, private universities for instance, run exclusively in English (see also Section 2.3.1.4.d). While the government has to consider the political and social consequences of promoting English, the private sectors do not have these concerns (Baldauf, et al., 2008; Hamid, 2006a). Multinational corporations, hotel chains, financial companies, computer technology giants, telecommunication companies, donor agencies, private banks, international schools, colleges and universities function mainly in English, where Bangla has only a peripheral role. ‗For instance‘, Khan (2002) writes, ‗correspondence for both regional/international trades is conducted mainly through English. Business discussions, meetings and correspondence are also conducted via English. Joint venture projects between local and foreign companies also necessitate the use of English, more and more now recognised as a global language‘ 32
(p. 327). The importance of English in this broader domain is emphasised by Shahidullah: ‗All employers, specially the lucrative private and multinational sectors, now value communication skills in English, and prefer graduates who can communicate well in English‘ (2002a, n. p.). c) English in the media, publishing and entertainment The extent of the use of English varies between print and electronic media. According to 1997-98 estimates, of a total of 286 daily newspapers and 1,522 periodicals, about 10% were in English (Rahman & Ahmed, 2003). Rahman and Ahmed also report that around the same time the estimated average circulation of daily newspapers and periodicals in both languages was 2,237,960 and 987,810 respectively. Although a good number of dailies and periodicals are published in Bangladesh, the readership is small. Only about 15% of the population read a newspaper/periodical once a week (Rahman & Ahmed, 2003). It is not known how many English newspapers and magazines are currently published in Bangladesh. In 1998 there were 11 daily newspapers in English (Banu & Sussex, 2001a, p. 136). Readers of English newspapers, more than those of Bangla, are concentrated in urban areas. In addition to local English newspapers and magazines, international magazines including Time, Newsweek, The Economist, National Geographic, Reader’s Digest and others are available for urban readers (Khan, 2002, p. 326). The presence of English in the local electronic media is minimal. Banu and Sussex (2001a) show that in the late 1990s BTV (Bangladesh Television), the sole state-sponsored national TV channel, telecast slightly over 10% of its total programs in English, which is much higher than the radio broadcasts. Privately owned local television channels started telecasting in the mid 1990s, and there now are over a dozen in operation (Khan, 2007). The presence of English on these TV channels is equally minimal, as each telecasts only one or two English bulletins per day. However, the minimal presence of English in the local electronic media is compensated by international channels made available by cable television. Channels including BBC, CNN, HBO, Star Movies, Star Plus, MTV, ESPN, National Geographic, Animal Planet and Cartoon Network and dozens of others are available to Bangladeshi viewers (Khan, 2002). Most of these channels telecast English, some Hindi and some English-Hindi mixed programs. ‗Despite the nationalistic feeling and love for Bangla, younger Bangladeshis have a great love for English music, movies and audio and video entertainment‘ (Khan, 2002, p. 326). However, both local private and satellite channels are available only in urban areas; rural areas have access to the state-owned BTV, which is free of charge. Hollywood movies and international music are also introduced to the population by CD/DVD stores located at convenient places in urban areas. However, Hindi music and Bollywood 33
movies (Indian Hindi movies) are more popular than those in English. For example, it is more usual to hear Hindi music than Bangla or English music during Hindu and Muslim wedding ceremonies all over Bangladesh. Bangla is dominant in the small but growing publishing industry. Creative work in English is ‗rather limited‘ (Zaman, 2003); non-fiction and research work is published by a few government, university-based and private publishers. However, journals in English are common, as all universities and art and cultural organisations such as Bangladesh Shilpokola Academy, Bangla Academy and Asiatic Society of Bangladesh publish them on a regular basis: While the Bangla Academy has been mainly engaged in publishing books in Bangla and translating from English to Bangla, it publishes the Bangla Academy Journal in English, and over the years, has published a considerable amount of Bangla literature translated into English. (Zaman, 2003, p. 491)
Different NGOs and research organisations also publish in English, which contributes to English publication in the country. Khan notes that ‗[t]he availability of English language books in bookstores and the publication of various books in English is a testimony of growing interest and awareness of English‘ (2002, p. 326). d) English in education English dominates education more than any other domains discussed in this section. The first Education Commission Report of 1974 made Bangla the medium of instruction for all levels of education (Ministry of Education, 1974). However, Bangla could not replace English entirely at the tertiary institutions. This was because of the unavailability of textbooks in Bangla, as well as the impracticality of translating all required books from other languages. What happens now in practice at universities is described by Rahman: The medium of instruction at the university level now is in some faculties Bengali, in some faculties English (especially in science subjects) and in some faculties a mixture of the two. Students can write their exam papers either in English or Bengali. (1999, p. 16)
Textbooks and reading materials are predominantly in English. As Choudhury notes, ‗Bengali has failed to be an adequate medium for higher education, particularly because almost 95 percent of the necessary text and reference books happen to be in English‘ (2001a, p. 80). There are 74 universities in Bangladesh, 21 of which are state-funded and 53 are privately-owned (BANBEIS, 2006). The state universities follow mixed-medium of education, as previously noted. On the other hand, private universities, which have operated since the introduction of the Private University Act, 1992, are exclusively English-medium (Banu & Sussex, 2001a). In addition to teaching all subjects 34
through the medium of English, private universities offer between one and three compulsory English courses at the undergraduate level (Hamid, 2006a; Rahman, 2005). English is also taught as skills courses to students in medical, engineering, business, sciences, social sciences and arts courses in state universities and tertiary colleges (Khan, 2002). Secondary education and English The Bangladeshi education system has a number of stages and pathways. As can be seen from Figure 2.2, primary education, which is compulsory, spans the first to the fifth grade. It is followed by secondary education, which is divided into three stages: junior secondary (6th to 8th grade), secondary (9th and 10th grades) and higher secondary (11th and 12th grades). Most secondary schools in the country offer education up to the 10th grade, at the end of which students have to sit the first school-leaving examination called the SSC. On completing the SSC, students have to enrol in colleges for higher secondary studies and can take the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examination at the end of the 12th grade. These national examinations, SSC and HSC, are conducted by six education boards (BISE) located in metropolitan areas across the country. However, the national curriculum, syllabus and textbooks for secondary as well as primary education are designed and distributed by the National Textbook Board of Bangladesh (NCTB) located in Dhaka. While the BISEs and NCTB are responsible for examinations and curriculum, education administration is the responsibility of the Directorate of Secondary and Higher Education (DSHE), which reports to the Ministry of Education. Teacher education and training are provided by different institutions, including the NAEM (National Academy for Education Management) and government and nongovernment teacher training colleges located in metropolitan areas and district towns. It follows that national education in Bangladesh is spread across a complex network of authorities. Huq (2002) notes that the functions and responsibilities of these different bodies overlap, since there is a lack of coordination between them. Paradoxically, although education administration and management are spread across many different bodies, they are centralised, like many other public services, and controlled by the government. This is because power and authority are exercised by the Ministry of Education and, to a lesser extent, the DSHE, both of which are located in Dhaka. For instance, approval for fieldwork of the present study had to be obtained from the DSHE, although there is a regional education office in northern Bangladesh and a district education office in Kurigram (see p. 40). With a student population of over eight million, secondary education represents a large-scale involvement of the state. As of 2004, 206,557 teachers were employed in secondary schools. However, although female students outnumber males, female teachers constitute just over 19% of the total secondary teacher population. 35
Figure 2.2: National education structure of Bangladesh (BANBEIS, 2006, p. 16). Secondary education in Bangladesh is important particularly because only 7.6% of its labour force has secondary and higher secondary qualifications (World Bank, 2000). Moreover, dropout rates in Bangladesh are very high (see Table 2.1), and many students fail to transit successfully to the higher secondary from the secondary level. Nevertheless, many students wish to complete at least the secondary cycle because of its national recognition as well as employment requirements. This is particularly true for females because the SSC qualifications allow them to apply for teaching positions in primary schools. National recruitment policies give preference to females in primary teaching by reserving 60% of the total positions for females. More significantly, in contrast to females‘ SSC qualifications, male candidates must have a Bachelor‘s degree to apply for primary teaching. This positive discrimination aims at promoting women‘s education and employment in the country.
36
Table 2.1: Secondary education statistics. Figures in parentheses indicate number/proportion for females. The dropout rates are for the 10th grade population only (BANBEIS, 2004).
Internal efficiency rate % Type
Schools
Govt. secondary Non-govt. secondary (jr.) Non-govt. secondary
317
Total
Students
Teachers
Enrol. rate
Attend. rate
Completion rate
Dropout rate
Survival rate
Teacherstudent ratio
222,740 (104,124) 942869 (568,927)
7323 (2498) 28,347 (5531)
1:30
13087
69,60753 (364,9517)
170,887 (31551)
1:42
17,386
812,6362 (432,2568)
20,6557 (39580)
3982
1:33
45.19% (48.48)
70.86% (71.28)
16. 57% (13.74%)
55.19% (58.65%)
49.38% (48.30%)
1:39
There are three streams of secondary education in Bangladesh: the national secondary (secular), the religious stream (Madrasa education), and English-medium education (EME). The secular secondary stream, which is the focus of the present research, caters for 83% of the total secondary enrolment in Bangladesh (CAMPE, 2006). The religion-based institutions have 16%, while the EME constitutes just 1% of the total secondary enrolment in the country. As a result of government intervention, primary enrolment has reached almost 100% in recent years. This has an effect on secondary enrolment rates. The net enrolment reached 45% in 2005, up from only 33% in 1998 (CAMPE, 2006). Figure 2.3 presents a comparative picture of gross enrolment ratios4 (males and females combined) in lower and upper secondary education in South Asia, Iran and China. For example, gross enrolment ratios for Bangladesh were 64% at lower secondary and 34% at upper secondary level. As can be seen, these ratios were higher than those in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nepal. However, Bangladesh is yet to catch up with India, Iran, China, the Maldives and Sri Lanka. Parallel to secular secondary is the Madrasa stream (see Figure 2.2, last column on the right). In addition to teaching the Koran and other Islamic subjects, this system teaches Bangla, English, sciences, humanities and other secular courses (see Asadullah & Chaudhury, 2008; Hossain & Tollefson, 2007 for more details about this system).
4
The gross enrolment ratio (GER) is a rough estimate of student enrolments in different levels of education. It is calculated by dividing the number of actual students enrolled in a particular level of education, regardless of age, as a percentage of the population of official school age for that level of education (CAMPE, 2006).
37
Figure 2.3: Total gross enrolment ratios (males and females) for lower and upper secondary school, South Asia, Iran and China, 2002/03 (CAMPE, 2006, p.17). The third stream of secondary education is EME, which is provided by English-medium schools. EME is not part of the national system (not shown in Figure 2.2), but the government allows it to operate (Ministry of Education, 2000, p. 15). These schools bear the tradition of British colonial education and were meant, as in the colonial era, for the elite (Rahman, 2007; Zaman, 2004). At the time of Independence, there were only a few EME schools, operating almost exclusively in Dhaka. However, their number started increasing in the late 70s and early 80s, arguably in reaction to the government‘s drastic measures taken to upgrade the status of Bangla at the expense of English. The exact number of these schools currently in operation is not known because of the minimal control the government has over these institutions (Chakraborti, 2002, p. 238). Banu (2005) mentioned that the total number of these institutions was 2000 across the country. EME follows the British curriculum for ‗O‘ and ‗A‘ level examinations, which are conducted by the local British Council office in Dhaka. The system is ‗totally different and isolated from the nationally accepted curriculum‘ (Chakraborti, 2002, p. 238, my translation). In this system of education Bangla is taught as if it were a second language (Hamid, 2006b). EME, which is increasingly becoming available in urban areas across the country, marks social divisions in terms of socio-economic status, language use and life-style. Given these divisions, as Choudhury (2001b, p. 16) argues, ‗the state must address itself to the question whether it wants to have a more egalitarian society or to widen the social gulf further, with the knowledge of English acting as a divisive factor‘. At the national level, the new emphasis given to English since the 1990s (see Hamid & Baldauf, 2008) may suggest that 1) the state is unwilling or unable to
38
regulate the divisive EME, but 2) it is willing to improve English in the national system so that students in this system can be on a par with EME graduates. Recently, there have been some policy changes in relation to English (Hamid & Baldauf, 2008). First, English has been introduced as a compulsory subject from the first grade. Second, English language courses were introduced at the undergraduate level in colleges and universities (Hamid, 2000). Finally, the traditional Grammar-Translation method and structural syllabus have been replaced with Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) at the 1-12 level (NCTB, 2001; Hamid, 2005). An impressive English Language Teaching Improvement Project (ELTIP), jointly funded by the Government of Bangladesh and the Department for International Development (DfID) of the British Government, was undertaken for implementing CLT, writing textbooks and curriculum, and providing English teacher training throughout the country (NCTB, 2003). The main objective of the project was to introduce CLT for developing ‗communicative competence in English language among secondary education leavers‘, which will ultimately strengthen ‗human resource efforts‘ of the government (NCTB, 2003, p. 3). At present students at the secondary level have to study nine subjects divided into 11 papers of 100 marks each. English, like Bangla, has two papers, and it constitutes approximately 19% of the total curricular load. The English textbook (English for Today: NCTB, 2001) was written by a team of local English teachers who were trained in the UK under the auspices of ELTIP. The textbook‘s methodology is defined in the Preface written by the Chairman of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board: The book follows [the] communicative approach to teaching and learning English in Bangladesh situations. It provides learners with a variety of materials such as reading texts, dialogues, pictures, diagrams, tasks and activities. These materials have been designed and developed for practice in four basic language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing. (NCTB, 2001, n. p.)
However, observation of teaching practice shows the continuation of the pre-CLT pedagogy (Chowdhury & Farooqi, in press; Hamid & Baldauf, 2008). In terms of assessment, the course is at odds with the principles of CLT. Only the skills of reading, writing, vocabulary and grammar are assessed, and there is no allowance for testing the essential skills of speaking and listening (see Hamid & Baldauf, 2008). Greater concerns about the introduction of CLT relate to teacher qualifications, training and skills (Chowdhury & Farooqi, in press; Hamid, 2005). Although a major consideration of ELTIP was teacher training, a two-page evaluation report of the second phase of ELTIP shows that as of October, 2004 only 11,737 teachers had been trained (DSHE, 2004). It is not known how many teachers were yet to be trained. Education Watch 2005 (CAMPE, 2006) shows that more than half 39
of the secondary teachers were without professional pedagogic training. Along with training provision comes the question of its effectiveness and, more importantly, the extent to which teacher trainees apply their knowledge and learning to their teaching context. Whilst these questions apply to all regions, they are more pertinent to rural schools which have received less attention from central education authorities. The consequences are described in an editorial of a national English newspaper: Indeed, when one observes the state of English in Bangladesh, one cannot but be appalled at what has been going on outside the capital. It is especially in the district towns and thanas [subdistricts] [that] the predicament faced by teachers and students alike in the matter of a good teaching of the English language has assumed stark form in recent years. (New Age, 22 March 2005)
2.3.1.5 Urban-rural disparity The social stratification based on English, inherited from the British and Pakistani eras, has continued in Bangladesh. English has been made a compulsory subject in the curriculum for schools all over the country. This policy is based on the principle of social equality because the opportunity of learning English is kept open to all irrespective of social class, religion or geographic location (see Vaish, 2008). However, not all students across the country have the same sort of support, resources and opportunities for learning English or for reaping its benefits. As in the previous eras, rural students, most of whom are poor, are disadvantaged in this regard. Yet they have to take the same national school-leaving examination as students from all over the country. The result is, as can be expected, many of them turn out as failed students (Shahed, 2002). Apart from educational resources, the question of linguistic vitality in social milieux is important in language learning. The presence of English described in the different domains in this chapter is a story of metropolitan centres, particularly the capital city; it does not reflect the sociolinguistic reality of English in rural Bangladesh (see Thompson, 2007, p. 49). It is in this context of urban-rural gaps in socio-economic conditions, situations of teaching and learning of English, vitality of English in social surroundings, community resources and support and, finally, family resources for education, that the present study is situated and is to be understood.
2.4 Nadiranga Bangladesh is a unitary state, which means that a central government rules the whole country from the capital in Dhaka. It is divided into six administrative divisions, constituted by a number of districts (64 in total), each of which is divided into a number of upazilas or subdistricts. There are 496 subdistricts in Bangladesh. Nadiranga, a pseudonym, is one of them, and it belongs to the district of Kurigram in the Rajshahi division (see Table 2.2). 40
Nadiranga is located in the northern region. It is connected to Dhaka by regular coach services and the journey takes approximately nine hours (the distance is 430 kms: Monajatuddin, 1995). It is a medium-sized subdistrict, with an area of 224.97 sq. kms and a population of 114,350 (56,506 males and 57,844 females: BBS, 2005). The rural Nadiranga town, which is spread over an area of 10 sq. kms, is at the centre of Nadiranga. Local government offices, two secondary schools, three colleges, a public hospital, a cinema complex, market places and relatively well-off residences are located within this area. Monajatuddin, a noted rural journalist and ethnographer, wrote in his book on Nadiranga that the moderate effects of infrastructure developments in the recent past were seen only in this small area where there were electricity, newspapers and TVs. The rest of Nadiranga, he reported, had not changed in 12 years and ‗remained in darkness as before‘ (1995, p. 71, my translation). Socio-economically, Nadiranga stands at the lowest position of all the subdistricts in Bangladesh. The report of the People‘s Forum on MDG (Millennium Development Goals) Bangladesh (see Rahman, Asaduzzaman & Rahman, 2005 for details) shows that Nadiranga has a poverty rate of 95% (49% very poor, 46% poor), which is over 20% higher than the second poorest subdistrict reported (see Table 2.2). Other estimates, notably those that follow the small area estimation (SAE) approach for mapping poverty (see Chapter 1, pp. 8-9), show that Nadiranga belongs to the top 25% of the subdistricts with the highest incidence of poverty. Table 2.2: Villagers‘ estimates of rural poverty in Bangladesh (Rahman et al., 2005, p. 10). Rural poverty rate (%) Division
District
Subdistrict
Rajshahi
Kurigram Bogra Jamalpur Narsingdi Daulatpur Satkhira Barisal Patuakhali Rangamati Chittagong Sunamganj Sylhet
Nadiranga Sonatola Jamalpur Sadar Narsingdi Sadar Daulatpur Shyamnagar Barisal Sadar Bauphal Kaukhali Patia Sunamganj Sadar Golapganj
Dhaka Khulna Barisal Chittagong Sylhet National
Very Poor 49 45 46.2 32.5 35.5 50.6 33.3 20.9 45.9 15.9 48.3 10.6 36.3
Poor 46 21 18.7 31.3 26.7 24.1 27.6 40.7 28.4 43.6 18.3 43.9 31.2
Total 95 66 65 63.7 62.2 74.7 60.9 61.6 74.3 59.6 66.7 54.5
Division (%) 80.5 64.4 68.5 61.3 66.9 60.6 67.5
Poverty in Nadiranga can be understood from a number of factors. First, Nadiranga does not have even a small-scale industry (Hakim, 2003) where people could be employed. It has only four sawmills and eight husking mills which employ only a handful of people. The literacy rate in Nadiranga for the population aged seven and above is 33.77% (the national average is 45.37%). The main occupations in Nadiranga include farming 42.15%, agricultural labour 28.93%, wage labour 41
1.91%, commerce 8.64%, salaried service 5.06%, fishing 2.01% and others 11.30% (Hakim, 2003). Agriculture can provide only seasonal employment, and so those that depend on agriculture, either as farmers or agricultural labourers, remain unemployed for a significant part of the year. Agriculture is the main source of employment and income in Nadiranga, as in other parts of rural Bangladesh. However, since this is a flood-prone area, its agricultural production depends on the mercy of nature. The largest contributor to poverty in Nadiranga is the havoc caused by the river Brahmaputra. The erosion caused by this river has made thousands of families homeless, landless and helpless over the decades (Monajatuddin, 1995; Islam & Parvez, 1997). Both Monajatuddin (1995) and Islam and Parvez (1997) observe that the government has never paid due attention to people‘s needs in Nadiranga. For instance, the problem of river erosion, which has destroyed people‘s land, agriculture and livelihoods, is yet to be addressed. Similarly, local infrastructure is still poor and remains neglected, although roads and telecommunications have improved somewhat in recent times. Electricity supply is available only in 3.27% households (Islam & Parvez, 1997, p. 11). The number of land phones in Nadiranga may not exceed 100. However, mobile phones are more popular and widespread. Monajatuddin estimated that in the mid 1990s there were about 200 televisions in Nadiranga and about 2% of the total population had access to TV. A couple of computer shops in Nadiranga town provide word-processing services. Email and Internet services are almost non-existent. A privately owned 4-page weekly newspaper has been published in Nadiranga for several years. However, only one issue was published in the whole of 2006. An informal interview with its editor (interviewed on 15 December 2006 in his office) revealed that financial constraints and lack of community support were responsible for the irregularity in its publication. National dailies, which are published in cities, are available in Nadiranga around evening every day.
2.4.1 Language situation in Nadiranga Kamrupi (Rajbansi-Bahe), a northern dialect of Bangla, is widely spoken in Nadiranga (Maniruzzaman, 2006). This is the only variety of Bangla which is available to most residents because of the low literacy rate in the region. Standard Colloquial Bengali (SCB), which is used throughout the country (Morshed, 1994), is limited to the educated households around the small town, government and non-government offices, private businesses and educational institutions. However, language use does not follow any strict rules in these domains. It is not uncommon to hear a mixture of SCB and the local dialect in different schools. This researcher‘s informal conversations with teachers in different schools supported this observation. One does not hear English spoken in Nadiranga, neither is it visible there. Of all the shop signs and billboards in Nadiranga, only a small one was found to be written in English with one 42
spelling mistake, on a small CD and mobile phone store near the government food storage premises. Even bilingual signs were very few, and were used for different donor-funded projects being implemented by a number of NGOs including Grameen Bank, BRAC (Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee), RDRS (Rangpur, Dinajpur Rural Services), Cchinnamukul, CARITAS, Gram Unnayan Kendra (GUK), Nijera Kari, Apan Udyag and KDAB (Korean Development Association in Bangladesh). This absence of English in shop and business signs can be contrasted with its dominance in shop names and signs in Dhaka as described in Banu and Sussex (2001b). However, English is found in classrooms in schools, colleges and coaching centres where private English lessons are offered. English is also found in textbooks of students, letters and documents in NGOs, but usually not in government offices. This researcher interviewed the Chief Executive of Gram Unnayan Kendra and the Program Coordinator of Apon Udyag to gain an understanding of the use of English in their offices and programs. These two NGO officials were interviewed on 19 October and 9 November 2006 respectively at their places of work. Both agreed that English proficiency was desirable from their employees. However, whilst the former said that there was some use of English in their in-house meetings and personnel training, the latter downplayed its role in their internal activities. Both of them emphasised the need for English, particularly for writing project proposals and reports for overseas donors and agencies.
2.4.2 Education in Nadiranga In Nadiranga there are three colleges, 12 secondary schools, two junior secondary schools, 23 Madrasas and 116 primary schools, both government and non-government (Hakim, 2003). All the secondary schools are non-government. However, as with all other non-government schools in Bangladesh, the government provides ‗teachers‘ salary, construction grant, teacher training, some material support etc.‘ (Haq, 2004, p. 52). The three colleges conduct 11th and 12th grade classes and prepare students for the HSC examination. Students can also pursue a Bachelor‘s degree in these colleges after the HSC, but those who have financial ability and earn good grades in the SSC and HSC examinations can go to Dhaka or other metropolitan areas for study at universities or medical or engineering colleges. Admission to these tertiary institutions is very competitive and so many Nadiranga students, like their counterparts from other peripheral areas, may find it challenging. Those who do not have the means may not go outside Nadiranga for education at all. Tertiary education in state universities and colleges is almost free, but providing for travel, food, board and books is impossible for the parents of most high school-leavers in Nadiranga. Two of the secondary schools included in this study are located in the small Nadiranga town. The others are scattered in more remote areas. At the time of fieldwork for this research all secondary schools in Nadiranga were found to be ill-equipped to varying degrees. None of them had 43
a library. A few of them had one or two cabinets of books which were hardly ever opened or lent out. There are no public libraries in Nadiranga. The two schools in the urban area could accommodate all students in classrooms, but accommodation was a problem for most other schools in the fringe areas. Monajatuddin noted: The schools closer to [Nadiranga] town are brick-built, had furniture, though inadequate. Teachers come to schools more or less regularly. The attendance rate of students is between 50% and 75%. However, the farther one moves out towards the peripheral areas, the worse the condition of the schools appears to be. Student attendance rates vary between 25% and 30%. (1995, p. 45, my translation)
Haq‘s (2004) baseline survey of secondary schools in rural Bangladesh reported similar findings about physical facilities: Physical conditions of most of the schools were miserable: poor classroom environment, poor furniture (inappropriate, broken and inadequate), insufficient (or non-existent) library and laboratory facility and finally poor and uncared surroundings. (p. 52)
According to estimates of the 1990s, 4,979 students were enrolled in the different secondary schools in Nadiranga. Just below 48% of them were females. Around the same time, there were 144 teachers working in these schools (the teacher-student ratio was approximately 1:34). According to a report of the National Academy for Educational Management (NAEM, 2005), the average class size of rural secondary schools in Bangladesh is 76 students. However, two of the eight schools participating in the present study (see Chapter 4) had over 100 students in each of their 10th grade classes. Both these schools were located in the Nadiranga town. The other schools were found to have 40 or fewer students in the 10th grade, although official enrolments recorded higher figures. The exact number of English teachers teaching in the schools was not available, but according to government policy each of the schools should have between one and three teachers of English. Every year between 700 and 800 students from Nadiranga take the SSC examination. The data for this study, among other sources, were collected from samples of SSC candidates who took the SSC examination in 2007. Based on their family educational capital situations, many of the 10th grade students participating in the study can be called disadvantaged. Yet it should be noted that these students were the select few who were able to continue at the secondary level, while the majority had either not considered secondary education after the universal primary level or had already withdrawn from school due to poverty or early marriage (for females) or the need to support their families (for males) by taking up whatever employment was available. 44
2.5 Summary and conclusion The present chapter has argued that social and geographic divides marked by the presence of English and the opportunities of its learning are just as much a reality now as they were in the British and Pakistani days. This situation provides a contextual justification for the investigation of learners‘ social circumstances and their English language achievement in the peripheral context of Nadiranga. The theoretical and empirical justifications for the study are discussed in the review of relevant literature. This constitutes Chapter 3 to which we now turn.
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Chapter 3 REVIEW OF LITERATURE 3.1 Introduction This chapter constructs the theoretical and empirical foundations for the investigation of learners‘ social biographies and their English achievement in the Bangladeshi context described in Chapter 2. The chapter focuses on four topics: a) an overview of different social perspectives on SLA and relevant L2 studies; b) a discussion of the study‘s theoretical concepts and framework in relation to the literature; c) a review of studies in the sociology of education; and d) an overview of studies on gender and academic achievement. The empirical justification for the study and its research questions relates to a number of arguments. First, the review of L2 studies shows that despite the recognition of the social in SLA, there has not been much empirical work which considers learners‘ social backgrounds in a broader sense. Second, studies in the sociology of education have investigated a range of socio-economic status (SES) and family background variables, but not many studies have presented a larger picture of learners‘ social biographies by considering family capital factors and parental input as well as learner characteristics. Third, empirical work framed within Bourdieu‘s concepts of capital and habitus has the potential to overcome the limitations of SES studies. However, most of the studies that have applied cultural and social capital have not simultaneously used the concept of habitus. Therefore, these studies also provide a limited view of learners‘ social origins. Moreover, these studies have been confined to a small number of developed countries. Given the state of relevant empirical work, there is a need to investigate learners‘ social biographies conceptualised as a simultaneous examination of their family educational capital and habitus in order to advance our knowledge in this area.
3.2 SLA and English achievement 3.2.1 Major variables in SLA L2 learning is a complex process, as can be understood from Naiman et al.‘s (1996) L2 learner and learning model (see Figure 3.1) as well as from Schumann‘s (1978) taxonomy of factors influencing L2 acquisition (Table 3.1). The Naiman et al. model illustrates that forces and influences from three realms (i.e., the learner, teaching and the L2 environment) determine teaching and learning outcomes. The outcomes are termed ‗L2 proficiency‘ as well as ‗failure‘, which is appropriate because not all teaching and learning activity results in language proficiency achievement. Similarly, Schumann‘s taxonomy identifies factors relating to learners, to the social 46
context and to the context of L2 instruction. However, the taxonomy is relevant to the second language context only, and cannot be generalised to the foreign language context. This is evident from the examples of social factors, particularly ‗the intended length of residence in the target language area‘. The target language environment maximises learners‘ exposure to L2 and their subsequent acculturation into the host community. However, a distinct L2 support area such as this does not exist in EFL contexts.
2 Teaching Classroom activities
1Learner
4 Learning
Intelligence Language aptitude Past language experience Age Personality Motivation Attitude
5 Outcome
Unconscious processes Conscious strategies and techniques Affective component
L1 competence/ L2 proficiency Errors Interlanguage Failure Affective outcome
3 L2 Environment Opportunities for L2 contacts and use
Figure 3.1 Model of second language learner and language learning (Naiman et al., 1996, p. 3).
Table 3.1: Taxonomy of factors influencing L2 acquisition (adapted from Schumann, 1978, p. 28). Factors
Examples
Social factors
Dominance;
non-dominance;
subordination;
assimilation;
acculturation;
preservation; enclosure; cohesiveness; size; congruence; attitude; intended length of residence in the target language area Affective factors
Language shock; cultural shock; motivation; ego-permeability
Personality factors
Tolerance for ambiguity; self-esteem
Cognitive factors
Cognitive development; cognitive processes
Biological factors
Lateralization
Aptitude factors
Language aptitude; IQ
Personal factors
Nesting factors; transition anxiety; choice of learning strategies
Input factors
Frequency; salience
Instructional
Goals; teacher; method; duration; intensity
factors
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Cognitive, affective and individual factors Both Naiman et al. (1996) and Schumann (1978) point out the kinds of variables that are usually examined in understanding differential L2 learning. A recent review by Dörnyei (2006) identifies similar variables (e.g., personality, aptitude, motivation, and learning styles and learning strategies). These variables are argued to be the characteristics of good language learners (Griffiths, 2008). However, both models lack a sociological dimension. For example, the learner-centric variables in Figure 3.1 include only cognitive, affective and intra-personal factors. Likewise, the L2 environment is viewed rather narrowly, referring only to the (L2) linguistic vitality in the social context. There is no reference to social, cultural, economic or political aspects of this social milieu (Stern, 1983; see also Chapter 2). Similarly, the social factors included in Schumann‘s (1978) taxonomy do not refer to learners‘ social origins or socio-economic issues. Stephany (1984) argued for an examination of these factors in her doctoral research on variables impacting on the L2 achievement of Southeast Asian students in the US. She quoted Kleinman (1982, p. 240) who had argued that: The relevance of […] external variables to one‘s ability to learn, or more accurately, to attend to learning, is so self-evident that it scarcely merits mentioning except for the fact that such influences have been given relatively little attention in second language acquisition research and teaching. (cited in Stephany, 1984, p. 4)
As the review of L2 studies in this section shows, Kleinman‘s observation remains valid even today after nearly three decades. Investigating these external variables is necessary because they exert influences on learner opportunity to practise L2 as well as on the levels of L2 proficiency that they attain. These factors have differential impacts on learners from different social positions and are relevant to differential L2 learning. Since its origin, SLA research has been dominated by cognitive, affective and intra-personal variables (see Chapter 1). The dominance of these variables means that L2 learning is seen principally as an entirely within-the-individual matter (Lantolf, 2005, p. 340). Such postulates present the L2 learner as an individual, devoid of socio-historical and cultural roots (Chomsky, 1965, 1966). Characteristics of this socio-historically rootless learner have constituted the major SLA variables, which have been the focus of mainstream research in the field. Psychological and affective variables in SLA were first theorised by Gardner and Lambert (1959, 1972). These researchers examined attitudes, motivation and motivational orientations of English L1 students in French L2 achievement in the bilingual context of Montreal and developed their influential motivation theory. Their studies found that achievement in L2 French was associated with positive attitudes towards French speakers, and that an integrative motivational 48
orientation suggesting a heightened desire to be culturally integrated with the French speech community explained the rate of French language achievement. The theory initially generated an enormous quantity of SLA research in different contexts, with results both proving and disproving the validity of integrative motivation as a potential predictor of L2 achievement (Abbashar, 1977; Ismail, 1984; Jayatilaka, 1982; Lewis & Massad, 1975; Lukmani, 1972; see also Agnihotri, Khanna & Sachdev, 1998 for a review). Social psychological perspectives In response to the waning support for integrative motivation from empirical studies outside Canada (e.g., Lukmani, 1972), Gardner and his associates moved towards viewing attitudes and motivations from a social psychological perspective. This shift towards the social is clear in the well-documented socioeducational model of second language acquisition (Gardner, 1985, 1988), which investigated the role of motivation in L2 learning in order to shed light on individual differences in L2 achievement (MacIntyre & Charos, 1996). In addition to the immediate context of second language acquisition (formal or informal), the model also includes the social milieu in which learner attitudes and expectations are shaped (Skehan, 1989). Social milieu refers to ‗social influences from the immediate environment as opposed to the macrocontext […] and is usually operationalised as the perceived influence of significant others, such as parents, family, and friends‘ (Csizer & Dörnyei, 2005, p. 22). L2 research on social milieu, as Csizer and Dörnyei note, has been directed mainly towards parental influence on learners‘ motivational experiences (see Liando, 2007). Social milieu has often been interpreted in a narrow sense. For example, Gardner, Masgoret and Tremblay (1999) investigated learners‘ home background characteristics, without including socio-economic issues in these characteristics. Their participants, 109 first-year students in a Canadian university, were asked to recollect their past experience of parental guidance, their attitudes towards the learning situation, their motivational intensity and their assessment of the use of French in the community. Results showed that the independent and dependent variables were causally related: early sociocultural experiences influenced the participants‘ current attitudes and motivation to learn L2 and self-perceptions of L2 proficiency. The narrow interpretation of social milieu is also evident in a study by Gan, Humphreys and Hamp-Lyons (2004), which aimed to answer a ‗classic question‘ in SLA: ‗How is it that some people can learn a second or foreign language so easily and do well while others, given what seem to be the same opportunities to learn, find it almost impossible‘ (Gardner & Lambert, 1972, p. 130)? In order to develop insights on this question, the researchers studied nine ‗successful‘ and nine ‗unsuccessful‘ Chinese EFL learners, categorised on the basis of their performance on a 49
standardised English test. They present the participants‘ comparative descriptive profiles, focusing on their attitudes, motivation and language learning strategies. Overall, the two groups exhibited patterned differences in terms of their attitudes, motivation and learning strategies. The successful students were more positive in their attitudes, and more motivated and more diverse in their use of learning strategies, than their less successful counterparts. While these patterned differences are insightful, the findings are difficult to generalise because the study involves only a small sample. The researchers suggest that: Taken collectively, the results that emerged from our study seem to indicate that different levels of success as EFL learners are formed by a complex and dynamic interplay of internal cognition and emotion, external incentives, and social context. (Gan et al., 2004, p. 240)
It is clear from this suggestion that the set of issues called upon to explain success and failure in EFL learning in the study was limited. A restricted set of social background issues also characterises EFL studies conducted in Indonesia. For instance, Liando‘s (2007) doctoral study of EFL achievement considers high school and university students‘ social backgrounds together with attitudinal and motivational factors. Students‘ social cultural backgrounds, which constitute her conceptual framework, included the components of social orientation, parental/family influence and family socio-economic status. However, SES was measured in terms of parental occupation and family income only. There was no reference to parental education and other family educational resources which play a crucial role in differential academic achievement (Feinstein et al., 2008; Pittaway, 2004). On the other hand, Lamb (2002) attributed the successes and failures of 16 Indonesian undergraduates in attaining English proficiency to their cognitive, affective and individual characteristics. In addition, he referred to issues related to personal investment in L2 learning (Norton, 2000; Norton Peirce, 1995; Norton & Toohey, 2001), learner autonomy and agency in explaining why most students failed to develop functional proficiency in English, while a few of them were successful. This study is noteworthy because not much work has investigated individual learner differences in the context of developing countries (Lamb, 2002, p. 37). However, this exploratory work involved only 16 participants. Larger-scale studies would be required to verify Lamb‘s interpretations of the students‘ experiences of developing EFL proficiency. At the same time, it is significant that Lamb did not refer to the students‘ social origins or their differential accesses to material resources required for learning English. Turning to Bangladesh, where the present study is situated, L2 research is still in its early stage of development. Even so, the small amount of research carried out in this context has broadly followed the social psychological tradition, and has focused on attitudinal and motivational variables. Both Haque (1989) and Zaman (1998) related learners‘ English proficiency achievement 50
to their attitudes and motivations, the former working with high school students, and the latter with undergraduate students, in Dhaka. These studies showed that the students were ‗generally integratively oriented towards learning English, and integrative orientation is a better predictor of proficiency than instrumental orientation‘ (Haque & Zaman, 2001, p. 165). However, these findings were disconfirmed in a recent study (Rahman, 2005), which provided evidence for the argument that Bangladeshi undergraduates were primarily instrumentally motivated in their English learning. While further research is needed to resolve these contradictory findings, the learners in these studies were treated as ‗autonomous‘ individuals, disconnected from their social histories. In other words, their social backgrounds were not fully taken into consideration. In short, the social psychological perspective has paved the way for examining learners‘ social context in relation to L2 learning. However, the emphasis given on learner-centric variables means that the social has been narrowly incorporated into this SLA approach, and has not referred to many external, social variables (Kleinman, 1982; Stephany, 1984). This narrow understanding of the social has been criticised by socially-oriented scholars and researchers (Akbari, 2008; Block, 2003; Cooke, 2006; Siegel, 2003; Tollefson, 1991). For instance, Tollefson (1991) is critical of the social psychological models because they assume that L2 learners are free agents in the L2 community, and as such they can be blamed for their failure in L2 attainment. Such assumptions ignore, as Siegel (2003, p. 190) notes, ‗the historical-structural factors that actually limit the ―choices‖ learners can make and that determine the meaning of these ―choices‖‘. Socio-historical perspectives Tollefson (1991) argues for a historical-structural perspective, which goes beyond ‗a limited concern with learner variables‘ and ‗seeks the origins of constraints on planning, the sources of the costs and benefits of individuals‘ choices, and the social, political, and economic factors which constrain or impel changes in […] language use‘ (p. 31). He calls for a direction in SLA research which will connect learner variables to sociology and social theory and which will see language as a social phenomenon. Further, such a direction in SLA will place the context of language use and learning as the locus of larger social, cultural, political and ideological issues. The socio-historical approach put forward by Hall (1995) has much in common with the historical-structural approach. Both models call for investigating larger socio-historical and political forces which, together with learners‘ social identities, constrain their language use and interaction. To a large extent, Norton‘s research (2000; Norton & Toohey, 2001; see also Block, 2007) with immigrant women and their L2 learning experience in Canada is framed within this socio-historical perspective. However, Norton focuses on the micro-context of L2 communication, issues of differential power relations between interlocutors, opportunity for L2 use, personal investment in 51
L2 learning and learner agency to take authoritative positions in L2-based communication. Although participants‘ socio-economic and other structural issues are implicated in this research, socio-political and structural issues are not directly addressed. Moreover, the insights generated by her ESL Canadian research are not substantially relevant to EFL contexts in the developing world. The socio-historical perspective advocated by Tollefson (1991) and Hall (1995) is more closely followed in Cooke‘s (2006) research on adult ESL learners‘ English learning experience in the UK. Her case study of four adult English learners complements Norton‘s research by demonstrating that motivation, personal investment and individual agency are not of themselves adequate to explain differential English learning outcomes, and that there is a need to take into account the constraining effects of structural and institutional factors. The socio-historical approach contributes to the sociological perspective followed in the present research by highlighting social and structural issues facing learners and their families in different social contexts. Sociocultural theory Sociocultural theory (SCT) has gained much popularity in SLA in recent times (Lantolf, 2000, 2002, 2006; Mitchell & Myles, 2004; Nunan, 2005; Thorne, 2005). The relevance of this perspective to SLA was first advocated by Frawley and Lantolf (1985) (see Chapter 1). At present SCT includes various approaches, and focuses on diverse issues (Duff, 2007; Lantolf, 2006; Thorne, 2005). However, common to all SCT approaches is the research aim: to ‗understand the relationship between human mental functioning, on the one hand, and cultural, historical and, institutional setting, on the other‘ (Wertsch, 1995, p. 56, quoted in Thorne, p. 394). The major line of L2 research from the SCT perspective investigates the processes of L2 development among children and adults as they internalise and mediate sociocultural artifacts (e.g., language) from their social and cultural environment (Lantolf, 2006). In SCT learning is seen first as social and then individual, and is jointly constructed by learners with more expert and supportive language users in the context of congenial dialogic communication. The emergence of SCT and the growing body of research from this perspective have given the social a sounder basis in SLA. In traditional SLA, individuals are seen as independent from context, and individual actions are believed to be driven by internally motivated states. In contrast, a sociocultural perspective views individuals and their cognitive and emotional development as constituting and constituted by their social milieu. From an SCT perspective, individuals have histories that are complex and variable and that affect their actions and motivation to engage in L2 learning. (Swain & Deters, 2007, p. 823)
It can be seen that L2 learners‘ social backgrounds and their histories are crucially important to SCT. However, because of its focus on the socially and culturally influenced internal processes of
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L2 learning and use, research from the SCT perspective has not directly addressed socio-economic and structural issues facing learners in different social contexts. Sociolinguistic perspectives Researchers working within the sociolinguistic framework have focused on diverse issues and topics which are at the interface of second language learning/use and different social phenomena. The initial concern of the sociolinguistic approach was to examine and quantify interlanguage variability in line with social identities of learner groups (Mitchell & Myles, 2004; Tarone, 1988, 2000, 2007). However, more recently topics such as L2 learning and socialisation, communities of practice and situated L2 learning, L2 learning and (re)construction of identity, power relations and L2 learning opportunities, and L2 learning as investment (as opposed to social psychological motivation), have dominated the sociolinguistic tradition (Mitchell & Myles, 2004). Norton‘s research, as previously mentioned, also falls within this recent sociolinguistic perspective. To sum up, the social perspectives discussed in this section have broadened the scope of SLA by mapping a range of social issues underlying these perspectives. L2 learners‘ social origins and backgrounds are important to all these approaches. However, because these approaches have prioritised the process and the immediate context of L2 use and development, broader socioeconomic and structural issues at the familial and social levels have remained, to a large extent, out of their focus. The importance of these socio-economic and structural issues has been emphasised by some studies. For instance, Canagarajah‘s (1993, 1999) ethnography in Sri Lanka highlights learners‘ social class backgrounds. The classroom vignette presented in the study, which deals with the life and experience of a student in a British university, shows how the same English lesson appeals differently to two students in the same class because of differences in their social situations, life experiences and worldviews. Learners‘ social origins are more directly at issue in Ramanathan‘s (2005) qualitative study in a post-secondary education context in Gujarat in India. Her research shows how students‘ choice of the medium of education – English medium (EM) or vernacular medium (VM) – falls along class lines, and how educational policies and practices both at institutional and state levels put VM students at a disadvantage. A still clearer illustration of learners‘ social and cultural history in light of Bourdieu‘s concepts of habitus and cultural capital is Lin‘s qualitative study of four different classrooms situated in different socio-economic contexts in Hong Kong (Lin, 1999). The vital question that Lin‘s investigation asks is: To what extent are classroom participants shaped by the larger social structures, such as sociocultural and familial background, and to what extent are they free to transform their lot (and habitus)? (p. 397)
53
Observations of the four classes showed how learners‘ social class backgrounds mediated their learning experiences and outcomes. The study also demonstrates how teachers can strategically transform students‘ incompatible habitus to make schooling meaningful and interesting to groups who bring social values that differ from those of the dominant groups to school.
3.3 Academic achievement and the sociology of education The field of the sociology of education deals with students‘ scholastic achievement in relation to their social class backgrounds (Sadovnik, 2007). This field is much younger than mass education which spread in the West in the 19th century (Peterson & Woessmann, 2007). Therefore, when the sociology of education formally emerged in the 1950s, there had already been numerous theories and hypotheses about stratified educational outcomes. The most influential was the now somewhat discredited meritocratic model, which had dominated since the 1850s (Edwards, 1989). Meritocracy posits that merit is a genetic or biological endowment which individuals inherit from their parents. This theory viewed education institutions, financed by the state, as neutral ‗clearinghouses‘ (Olssen, 2004, p. 2), providing education to all. The influential IQ theory was based on the premises of genetic and mental endowments, which were introduced to explain the underperformance of poor, working class and racial minority students. Alongside IQ theories, environmentalist hypotheses have been put forward since the 1930s (Edwards, 1989). These theories ascribed differences in school performance to sociocultural, racial and home-environment factors. Deficit theories, as these were commonly labelled, thrived in the US and the UK. They were held to account for the prevalent underperformance of racial and ethnic minority students (Olssen, 2004; Tollefson, 1991). The theories of ‗blaming the victim‘ for their school failures pointed out many forms of deprivation – genetic, social, cultural, economic, as well as linguistic (Delpit, 1988, p. 286). Home environmental arguments were put forward in the 1960s in order to eliminate the effects of the ‗culture of poverty‘ of the disadvantaged home. In the US and UK compensatory intervention programs were devised, targeting children before they came to school (Tyler, 1977). These intervention programs were supported by the influential school of economic thought known as ‗human capital‘ or ‗human investment‘ (Becker, 1964; Blaug, 1976; Schultz, 1981; Tyler, 1977). The investment theory posits that parents invest their resources in housing, schooling, medical care and learning tools for the development of their children‘s human capital (Mayer, 1997). Related to this is parental stress theory which postulates that poverty is stressful which diminishes parents‘ capacity to provide effective parenting (Mayer, 1997). Parents and parenting have also been theorised in cultural and psychological terms in order to understand children‘s educational
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achievement. For example, the role model theory argues that the behaviours, values and norms of low-income parents render them inappropriate role models for their children (Mayer, 1997). Additionally, parents‘ involvement in children‘s education in general, both at home and at school, has attracted much attention in the literature. Parenting theories focus on parents‘ values, beliefs, behaviours, aspirations and expectations as well as educational involvement, which impact on children‘s outcomes by providing them with a homogeneous set of values and expectations. These theories are not directly economic, but the values and principles have their origins in socioeconomic status, which is determined by parental education, occupation and income. Socioeconomic status theories are based on these family status measures, and were influenced by investment thinking. SES theories became influential in the 1960s and 1970s, and research along these theoretical lines continues today both in the developed and the developing world (see Section 3.3.4.1). The environmentalist and deficit theories of the 1960s, together with the consequent intervention programs, received much criticism. For instance, Labov‘s (1972) sociolinguistic survey of the language of Black children in the US led to his criticism of Bernstein‘s (1971) theories of restricted and elaborated codes, which were oft-quoted examples of linguistic deficiencies of underprivileged learners. Restricted codes refer to context-dependent particularistic language which is argued to be characteristic of working class language use. Elaborated codes, on the other hand, are context-independent universalistic language which is noticed in the language of the middle class family. Bernstein argued that the school was predicated upon the elaborated code and therefore children from middle class families were more likely to succeed at school than their working class peers, particularly in language-related subjects. His theories have been widely criticised over the last few decades. Labov argued that deficiency theories such as Bernstein‘s elaborated and restricted codes, were part of a ‗dangerous‘ mythology of educational psychology which tried to divert the focus away from the real defects of the educational system to imaginary defects of children (1972, p. 179). These ‗real defects‘ of education became the focus of what was later known as ‗the new sociology of education‘ ushered in by the publication of Knowledge and control: New directions in the sociology of education (Young, 1971). Young challenged the meritocratic myths about schooling and differential school performance, denied any separation of the sociology of education from the sociology of knowledge and critiqued the politics of legitimate knowledge and knowledge construction. This period was also marked by a resurgence of Marxist scholarship across humanities and social sciences (Olssen, 2004). In the field of the sociology of education, the revival, launched by the publication of Schooling in capitalist America (Bowels & Gintis, 1976), gave birth to the much-debated correspondence theory, which aimed at drawing parallels between the school and the 55
factory. Reproduction models, such as the correspondence theory, were powerful reactions to the post-war liberal theory which, modelled on meritocratic as well as capitalist ideals, argued that educational expansion, with its egalitarian principles, would eventually eliminate social inequalities (Goldthorpe, 1996; Peterson & Woessmann, 2007).
3.3.1 Bourdieu and cultural reproduction in education The brief overview of the major theories of school performance in the previous section helps contextualise Bourdieu‘s theories in the sociology of education. His concepts of capital and habitus are both influential and controversial in that while their explanatory potential has not been denied, deterministic assumptions underpinning these concepts have been strongly criticised (see Section 3.3.2). Aware of this explanatory potential as well as the critical reception, the present study seeks to apply these theories to understand learners‘ social backgrounds and English achievement. Social class, capital and habitus Bourdieu‘s model of cultural reproduction in education is characterised by its emphasis on students‘ social class backgrounds. Essentially, students come from different positions in the social space. His view of this space or field ‗goes beyond the Marxist concept of class as a system of property rights and introduces a more complex class notion that takes account of different forms of capital – that is, social and cultural as well as economic‘ (Anheier et al., 1995, p. 860). Capital refers to generalised resources which can be both monetary and non-monetary, and can take both tangible and intangible forms (Anheier et al., 1995). Economic capital is both the monetary income and other financial resources, which finds its institutionalised expression in property rights, whereas social capital ‗is the sum of the actual and potential resources that can be mobilized through membership in social networks of actors and organizations‘ (p. 862). The most significant is cultural capital, which exists in different states: the long-lasting dispositions of the mind and body in the embodied state, cultural goods such as pictures, books, instruments, technologies in the objectified state, and educational qualifications and other achievements in the institutionalised state (Bourdieu, 1986). Cultural capital may include a linguistic dimension, or linguistic capital can be conceptualised as an independent capital. Bourdieu explains the theoretical role of cultural capital: The notion of cultural capital initially presented itself to me, in the course of research, as a theoretical hypothesis which made it possible to explain the unequal scholastic achievement of children originating from the different social classes by relating academic success, i.e., the specific profits which children from the different classes and class fractions can obtain in the academic market, to the distribution of cultural capital between classes and class fractions. (1986, p. 243)
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Agents‘ positions in the social space marked by their possession of capital are important because they are represented as the outcomes of nurture and socialisation within these social boundaries. It follows that: […] sets of agents who occupy similar positions and who, being placed in similar conditions and submitted to similar types of conditioning, have every chance of having dispositions and interests, and thus of producing similar practices and adopting similar stances. (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 231)
In other words, the objective social conditions shape children‘s habitus, another key concept in Bourdieu‘s model of reproduction. Habitus is a set of learned habits, skills, styles and tastes that usually go without saying. It is a set of dispositions which incline agents to act and react in certain ways. The dispositions generate practices, perceptions and attitudes which are ‗regular‘ without being consciously coordinated or governed by any ‗rule‘. The dispositions which constitute the habitus are inculcated, structured, durable and transposable. (Thomson, 1991, p. 12)
Thus, habitus is the direct and inescapable outcome of the conditions of one‘s existence in the social space, which later regulates one‘s perceptions, attitudes, values and actions. Habitus is not just a repository of agents‘ objective structural properties and lived realities. Bourdieu emphasises that it is linked to their histories (1990b). Habitus consists of agents‘ social as well as psychological histories and autobiographies (LiPuma, 1993). The concept of habitus has enabled Bourdieu to provide a generative mechanism of structured social practice: Habitus is a kind of transforming machine that leads us to ‗reproduce‘ the social conditions of our own production, but in a relatively unpredictable way, in such a way that one cannot move simply mechanically from knowledge of the conditions of production to knowledge of the products. (Bourdieu, 1990b, p. 87)
School and reproduction Learners‘ habitus, then, develops in different ways due to their upbringing in different social fields and also because of the extent to which they themselves transform their own habitus (McLeod, 2000; Mills, 2008; Reay, 2004). The school, on the other hand, can also be viewed as having its own habitus, which is the sum of curricular and institutional culture and the habitus of the teacher population. A fierce critic of meritocracy, Bourdieu views schooling as […] the most effective means of perpetuating the existing social pattern, as it both provides an apparent justification for social inequalities and gives recognition to the cultural heritage, that is, to a social gift treated as a natural one. (1974, p. 32, italics in the original)
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He also explains that: [B]y treating all pupils, however unequal they may be in reality, as equal in rights and duties, the educational system is led to give its de facto sanction to initial cultural inequalities. The formal equality which governs pedagogical practice is in fact a cloak for and a justification of indifference to the real inequalities with regard to the body of knowledge taught or demanded. (1974, p. 36)
The school‘s indifference to these ‗real inequalities‘ can be explained with reference to Bourdieu‘s repeated claim that the school embraces the habitus of the dominant middle and upper middle classes (Bourdieu, 1974; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990; Delpit, 1988; Olssen, 2004; Sullivan, 2002; Thompson, 1991): The definition of success the school embraces, the kinds of knowledge it imparts, the nature of the teaching processes it uses, and its forms of evaluation and school organization all embody the habitus of the dominant group. Hence the school curriculum is the primary reflection of a society‘s dominant knowledge code. (Olssen, 2004, p. 15)
In sum, then, academic success or failure is acted out in school, which is seen as anything but a neutral clearinghouse. Its curricular and cultural forms and values reflect those of the dominant groups in society, and therefore children belonging to those groups are expected to excel in academic performance over those who belong to the lower social strata.
3.3.2 Critique of Bourdieu and cultural reproduction Bourdieu‘s concepts of social class, capital and habitus, and his theoretical views of schooling, constitute a comprehensive model of cultural reproduction and school performance. However, his model and its constituents have been criticised, mainly on essentialist, structuralist and deterministic grounds. In addition, his theoretical constructs pose empirical challenges to researchers who wish to apply them in real world social and educational research. In Bourdieu‘s theories, Giroux sees an over-deterministic explanation of social and cultural reproduction, which denies the possibility of social transformation initiated by subordinate groups (1983; Harker & May, 1993; Mills, 2008; Sullivan, 2000, 2001, 2002). Pennycook (2001) rejected Bourdieu in his social transformative agenda on similar grounds: the latter‘s theories do not suggest the possibility of resistance or opposition from language learners. Finally, Collins (1993) acknowledged that there was truth in Bourdieu‘s deterministic arguments, but, he argued, it was ‗one-sided‘ and lacked a sense of the primacy of ‗the role of contradictions in human affairs‘; it ‗overrides the conflictual creativity of interaction-based agency‘ (p. 134).
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Bourdieu himself, however, denied charges of over-determinism and pointed out that vagueness and indeterminacy were implied in the concept of habitus (Mills, 2008; Nash, 1999; Reay, 2004). He did not argue for a one-to-one relationship between structure, habitus and practice. However, he was critical of the rational action theory which posits that action is the outcome of conscious calculation (Thompson, 1991). In fact, freedom of action, to a certain extent, is guaranteed within the concept of habitus itself. The fact that habitus becomes embodied in the agent means that the system produced is by no means simply an abstraction of the objective forms of capital available to the social field concerned. In addition, habitus is not conceived as static or fixed; rather it is productive and transformative (McLeod, 2000; Mills, 2008; Reay, 2004), which itself suggests dynamism activated by agency involvement. Therefore, habitus ‗sets the boundaries within which agents are ―free‖ to adopt strategic practices. These practices, based on the intuitions of the practical sense, orient rather than strictly determine action‘ (Harker & May, 1993, p. 174). Agents are neither absolutely free nor are extremely rule-governed; they act freely within a restricted framework in their social world (Calhoun, 1993). Nevertheless, Bourdieu has treated school and the teacher population as singular entities. As one can argue, he has not taken into consideration school differences owing to their geographical locations, physical infrastructure, pedagogic resources, teachers‘ qualifications and other sociopolitical realities and differential school effects. Secondly, there are variations in teachers‘ pedagogic practices which can be attributed to their own social origins, their habitus, their sociopolitical consciousnesses, their religious identities as well as their academic qualifications and expertise – all of which considerably influence how pedagogic action is carried out in the classroom. It is inaccurate to assert, as Bourdieu does, that schools everywhere enjoyed the same authority independent of socio-economic and political forces within the social context. Apart from conceptual weaknesses, critics argue that Bourdieu‘s ‗grand‘ ideas, particularly of capital and habitus, offer little hope for empirical viability (Sullivan, 2002). For example, how can these concepts be clearly defined and operationalised? The idea of habitus is abstract, intuitive and encompassing; it is difficult to define and pin down to its essential, measurable characteristics. As Sullivan (2002) argues, the concept of habitus is overloaded, vague, ambiguous and amorphous; therefore, it is difficult to operationalise. In addition, Bourdieu uses habitus synonymously with cultural capital which blurs distinctions, if any, between them. Finally, if habitus (or cultural capital) is to have the potential to account for differential scholastic achievement, then different learners must differ in their habitus profiles. However, constructing learners‘ individual habitus profiles is a challenging task for researchers.
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3.3.3 Theoretical model The current study accepts these empirical challenges and designs a model (Figure 3.2) for conceptualising relationships between school learners‘ social backgrounds and their English achievement. However, in order to make Bourdieu‘s concepts empirically tractable, the concepts of habitus and capital have been appropriated to the social context of the present investigation. The model in Figure 3.2 should be imagined in a particular social context where the family is located. Family educational capital is constituted by the volume of economic, cultural and social capital (Archer & Francis, 2006). In other words, it includes objective structural factors (e.g., parental income, education) as well as parental roles, which influence learner habitus. However, while the family supplies primary influences towards habitus formation, the shaping of habitus also remains open to other influences (e.g., from the community, peer groups) (McLeod, 2000; Reay, 2004). At the same time, habitus is arguably dynamic and transformable (Marjoribanks, 2006; Mills, 2008; Nash, 1999) because students can modify their existing habitus in the light of new influences and experiences, both within and outside the family. As discussed in Chapter 1, family capital and habitus constitute learners‘ social biographies. These biographies are related to their schooling and academic achievement in English. Social biography Economic capital
Habitus
Family educational capital
Cultural capital
English achievement
Social capital
Figure 3.2: Model of learners‘ English proficiency achievement vis-à-vis their social biographies based on Bourdieu‘s structure-habitus-practice. Critics have pointed out that Bourdieu was not precise and consistent in his conceptualisation of cultural (as well as social) capital and habitus (Lamont & Lareau, 1988; Kingston, 2001; Sullivan, 2001, 2002). As Lamont and Lareau trace the origins and applications of cultural capital in different writings of Bourdieu, the concept appears to be vague, perhaps deliberately so: 60
A closer reading of Bourdieu and Passeron‘s work on cultural capital suggests that the authors group under this concept a large number of types of cultural attitudes, preferences, behaviours, and goods, and that the concept performs different roles in their various writings. (Lamont & Lareau, 1988, p. 155)
Similarly, Sullivan (2002) discusses a range of operationalisations of cultural capital (i.e., cultural capital represented by different indicators) in her review of empirical work in Europe and the US. Lamont and Lareau (1988) note that the increasing use of the concept in research in the US has led to assigning different, even contradictory, meanings to the concept: ‗We are now reaching a point where the concept could become obsolete, as those using it equate it with notions as different as human capital, elite culture, and high culture‘ (Lamont & Lareau, 1988, pp. 153-4). Lamont and Lareau trace the ‗original‘ meaning of cultural capital from its diverse meanings in Bourdieu‘s work which refers to various high-status cultural signals that serve as the basis for social and cultural exclusion. Cultural capital, defined as class-bound exclusionary cultural practices, to which both Lamont and Lareau (1988) and Kingston (2001) subscribe, is arguably francocentric (see p. 12). This notion of capital plays a crucial role in marking class boundaries in France, which can be associated with students‘ academic performance (Van Zanten, 2003). However, the francocentric concept does not necessarily apply equally to other social and educational contexts. Lamont and Lareau (1988) show that the US and France differ from each other in terms of social status measures, means of attaining status, and social mobility. Given these differences, cultural capital cannot be appropriately – or at least directly – applied to the US context: [B]ecause the measure of cultural capital is only weakly related to the measure of family status [in the US], cultural capital cannot be invoked to unlock the puzzle of why privilege is linked to academic success. (Kingston, 2001, p. 92)
Although Bourdieu acknowledged the inherent francocentricism of his theories, he upheld ‗the universality of his model‘ (Gunn, 2005, p. 49). He argued that his concepts were not meant to be 'immutable'; rather these were required to be reworked; his concepts were intended for exercise or practice (Archer & Francis, 2006; Bourdieu, 1993; Reay, 2004). What this suggests is that Bourdieu‘s concepts have wider currency, but their measures, as required for empirical work, are variable across social contexts: 'capitals are context specific and will not necessarily hold a static value across boundaries of time and space‘ (Archer & Francis, 2006, p. 44). This context specificness helps to explain why cultural capital has been variously defined and operationalised in different social contexts. In fact, many researchers (see Section 3.3.5.1) have ‗decoupled‘ cultural capital from its provenance in France and used locally appropriate indicators 61
(e.g., educational resources) in their work. Studies have changed the narrow, ‗elitist‘ definition (i.e., in the sense of class-rooted exclusionary practices) into a class-independent wider concept (i.e., family-based cultural processes and educational resources) that is associated with academic success (Kingston, 2001). The present study applies cultural capital in this wider sense, and operationalises the construct with reference to Bangladeshi family-based practices and educational resources (see Section 4.3.3.2). In addition to specifying the meaning of cultural capital, the present study draws a distinction between cultural capital and habitus, which overlap somewhat in Bourdieu‘s conceptualisation. As previously discussed (Section 3.3.1), habitus is the collection of the agent‘s internal, psychological and affective factors, which cannot be separated from the agent. Therefore, one‘s skills, attitudes, motivations, dispositions, personal values and worldviews are included in one‘s habitus. The concept is multi-dimensional (Nora, 2004; Reay, 2004). Cultural capital is also multi-dimensional. In the present study cultural capital refers to cultural goods, such as books, instruments and technologies, and so it is capital in the objectified state (Section 3.3.1). It also refers to opportunities and activities (e.g., taking lessons from private tutors), which may result in cultural capital in the institutionalised state, or habitus in the sense of skill achievement and accompanying attitudes and motivations. This specification narrows the scope of cultural capital (because its embodied state, which overlaps with habitus, is now restricted to habitus), and because of this, the concepts can now be distinguished from each other which can facilitate empirical investigation. The concept of habitus, as used in the current study, suggests another decisive modification. In Bourdieu‘s original conception, habitus is a general, encompassing construct made up of attitudes, motivations, dispositions, ways of thinking and behaving for unspecified actions and contexts. In the present study the construct is specified, and is to be understood, as action- or fieldspecific (McLeod, 2000). In Bourdieu‘s view, habitus refers to an agent‘s dispositions for or attitudes towards diverse experiences and situations; but in the present study‘s model learner habitus specifically means a set of personal, attitudinal and dispositional features related to schooling, English language, educational and career goals, family and life situations (see Chapter 4). For example, learner attitudes towards swimming, or their views of a local football team, which are only distantly related to educational experience, are not considered to be part of their habitus. This reconceptualisation turns the general concept of habitus into a more specific notion of educational habitus. Finally, Bourdieu‘s concept of social capital is modified so that the resulting concept is closer to Coleman‘s conceptualisation (Coleman, 1988; see also Ball, 2003; Portes, 1998; Sandefur & Laumann, 1998). ‗Social capital is the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships‘ (Bourdieu, 62
1986, p. 248). Ball (2003) explains that the nature and the volume of social capital possessed by an individual or family can play ‗a crucial part in their ability to mobilize their cultural and economic capital‘ (p. 81). In his concept of social capital, Bourdieu stressed the network of relationships and the benefits, cultural or economic, which accrue to individuals or families who are able to join and maintain such relationships. While these relationships can be imagined within the family (for example, members have access to a particular family possession such as property, title and nobility), the emphasis is on the constructed network of relationships, which usually falls outside the family. In Coleman‘s (1988) understanding, as Ball (2003) distinguishes it, social capital has two modalities: 1) within the family (i.e., relationships between children and parents); and 2) family-community (relationships between families and the community and the degree of embeddedness). In the framework of the present study, social capital refers primarily to the withinfamily relationships, but economic benefits derived from social relationships outside the family are also taken into account as a sub-component of economic capital (see Section 4.3.3.2). Furthermore, family social capital in the sense of parent-child relationship refers to parental involvement in children‘s education (Li, 2007; McNeal, 1999; Peterson & Heywood, 2007), which is crucial for children‘s scholastic success (see Barnard, 2004; Driessen, Smit & Sleegers, 2005; Hanafin & Lynch, 2002; Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler, 1995, 1997; Jeynes, 2005). Despite these modifications, it cannot be claimed that the forms of capital are absolutely distinguishable from one another. As Ball (2003, p. 82) has correctly argued, ‗[c]onceptually and empirically it is sometimes difficult to maintain a clear distinction between the forms of capital‘. For the present study, attempts have been made to draw lines between the concepts so that they can be operationalised for empirical investigation. Together, they constitute family (educational) capital (Archer & Francis, 2006).
3.3.4 Studies on social backgrounds and educational performance In the sociology of education factors influencing academic achievement are generally located in three domains: (1) students‘ personal and psychological characteristics; (2) structural features of their family and social surroundings; and (3) school characteristics. This field, as opposed to social or developmental psychology as well as mainstream SLA, has placed more emphasis on (2) and (3) than on (1) (see Howard, 2001). The model adopted for the present study (Figure 3.2) directly addresses (1) and (2). School effects are also taken into account, but the study does not directly investigate school-related variables (see Section 1.4). There are two reasons for this. First, numerous studies have argued that the home plays a more fundamental role than the school in children‘s learning outcomes (Coleman et al., 1966; Darling, 1992; Kellaghan et al., 1993; Peterson & Woessmann, 2007; Steinberg, Brown & Dornbusch, 1997; Tyler, 1977): 63
[…] the seeds of school failure [or success, by the same token] are planted in the home, and we cannot hope to uproot the problem by working only within the schools. We must approach it through the family. (Darling, 1992, p. 5)
And second, including another set of school-related variables would widen the scope of the study to an unmanageable size (see Section 1.4).
3.3.4.1 SES and academic achievement From the early days of mass education, there have been correlations between students‘ social origins and measures of their educational outcomes (Dijkstra & Peschar, 2002; Fransoo et al., 2005; Howard, 2001). In the 20th century, all levels of education – primary, secondary and tertiary – expanded considerably throughout the world. It was believed that the expansion would reduce social inequality in educational outcomes, but the optimistic predictions proved inaccurate: […] expansion of education does not lead to a better chance for disadvantaged groups to make the transition and will not change the association between social origins and given educational transitions. (Blossfeld & Shavit, 1993, p. 8)
While Ambler and Neathery (1999) found a modest reduction in educational inequality in Europe as a result of the expansion of higher education, Gamoran (2001) expressed pessimism. Referring to Hout and Dohan (1996) and Hout, Raftery and Bell (1993), he concluded that socio-economic differentials in educational attainment were consistent throughout the 20th century and the trend would continue the 21st century. Not surprisingly, therefore, SES is the most widely researched variable in education (Sirin, 2005). Richardson (1986, p. xiii) notes that topics such as ability, talent, family social background and achievement were moved into centre stage by an upsurge of empirical research in the 1950s and 1960s. Today the literature on the subject is so huge that it would be a mammoth task to attempt to review even a sizable portion of it. Therefore, I intend to review only the major studies and highlight the general findings. Studies from the earliest times have shown that measures of SES (as well as other family/social characteristics) have undeniable relationships with educational performance (Peterson & Woessmann, 2007). However, what has been less clear, and remains somewhat contentious, is the strength and nature of these relationships. The first reason for this inconclusiveness of SESachievement relationships is methodological, which has been pointed out by a number of researchers, including White (1982), White et al. (1993), Nieto (2005) and Sirin (2005): Because researchers use different definitions of SES, measure student achievement in different ways, study a variety of age groups, use different types of analytical methods, use both aggregate and
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individual data, and conduct studies during years of varying national economic health, it is not surprising to find studies reporting such different results. (White et al., 1993, p. 329)
The second reason, which is less often noted, is related to the socio-economic, cultural and educational givens in different societies. These factors usually apply to cross-national studies (see Buchmann & Hannum, 2001; Shavit & Blossfeld, 1993). However, they are also relevant across geographic locations within the same nation (see, for example, Gonzalez, 1998 in the context of language spread and acquisition). While researchers‘ methodological and analytical preferences have been wide-ranging, academic achievement measures have traditionally been taken from standardised test scores or school grades in mathematics, science, reading and verbal skills. English (as a S/FL) is yet to be fully utilised as a potential dependent variable, particularly in countries where the language is an essential component of the national curriculum.
3.3.4.2 SES-achievement in the developed world Empirical research, particularly in America, has concluded that the ‗primary determinants‘ of differential academic attainment are family and cognitive factors, not schools (Richardson, 1986, p. xiii). This general conclusion is reminiscent of the Coleman report (Coleman et al., 1966), a pioneering work in the sociology of education, which sceptically noted: […] that schools bring little influence to bear on a child‘s achievement that is independent of his background and general social context; and that this very lack of an independent effect means that the inequalities imposed on children by their home, neighbourhood, and peer environment are carried along to become the inequalities with which they confront adult life at the end of school. (Coleman et al., 1966, p. 325)
The Coleman report inspired Jencks et al. (1972), which also showed that family background was the ‗most important determinant‘ of academic attainment, and ‗explains nearly half the variation in academic attainment‘ (p. 159). However, family background, as the researchers noted, was not a unitary or monolithic concept; some family characteristics contributed to cognitive development, while others influenced educational attainment. Similarly, both socio-economic and non-economic family characteristics influenced educational outcomes: ‗The family‘s influence depended partly on its socio-economic status and partly on cultural and psychological characteristics that were independent of socio-economic level‘ (Jencks et al., p. 254). Although Coleman et al. and Jencks et al. investigated SES-achievement relationships, they were interested in broader issues of educational and occupational (in)equality in America. The effects of home, school and neighbourhood specifically on students‘ academic achievement were 65
investigated by Hauser (1971). One of the research questions guiding his study was: To what degree is the influence of socio-economic background on performance in school an adequate theory of educational performance? Hauser used analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and path analysis to understand the relationships between the different contextual factors and schooling outcomes. Results showed that each of the SES variables of parental education and occupation had modest positive effects on achievement in mathematics and reading. Family background was also found to be weakly associated with course marks, another measure of educational outcomes, although students from small families or those from high SES tended to obtain higher course marks in mathematics and English. More significantly, the study found that intelligence mediated relationships between family SES and measures of achievement and course marks, and most of the effects of intelligence on achievement were unrelated to socio-economic background. While Coleman et al. and Jencks et al. found that family SES had a strong influence on academic achievement, Hauser found modest positive effects. Nevertheless, all these studies suggested that family background or SES was at issue, whether the dependent variable was academic achievement or attainment (see p. 9 for distinctions between achievement and attainment). Research in the UK also produced mixed findings. The Plowden report (Plowden, 1967) showed that parental attitudes were responsible for 28% of between-school and 20% of withinschool variation in primary school pupils‘ educational attainment. The effect of home circumstances, which included physical amenities of the home, parental education, occupation, income and family size, dropped from 20% to just 9% when the change was from between-school to within-school variation. It is noteworthy that 35% and 54% of between-school and within-school variation respectively remained unexplained. This study, to a greater extent than Jencks et al. (1972), also suggests that non-economic factors had more impact on educational performance than economic or material circumstances. The studies reported so far, which were conducted in the 1960s and 1970s, present inconclusive results regarding the relationships between students‘ family SES and academic performance. Similar findings also derive from meta-analytic reviews. For example, White‘s (1982) meta-analysis of 101 studies, which were conducted in different decades of the 20th century up until 1980, showed that the difference in correlation coefficients was caused by the unit of analysis preferred by researchers i.e., whether they analysed aggregated (school or other group level) or disaggregated (individual student level) data. Disaggregated data showed a weak correlation (correlation coefficient = .22) between SES and achievement which, however, rose sharply to .73 when aggregated data were used. The unit of analysis, as evident from the White et al. (1993; see quotation on pp. 64-65), is just one of the many methodological issues contributing to the differential strengths of the SES66
achievement relationships. White et al. reviewed 13 studies, which were conducted between 1959 and 1988, identifying the unit of analysis (individual or aggregate) for each. While studies using aggregate data had stronger correlations than the ones using individual level data, there were also exceptions. For instance, Coleman et al. (1966) found strong correlations, even though it used individual level data. Studies continued producing mixed or varying strengths of the SES-achievement relationships in the 1990s and beyond. Mayer (1997) investigated the ‗true effect‘ of parental income on children‘s outcomes in the US, controlling for both observed and unobserved parental characteristics. She analysed the PSID (Panel Study of Income Dynamics) and NLYS (National Longitudinal Survey of Youth) data and found that the true effect of parental income was consistently smaller than that found in conventional estimates. Based on her findings, she argues that money can improve the material standard of living, but this improvement hardly influenced children‘s test scores or their educational attainment. However, income is ‗just the tip of the iceberg of the complexity of the SES omnibus variable‘ (Gonzalez, 2001, p. 25), and therefore understanding its effects does not go a long way in explaining social background-achievement relationships. Nevertheless, Mayer‘s findings are insightful, particularly because she distinguishes between income for basic needs and income for non-basic needs. One conclusion of her study is that money matters for the education of income-poor people, which is corroborated by BrooksGunn, Duncan and Maritato, (1997) who show that children raised in low-income families score lower than children from more affluent families do on assessments of health, cognitive development, school achievement, and emotional well-being. (p. 1)
Research has also shown the absence of association between SES and academic achievement. For instance, Ripple and Luthar (2000) studied 134 inner-city high-school students in the US, who were from low SES backgrounds. Results showed that SES was not significantly associated with the outcome measures such as dropouts and school grades. Similarly, the study by Cheo and Quah (2005) involving 429 eighth graders in three secondary schools in Singapore found ‗diminishing returns of overinvestment‘ in school grades. The independent variables of this study included a number of economic and cultural investments in children‘s education, such as appointing private tutors and maids, mothers‘ paid work and children‘s participation in cultural activities. Results showed that these variables did not have significant effects on children‘s academic performance. These findings can be related to those of Koo (2003) in the UK, which used adolescents‘ school plans as the dependent variable. Koo‘s analysis of the British Youth Panel of the British Household Panel Study (BHPS) data showed that household income and family size did not have significant 67
effects on their school plans. However, other measures of SES such as parents‘ educational and occupational status were found to have some impact on such plans. In contrast to insignificant or moderate effects of social backgrounds on achievement, many studies since the 1990s, including Battle (2002), Rumberger (1995) and Slovacek, Kunnan and Kim (2002) in the US; Connolly (2006) and Hill and Cole (2001) in the UK; Lamb, Hogan and Johnson (2001) and Le and Miller (2004) in Australia, have shown SES to be strongly associated with academic achievement. Typically, these studies use national multipurpose datasets on which different regression analyses are run to show the effects of different measures of SES variables. Anyon (2005) reviewed a large body of empirical work in the US and argued that structural factors such as family income, job security and community living conditions impacted on children‘s cognitive development, their school performance, their prospects of graduation and continuation of higher studies. Using the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) data, Marks (2005) compared relationships between parental occupational class and student achievement in reading literacy in 30 countries, most of which belonged to the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Results showed that in all countries ‗students from upper service class backgrounds had substantially higher mean scores than students with manual backgrounds‘ (p. 489). Both material and cultural factors were found to contribute to student achievement. However, in most countries the contribution of cultural resources measured by the number of books and other cultural possessions appeared to be stronger than material resources (see Peterson & Woessmann, 2007). On the other hand, SES-achievement relationships appeared unsettled in the Netherlands. Gesthuizen, De Graff and Kraaykamp (2005) used data from Family Survey Dutch Population 1992, 1998 and 2000 and conducted logistic regressions. Results showed that Even though parental socio-economic, cultural, and socio-demographic resources remain strongly associated to the risk of leaving school without qualifications, the decline of the size of the group of the unqualified has not always resulted in an increasingly unfavourable composition of this group with regard to family background. (Gesthuizen et al., 2005, p. 451)
Sirin (2005) included 74 independent samples in his meta-analytic review, which are made up of 101,157 students and 6,871 schools in the US. He found a medium to strong SES-achievement relationship, which, however, was moderated by methodological and analytical parameters. Sirin‘s review underscores methodological complexities underpinning SES-achievement research. While White et al. (1993) specifically investigated the unit of data – individual or collective – Sirin draws attention to the unit of achievement measures. He points out that measures of achievement at the individual subject level (verbal, mathematics or science achievement) yielded stronger correlations 68
than those at the global level (i.e., GPA). From this and other studies, it becomes obvious that achievement measures have typically focused on test scores in mathematics, science and reading literacy.
3.3.4.3 Qualitative studies Qualitative studies on learners‘ social backgrounds and schooling experience are very few. The studies reported in this section are based in Australia and the US. They involved small samples and are exploratory. Participants in these studies were mostly from the lower social strata. Ethnographic or interview methods typically focused on their perceptions of family social positions, family and parental influences on their schooling experiences and their attitudinal and motivational characteristics. The Australian studies had different focuses and emphases. Wright et al. (1978) recorded Australian adolescents‘ recollections of school experiences and the effects of schooling on their post-school life. The open-ended interview data of 150 eighteen-year olds selected from a crosssection of SES and types of schools showed a cultural deprivation of the poor and working-class families in relation to children‘s school experience, performance and outcomes. Malik (1998), on the other hand, emphasised cultural values in unravelling a sociological puzzle: why Asian students in Western societies perform on a par with or better than their mainstream counterparts, even in the face of major obstacles related to the structure of school programs, racism, home-school discontinuities, minority status and L1 backgrounds. His participants were two groups of high school students in Perth: Anglo-Australians and Chinese Australians. The findings showed that Chinese students did well in school mainly because of cultural values, lifestyles, parental involvement and investment in children‘s education on the one hand, and children‘s inculcation of these values on the other. Forsbach, Yanowitz and Fiala (2002), however, had different findings when they examined six African-American students‘ perceptions of factors that led to their academic performance in the US. Analysis of qualitative interview data showed that the most important factors for school performance were student initiative followed by self-image. Family factors were less important than these two personal factors, although the former were more important than the role of teachers. However, family and social class background issues are not entirely missing in the perceptions of American students. Brantlinger‘s (1993) ethnography of two groups of high- and low-income adolescents in a Midwestern American city showed how their perceptions and social cognitions were influenced by their social class standing. The study showed clear patterns of differences between high- and low-income adolescents across diverse measures of outcomes, such as scholastic achievement, educational and occupational aspirations, assessment of family roles and 69
parental involvement as well as delinquent behaviours. Similarly, Howard‘s (2001) ethnographic data from two groups of students (13 and 23) from two different high schools – one private and one public – corroborate the findings established in the literature that learners‘ social classes correlate with their academic achievement. Further qualitative evidence for the social class-academic achievement relationship is provided by Tapia‘s (2004) research with four Latino families in Philadelphia and Tucson. He collected data by means of questionnaires, home visits, interviews and classroom observations. The multiple techniques generated rich qualitative insights into the influence of home and community factors on school learning and performance of the students of these four families: The case studies illustrate that family stability, which is greatly influenced by economic stability, is the most important factor influencing students‘ academic performance. (Tapia, 2004, pp. 433-4)
These insights, however, do not suggest strong SES-achievement connections. This is because, despite differential access to economic resources, no clear patterns in children‘s school performance along SES lines were found across the families.
3.3.4.4 SES and academic achievement in developing nations Empirical work on SES and educational outcomes in the developing world has been inspired and guided by theoretical developments and empirical findings in developed nations (Buchmann & Hannum, 2001; Fuller, 1987). The prevailing socio-economic, cultural and educational situations in the developing world, which distinguish it from its developed counterpart, produced somewhat different findings of SES-achievement relationships in earlier research. Whereas in industrialised economies family SES was believed to be a crucial determinant of school success, in developing economies such determinants were located in the school rather than in the family. However, later research has cast doubt on these findings, as home factors were found to be important in such nations as well (Carnoy & Marshall, 2005). That school effects were more crucial than family influences in determining academic achievement in developing nations was first empirically documented by Heyneman (1976) in Uganda, who replicated the study by Coleman et al. (1966). Heyneman and Loxley (1983) later generalised their findings to other developing nations: whereas in developed countries variance in academic achievement was more attributable to family effects and less to school factors, in the developing world school factors, more than family influences, accounted for such variance (Buchmann & Hannum, 2001). Heyneman and Loxley (1983, p. 1180) concluded that the impact of school and teacher quality on academic achievement was greater in poorer countries. By the same token, the impact of home or SES on achievement was lower. Support for these insights is found in 70
Ripple and Luthar (2000) which showed that family SES had little impact on achievement. These researchers explained that SES had no impact on achievement because their participants were from poorer family backgrounds. Probably because of these findings, studies in developing nations have tended to focus on both school and family factors. For instance, in their review of SES-achievement studies in ten developing countries, Simmons and Alexander (1978) identified four sets of independent variables: family background, school input, peer group characteristics and initial endowment. The review failed to draw any conclusions which could be borne out by studies across the nations. They noted, however: […] it is significant that factors which have traditionally been regarded as essential for better education – higher quality teachers, more expensive facilities – do not seem to increase achievement at lower grade levels even in the poorest countries. (Simmons & Alexander, 1978, p. 355)
Therefore, the greater effects of school found in research should be analysed in the light of counterevidence. In addition, the lesser importance of family background or SES as indicated by the studies previously reviewed should not be taken for granted, because family backgrounds were found to have a strong influence on student performance at primary and lower secondary levels, which, however, diminished as students proceeded through the secondary cycle (Simmons & Alexander, 1978). Similar insights were found in the study by Sacker, Schoon and Bartley (2002) in the UK. On the other hand, the larger-scale review by Fuller (1987) showed that school effects were significant in developing nations. By reviewing 60 multivariate studies in the developing world, which examined diverse aspects of schools and their effects on student performance, the reviewer draws two conclusions: First, the majority of these multivariate studies have found significant achievement effects from school factors, net the influence of pupils‘ social class background. Second, material school inputs are related to achievement in the Third World. (Fuller, 1987, p. 257)
These conclusions contrast with the findings in Simmons and Alexander (1978). But there are some caveats. Fuller (1987) notes that in addition to limitations of survey methods, school effects depend on how learner background characteristics are measured. He also found that school effects were stronger in the case of science and mathematics but weaker in the case of reading. Furthermore, ‗school effects in developing countries tend to be stronger in rural areas and among lower income pupils, compared to urban middle-class areas‘ (p. 288). This last point is particularly important because it warns us not to take the developing world or even individual developing countries as a singular, homogeneous context. 71
The more recent review by Buchmann and Hannum (2001) shows SES-achievement relationships in developing countries to be inconclusive. They note that in contrast to earlier studies such as Heyneman (1976) and Heyneman and Loxley (1983), later research has found greater effects of students‘ social backgrounds than of school factors in Zimbabwe (Riddell, 1989) and Thailand (Lockheed & Longford, 1991). Baker et al. (1999, cited in Buchmann & Hannum, 2001) analysed the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) data and concluded that ‗[r]egardless of national levels of wealth, family factors are more important predictors of educational achievement than are school factors in most countries‘ (Buchmann & Hannum, 2001, p. 87). Evidence for this assertion was earlier found in research in South Africa (Cherian, 1991). Cherian collected parental income data from a questionnaire survey of 1,021 seventh grade students in the sub-national context of Transkei. Academic achievement was the criterion measure of the aggregated grades in seven subjects including English, Xhosa, mathematics, history, science, geography and agricultural science. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that for low SES students there were positive relationships between parental incomes and academic achievement for both male and female students. However, research evidence from Taiwan suggests that family influence on children‘s academic performance is more complicated than that suggested by many SES-achievement studies. For example, Lai (1991) took a broader approach to family variables by considering both static and dynamic aspects of family and parental contributions. Using a sample of 440 sixth grade students, the research explored a model of relationships between parents‘ attributions, educational expectations and learning-supportive parental behaviours and children‘s achievement in mathematics and reading. Data were collected by questionnaire surveys, and special tests were administered to measure children‘s mathematics and reading and IQ scores. Children‘s mathematics and reading achievements were strongly influenced by IQ, followed by parental expectations. Analyses of the variables related to attributions showed that effort was the most important reason for academic performance which was also related to father‘s educational qualifications: the higher the educational level of fathers, more effort they expected of their children.
3.3.4.5 SES and academic achievement in Bangladesh There has not been much work on SES-achievement relationships in Bangladesh. Khan (1999) studied 47 university students in order to understand the relationships between higher education and SES. The preliminary findings of the survey showed that to a great extent access to tertiary education was restricted to a specific income group. While Khan was interested in higher education, Maitra (2003) focused on all levels of education in relation to family SES. Using the Matlab Health and Socio-economic Survey (MHSS) data of 10,906 individuals from 4538 72
households, he examined the current enrolment status of children aged 6-12 and the highest grade achieved for persons aged 13-24. Results showed that there were no gender differences in enrolment status. However, grade achievement was higher for females than males. The second important finding of the study was that an increase in parental income resulted in higher educational attainment for children: For example, a 100 taka increase in per adult household expenditure increases the probability of attaining post secondary schooling by 37 percentage points for boys and 26.5 percentage points for girls. (Maitra, 2003, p. 150)
Finally, parental education had a positive and significant impact on children's educational attainment, and mother's education appeared to have stronger effect on males‘ educational attainment than father‘s education. This is probably because in Bangladesh, although there has been some progress in women‘s education and employment, mothers are still viewed as ‗homemakers‘, who also contribute to their children‘s literacy development and learning at home (see Asadullah, 2008). Khandker (1996) also found that household factors played an important role in determining children‘s school performance. Parental education was crucial for school participation and attainment for both males and females, and mother‘s education had a greater effect than father‘s on females‘ school performance and attainment. Khandker generated these findings in his evaluation of the outcomes of the World Bank- and Bangladesh Government-funded intervention programs5 for disadvantaged groups in rural areas. The relationships between family factors and academic achievement involve the question of educational inequality which was investigated by Chowdhury, Nath and Choudhury (2003). The researchers concluded that although there have been improvements in the education of the disadvantaged groups as a result of positive discriminatory action (for example, implementing the Food for Education Program to bring poor children to school), these groups still lagged behind their advantaged counterparts in Bangladesh. These Bangladeshi studies, like the SES studies elsewhere, show the importance of students‘ family/social backgrounds. However, these studies mostly concern themselves with educational attainment and not achievement. Furthermore, these studies focus on education in general, and none of them shed light on English achievement. Finally, although Bangladeshi researchers have considered a range of family variables, none of them have viewed these family factors in the light of Bourdieu‘s theories of capital and habitus. 5
These programs include the General Education Project (GEP), the Food For Education (FFE) and the Female Secondary School Assistance Program (FSSAP). While GEP and FFE aim at increasing school efficiency and improving children‘s access to primary schools, FSSAP aims at reducing ‗the disparity between boys and girls in access to secondary education‘ (Khandker, 1996, p. 2). See Khandker (1996), Chowdhury et al., (2003) and Raynor (2005) for more details on these programs and their outcomes.
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3.3.4.6 Summarising SES studies SES-achievement studies, both quantitative and qualitative, conducted in developed as well as developing nations, have generated inconclusive findings. This is at least partly due to the fact that educational achievement itself is highly complex (Papanastasiou, 2002), a ‗black box‘, as Borghans and Heijke (2005) have observed, which becomes further complicated because of the contextual parameters on the one hand and the methodological choices that researchers make on the other. Research insights from New Zealand suggest that the problematic of the SES-achievement relationship can be attributed to disciplinary perspectives. Nicholson and Galliene (1995) found differences in reading levels of secondary schools located in ‗Struggletown‘ and ‗Middletown‘ – two areas of low socio-economic and middle-class backgrounds in Auckland. Although the social class backgrounds of the learners were implicated in the findings, the researchers‘ recommendations focused narrowly on reading instruction in the classroom, without reference to social class issues. Thrupp (1997) criticised Nicholson and Galliene (1995) because of the latter‘s disregard for local and international research on differential academic performance of students based on social backgrounds. In response, Nicholson (1997) argued that the different views held by Thrupp and himself were due to their disciplinary backgrounds: while Thrupp‘s critique was from a sociological perspective, Nicholson‘s research was located in psychology: First, I don‘t agree that social class disparities in reading achievement are a social problem. They are an instructional problem. Second, I don‘t agree that the solution to social class reading disparities is a political one. (Nicholson, 1997, p. 105)
This disciplinary divide shows that while social or developmental psychology emphasises individual learner characteristics, the sociology of education emphasises social and structural questions in explanations of differential educational performance. The studies reviewed in this section provide a substantial basis for some of the arguments of the present study. SES studies have typically used achievement in mathematics and science as the outcome variable. Reading achievement has also been used, although less frequently (e.g., Yang & Gustafsson, 2004), but this is typically in L1 settings. Academic achievement in a few S/FLs such as Spanish and French has also served as the dependent variable (see Simmons & Alexander, 1978). In addition to Cherian (1991), Nicholson and Galliene (1995) and Liando (2007), as previously reviewed, used learners‘ English achievement as the dependent variable. Despite their mixed findings, SES studies suggest that learners‘ family/social backgrounds do matter, and that these factors should be taken into account in academic achievement research. However, these studies consider only selected subsets of the total influence coming from 74
family/social backgrounds (see Gonzalez, 2001). That is why some researchers (e.g., Marjoribanks, 2002; Yang & Gustafsson, 2004) call for considering SES as multidimensional by including economic, cultural as well as social aspects of family/social backgrounds. More crucially, SES studies do not consider individual learner characteristics. Therefore, it is necessary to go beyond SES and investigate other non-economic features of family and individual learner characteristics to understand relationships between students‘ social backgrounds and their academic achievement.
3.3.5 Academic achievement vis-à-vis capital and habitus 3.3.5.1 Cultural capital and achievement Research has found non-economic factors to be more important than economic factors in their impact on academic achievement. For instance, in their study of the relationships between SES and reading achievement in 23 countries, Yang and Gustafsson (2004, p. 279) conclude: ‗The results thus show the cultural aspects of home background to be more important than the economic aspects in accounting for individual differences in reading achievement‘. In this cross-national study, cultural refers to cultural and educational resources at home. In addition, family cultural values, educational and occupational aspirations and expectations, parental roles and involvement have been found to be important for school performance of Asian students in Western countries (Archer & Francis, 2006; Li, 2004, 2007; Malik, 1998). However, these cultural resources do not constitute class-rooted elitist cultural practices (see Section 3.3.1), and are not cultural capital in the traditional sense. The studies reviewed in this section demonstrate that the conceptualisation of cultural capital as an elitist cultural activity is not universally applicable; therefore, cultural capital needs to be operationalised with reference to context-specific cultural practices and educational resources. Despite variations in the meaning of cultural capital (Lamont & Lareau, 1988), a good portion of research in the United States applies the concept in the elitist sense of exclusionary cultural practices. DiMaggio (1982) and DiMaggio and Mohr (1985) followed this definition, according to which cultural capital consists of those aspects of elite culture such as familiarity with art, music and literature that are inculcated outside the school but are considered important for school success (DiMaggio, 1982). This definition of cultural capital is relevant to France, where high cultural assets play a major role in the definition of the middle class, especially professionals working in the public sector, and of ‗good schooling‘ (Van Zanten, 2003, p. 116). DiMaggio‘s (1982) regression analyses of the Project Talent data confirmed that cultural capital was positively associated with high school students‘ self-reported grades in English, history and social studies. In a later study, DiMaggio and Mohr (1985) also found similar associations between cultural capital and
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every outcome measure including educational attainment, college attendance, college completion, graduate education and marital selection. Gender was also found to mediate the relationships between family background and cultural capital: while cultural capital was associated with grade achievement of daughters of highly educated parents, it had more impact on the grades of sons of parents with high school or lower levels of education (DiMaggio, 1982). This led the researcher to ‗suggest that cultural capital is less strongly tied to parental background traits than Bourdieu‘s theory or similar discussions of class and culture in the United States would predict‘ (p. 199). Bourdieu (1977; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990) showed that in France cultural capital was the mechanism through which cultural reproduction was effected: the capital helped children of high-status families to excel in education which, in turn, contributed to maintaining their class positions (see also Katsillis & Rubinson, 1990, p. 270). Van Zanten (2003, p. 117) argues that because of their higher volume of cultural capital, middle class professional parents in France are able ‗to compensate for the relatively poor quality of teaching in local schools by helping children at home and taking them to museums, to theatres and cinemas and other cultural activities‘. Cultural capital in the sense of children‘s socialisation into high-status cultural activities is found to account for the narrowing gap in Black-White educational attainment in the US (Kalmijn & Kraaykamp, 1996). These researchers contend that given the link between parental cultural capital and schooling, cultural capital ‗may serve as a route to upward mobility for less privileged groups [Blacks] in society‘ (p. 33). However, the study is subject to methodological weaknesses which undermine this optimism. The fact that there was a substantial increase in both parental cultural capital and schooling in the 20th century does not mean that these trends were causally linked. In addition, the study omits crucial variables such as parental occupation and income as well as academic ability (Kingston, 2001). The weaknesses of the Kalmijn and Kraaykamp (1996) study can be shown by referring to Roscigno and Ainsworth-Darnell (1999), which also investigates relationships between cultural capital and academic achievement in the context of race and ethnicity. These researchers used two waves of the NELS (National Education Longitudinal Study) data. They operationalised cultural capital as cultural trips to museums and cultural lessons in art, music and dance. In addition, they included household educational resources (e.g., newspapers, books, dictionaries and computers). Results of their regression analyses show that: […] cultural and educational resources and racial gaps in these attributes vary significantly as a function of family background and have strong and positive effects on both GPAs and standardised achievement. (Roscigno & Ainsworth-Darnell, 1999, p. 171)
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Contrary to the ‗naïve‘ optimism in Kalmijn and Kraaykamp (1996), these researchers show that ‗Black and low-SES students receive less return for cultural trips and educational resources than do their [W]hite and higher-SES counterparts‘ (p. 171). They also found that these resources had only a small mediating effect on the Black-White achievement gap. Katsillis and Rubinson (1990) showed that in Greece students‘ cultural capital was determined by their fathers‘ socio-economic statuses. However, in the Greek context it is student ability and effort, rather than cultural capital, that accounted for student achievement. Similarly, Kingston‘s (2001) review of studies in the US shows that cultural capital, defined as exclusionary class-bound practices, does not substantially explain relationships between social advantage and schooling outcomes. The usefulness of the concept of cultural capital in the elitist sense is also questioned by Dumais (2002) on the basis of her own empirical work. She found that females participated more in high cultural activities, and that this participation was more related to their GPAs than those of the males, which corroborate the findings in DiMaggio (1982). However, when other measures such as ability, SES and habitus were taken into account, the gender differences disappeared. The overall findings of the study showed that: Inherent ability is the dominant factor in influencing a student‘s grades, followed by a student‘s habitus and socioeconomic background. Cultural capital plays a lesser role overall, and at times, plays no role for boys. (Dumais, 2002, p. 59)
Based on such findings, the study suggests that: In the United States […] it may not be so much whether one participates in cultural activities, but whether one has the habitus that leads one to expect an upper-white-collar career, that affects educational success and, in the case of social class, perpetuates the existing stratification structure. (Dumais, 2002, p. 57)
Consequently, habitus was more important than cultural capital in explaining educational success in the US (see Section 3.3.5.3). Compared to the narrow view of cultural capital underpinning the research reviewed so far, Sullivan (2000, 2001) adopted a range of sub-components of cultural capital, and examined its effect on pupils‘ GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) performance in the UK. Her measures of cultural capital included activities (reading, viewing television, listening to music and participation in public culture), cultural knowledge and language competence. She found that cultural capital was transmitted within the family, which had a significant effect on students‘ GCSE performance. However, she also found that cultural capital was only partially responsible for the social class advantage in educational attainment. 77
In their ethnographic study of a Latino bilingual school in the United States, Monkman, Ronald and Theramene (2005) argued that: Social and cultural capital reflect social relationships, cultural practices, and knowledge that are used to gain social and economic benefit. Social and cultural capital are recognized and defined differently depending on context. (p. 7)
These researchers suggest that the forms of capital should not have the same measures everywhere. While they adhere to Bourdieu‘s concept of cultural capital in different states (e.g., embodied, objectified and institutionalised, see Section 3.3.1), they take educational equipment, cultural practices and knowledge as forms of cultural capital. Consequently, they move far away from DiMaggio (1982) and Dumais (2002), who used cultural capital to mean participation in elite cultural activities. Monkman et al. (2005) also argue that social capital (in the sense of network connections for gaining extra-familial benefits) and cultural capital are interrelated: ‗Cultural capital can be thought of as the substance that is transmitted via the social ties that are enacted as social capital‘ (p. 26). They were thus following the work of Lareau (1987, 1989) and Lareau and Horvat (1999), who used social and cultural capital as mediating family-school relationships for different social groups: Generally, the evidence demonstrates that the level of parental involvement is linked to the class position of the parents and to the social and cultural resources that social class yields in American society. (Lareau, 1987, p. 81)
Assuming that the francocentric concept would be irrelevant to Dutch society, De Graaf, De Graaf and Kraaykamp (2000) modify the operationalisation of cultural capital as elitist cultural participation to refer to parental reading behaviours: In the Netherlands, children seem to benefit more from parents‘ linguistic and cognitive skills, as measured by the scale of reading behaviour, than from their parents‘ participation in highbrow cultural activities. (De Graff et al., 2000, p. 105)
The researchers concluded that in the Netherlands cultural capital measured by parental reading was more important than financial resources, because education is largely free of charge and educational inequalities in the society have been reduced considerably over the last few decades. Thus, although cultural capital as an elitist cultural activity dominates empirical work, its relationships with academic success have not been substantially or consistently validated. In her review of studies on cultural capital, Sullivan (2002, p. 162) concludes, ‗varied operationalizations of the concept of cultural capital have led to varied results in the empirical work in the field‘, and 78
‗that participation in formal or ‗beaux arts‘ culture is irrelevant to educational success‘. Therefore, the concept of cultural capital should be isolated from the French context, and its operationalisation should follow locally relevant educational resources and measures. Some studies on cultural capital, as reviewed in this section, have already marked this shift away from high cultural activity to contextually important educational resources. In the same vein, Attewell and Battle (1999) examined the effects of possessing home computers on eighth graders‘ performance in mathematics, reading and self-reported school grades after controlling for a large number of variables including family size, SES, regional location and ethnicity. They found that there were positive effects of home computers on eighth graders‘ academic achievement. The effects were ‗larger for high-SES students, smaller for girls than boys, and smaller for minorities‘ (p. 8). They also observe that: […] the average advantage that those with a home computer enjoy in terms of math and reading scores is of roughly the same order of magnitude as that observed for several measures of cultural and social capital: It is roughly equivalent to taking cultural classes, going to museums, knowing parents of one‘s children‘s friends. (Attewell & Battle, 1999, p. 8)
Computers, books and newspapers are also used as variables to understand academic achievement in Spanish in the Basque Autonomous Community (BAC), although there is no explicit reference to cultural capital (Santiago et al., 2008). The researchers included these variables in their measures of SES along with parental education, occupation and income. This broader measure of cultural resources was positively associated with Spanish proficiency attainment. Although research on social and cultural capital and academic achievement is minimal in developing nations (Buchmann, 2002), the existing studies have used different measures of cultural capital. For instance, Buchmann used ‗shadow education‘, which refers to educational activities that children undertake outside school to enhance their educational performance as a measure of cultural capital, and examined its impact on grade repetition and academic performance in Kenya. She found positive effects of shadow education on both measures of educational performance. Other measures of cultural capital such as languages spoken at home and mothers‘ reading habits were also found to have a positive influence on grade repetition. The different operationalisations of cultural capital demonstrated by the studies reviewed in this section have made the usefulness of the concept debatable (Barone, 2006). Acknowledging this debate, Barone used two measures of the concept in her analysis of the PISA data for 25 OECD countries. These included cultural communication and cultural possession (‗The former refers to the frequency of the conversations between parents and children on cultural issues, while the latter refers to the availability of cultural objects at home‘, p. 1045). While cultural capital was associated 79
with reading achievement in all 25 countries, the researcher argued that cultural capital was not adequate to explain children‘s academic achievement. She argued for taking two more factors into consideration – children‘s occupational aspirations and family economic resources. Her analysis points to the need for a simultaneous investigation of economic capital, cultural capital and habitus, which is the strategy followed in the present research (see Section 3.5.3).
3.3.5.2 Social capital and academic outcomes The present study uses social capital in the sense of parent involvement in children‘s education (see Chapter 1). As further discussed in Chapter 4, this involvement refers to parent-child educational relations at home; keeping contact with school regarding children‘s educational performance and progress; and collecting resources from community to support their children‘s education. There has been some debate on the concept of social capital since it was adopted in educational stratification research in the 1980s (Dijkstra & Peschar, 2002). In particular, there are controversies regarding the value and originality of the concept, and its different meanings and operationalisations. On the other hand, there is a huge literature on parental involvement, both at home and school, in children‘s education (see Driessen et al., 2005; Henderson & Mapp, 2002; Kellaghan et al., 1993; Kim & Schneider, 2005; Mattingly et al., 2002; McNeal, 1999). Generally, parental involvement has been found to be associated with higher academic achievement of students (see Marjoribanks, 2005b). Explanation for this association refers to ‗what parents do at home, rather than what their home status is‘ (Kellaghan et al., 1993, p. xiii). Nevertheless, studies on parent involvement have produced inconsistent findings (McNeal, 1999, p. 118). While increased parental involvement is shown to influence cognitive and social functioning of children (Henderson & Mapp, 2002), there is insufficient empirical basis for the claim that parental involvement can be an effective means to improve children‘s achievement, or to change behaviours of parents, teachers and pupils (Mattingly et al., 2002). Importantly, studies suggest that the extent to which parents can participate in their children‘s education at home and school actually depends on family SES and other resources available to them (Brantlinger, 1993; Carnoy & Marshall, 2005; Lareau, 1987, 1989; McNeal, 1999). Social capital in the sense of parental involvement has been used in research to measure its effects on cognitive as well as behavioural outcomes (McNeal, 1999). McNeal‘s analysis of the NELS data showed that parental involvement was not strongly associated with science achievement, although some aspects of involvement such as parent-child discussion and parents‘ participation in parent-teacher organisations received strong support. However, parent involvement was more strongly related to behavioural outcomes such as truancy and dropping out of school: 80
[that] social capital, at least when conceptualised as various elements of parent involvement, consistently affects behavioural outcomes of whites, has a more limited effect for blacks, and has virtually no effect for Hispanics‘ or Asians‘ academic or behavioural outcomes. (McNeal, 1999, p. 131)
Social capital is also conceptualised as the alignment of learner educational ambitions and parental expectations to examine its effects on 1) postsecondary educational transition, and 2) transition into selected colleges (Kim & Schneider, 2005). Analyses of the NELS 1988-94 data showed that both aligned ambitions and aligned actions of students and parents had consistent effects on both the transition and the selection of the colleges attended, although the benefits were clearer in case of college selection. The researchers note that students whose parents frequently discussed academic issues with their children were more likely to go to either a two-year or a four-year college. Finally, social capital refers to beyond the family communal resources in research in South America (Carnoy & Marshall, 2005). This research explains the higher performance in mathematics and Spanish of the Cuban third and fourth graders‘ than their peers in six other Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico). While much of the difference in student performance remains unexplained, the researchers argue that Cuba‘s higher achievement can be attributed to what they call ‗collective social capital‘ in Cuba rather than to family or school resources. They extend Coleman‘s (1988) concept of social capital to include ‗state-generated social capital‘. As a public good, this capital ensures that low SES families have access to minimum resources and are not impelled to engage their children in child labour when they are supposed to be at school.
3.3.5.3 Habitus and academic achievement Compared to cultural and social capital, the concept of habitus is more contested (Reay, 2004; Sullivan, 2002), and has received less empirical attention. This could be because, as previously discussed, the term is seen as being too ill-defined to be empirically helpful: […] habitus is a concept with some intuitive plausibility, but is at once too all-inclusive and too vacuous to be of any use to empirical researchers. (Sullivan, 2002, p. 183)
Sullivan is more critical of habitus than of cultural capital. She denies any value to the concept, arguing that the ‗notion is completely deterministic, leaving no place for individual agency or even individual consciousness‘ (p. 152). However, many scholars do not see habitus as overly deterministic (e.g., Mills, 2008; Reay, 2004), or empirically meaningless. Moreover, some studies have applied the concept to understanding academic achievement. For instance, McLeod‘s (2000) 81
longitudinal study of school students in Australia showed the relevance of the concept to understanding how discursive practices of schools shaped the students‘ individual biographies as well as their future aspirations. She suggests that habitus is not static; it is modified as the students experienced different influences at school (Atkin, 2000; Reay, 2004). The study by Dumais (2002), as previously reviewed, is very important because it is the first study, as the researcher notes, to operationalise habitus in order to verify its role in educational performance, and habitus is found to be positively associated with grade achievement. Dumais (2002) defines habitus as learners‘ occupational aspirations. The importance of occupational aspirations is also verified by Barone‘s (2006) study (previously reviewed). However, using a single measure to represent habitus can be argued to be unhelpfully narrow. Such a narrow operationalisation of habitus needs to be extended to include personal, affective and psychological factors together with educational and occupational aspirations. The study by Nora (2004) on the impact of different dimensions of ‗psychosocial factors‘ on minority and non-minority students‘ choice of college and on measures of student satisfaction in the US is useful for understanding a broader operationalisation of habitus and cultural capital. Nora identifies eight underlying dimensions of habitus, which include personal acceptance, personal and social fit, academic interests, early influences, approval by others, family encouragement, intuition and family expectation. Multiple regression analysis shows that these habitus factors were predictive of the measures of student satisfaction such as institutional commitment, satisfaction with academic experiences, environmental satisfaction and satisfaction with expected expenses.
3.3.5.4 Summary of research on capital and habitus There has, then, been considerable work on forms of capital and their impact on educational outcomes. However, such work has yet to be extended to developing countries. Moreover, even though social or cultural capital may not be isolated from other forms of capital, very few studies have considered all these forms simultaneously. Coleman (1988) noted that family background was not a single entity; it is ‗analytically separable into at least three different components: financial capital, human capital, and social capital‘ (p. 109). Wong (1998) identified four components of the multidimensional environment of the family such as human capital, financial capital, social capital and cultural capital. He investigated the relative weights of all these types of capital on children‘s educational attainment in socialist Czechoslovakia. Analysing data from the 1984 Social and Class Structure of Czechoslovakia Survey, he found that all forms of capital were significantly associated with children‘s educational attainment. As the review of relevant literature in this chapter shows, not many studies have examined the effects of economic, cultural and social capital taken together.
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Studies on forms of capital mark a significant improvement on SES studies: the former suggest why or how family or social backgrounds are correlated with educational achievement. Nonetheless, many of these studies are open to the typical weaknesses of SES studies: they have not given much attention to individual and affective characteristics of learners. Only Dumais (2002) and Nora (2004) have considered habitus along with capital. Among other researchers, Nash (2002b, 2005) and Marjoribanks (2006) have emphasised the role of habitus. Both distinguish cognitive habitus from habitus in general. While habitus includes both affective and cognitive properties, cognitive habitus refers to ‗those active dispositions, the skills dedicated to classifying, remembering, concept formation, problem-solving, and so on, that must be at the heart of a productive sociology of cognitive development‘ (Nash, 2005, p. 604). Nash argues for a combined sociological and psychological approach to the explanation of social class differences in educational achievement. He emphasised the concept of cognitive habitus to ‗defend it against those currently popular explanations of social disparities in educational achievement that dismiss any mention of social differences in cognitive ability as a reference to deficit theory‘ (p. 600). Whereas Nash‘s arguments for cognitive habitus are conceptual, Marjoribanks (2006) gives it empirical validity through his longitudinal survey of Australian adolescents. Operationalised as the composite measure of academic achievement and cognitive attitudes towards school, cognitive habitus was found to affect adolescents‘ educational attainment when combined with learning environments and affective outcomes of schooling. It also mediated relationships between these two independent variables and academic attainment. In a previous study, Marjoribanks (2005a) also showed that family background and adolescents‘ educational aspirations (habitus) combined to have strong associations with their educational attainment. While Marjoribanks (2005a, 2006) and Nash (2002b, 2005) showed the importance of cognitive habitus, Farkas et al. (1990) showed that teachers at school followed both cognitive and non-cognitive (e.g., teachers‘ perceptions of students‘ work habits) criteria to assign grades to students. The present study refers to both cognitive and affective dimensions in its operationalisation of habitus (see Chapter 5). The literature review also shows that not many studies have simultaneously investigated the effects of capital and habitus on scholastic outcomes. The concept of social biography is nested in this empirical gap. The concept enables the examination of the simultaneous effects of different forms of capital as well as of habitus on learners‘ academic achievement in English. In addition to Bourdieu, Marjoribanks (2002, 2005b, 2006), DuBois (2001), Considine and Zappalà (2002) and Khayyer and DeLacey (1994) call for a broader conceptualisation of family/social influence, which caters for family social contexts, family structures, social and cultural capital and learner characteristics (habitus). Similarly, Archer and Francis (2006) consider family capital (economic,
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social and cultural) and Chinese ‗diasporic habitus‘ to explain academic success of Chinese students in the UK. The present study therefore identifies the following research questions to guide the investigation of learners‘ family educational capital and their habitus which constitute their social biographies:
What are the relationships between different aspects of economic capital, social capital, cultural capital and the students‘ academic achievement in English?
What is the relationship between learner habitus and English achievement?
How are family capital-achievement relationships perceived by different agents including students, parents and English teachers and head teachers?
How do the students‘ English learning experience and academic achievement in English relate to their social biographies?
3.4 Gender and academic achievement Relationships between gender and academic achievement are, as Burgess et al. (2004, p. 211) note, ‗complex and multi-faceted, often largely dependent on local context and conditions‘. Some of these conditions include the age of students – elementary school children or high school students, the extent of the assessment focus – global GPA or scores for individual subjects, as well as school subjects – scientific/technical or non-technical/humanities. Such contingency and complexity notwithstanding, there have been some gendered patterns in educational achievement: Net of race and social class, on average, women do better in school and attain more education than do men; men‘s achievement and attainment patterns are somewhat bimodal in that men are more likely than women to be both academic stars and school failures; and women are less likely than are men to excel in mathematics, science, and technical fields, while men are less likely to shine in reading, writing, social sciences, and humanities. (Mickelson, 2003, p. 373)
While the literature attests to these general patterns, more recent studies tend to show the gender gap in favour of women. For example, Burgess et al. (2004, p. 227) show ‗the sheer consistency of th[e] gender gap, across both the attainment and the ability distribution, on aggregate and at subject level, with regard to both raw outcomes and value added‘. This gap is found to be more salient at subject levels: while males and females still obtain similar results in mathematics and science, females remarkably outperform males in English (p. 227). Similarly, a gender gap in favour of females is reported in New Zealand in a birth cohort of over 1000 children:
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The findings of the study show that from middle childhood up to the age of 18 years males were at a small but consistent educational disadvantage: boys tended to perform less well on standardized tests of achievement including reading, mathematics and scholastic ability; they were more frequently rated by teachers as performing poorly in the areas of reading, written expression, spelling and mathematics and, at age 18, males were more often reading delayed, had lower success rates in School Certificate examinations and more often left school without educational qualifications. (Fergusson & Horwood, 1997, p. 92)
These findings are important particularly in New Zealand, where it was argued that females were ‗disadvantaged‘ in education (Jones & Jacka, 1995). However, the study was conducted from a psychological perspective, which attributed achievement to students‘ classroom behaviours: The association between gender and academic achievement found in this study appears to be a special case of a more general tendency for children prone to disruptive and inattentive classroom behaviour to be at increased risks of educational underachievement. (Fergusson & Horwood, 1997, p. 93)
So there was no reference to students‘ social background issues. In Canada, on the other hand, Hunter, Cambell and Randhawa (2005) attributed female-male gaps in speaking and listening performance to factors beyond classroom behaviours. Using three large samples of students in the fifth, eighth and eleventh grades, who were studying the Canadian English language arts curriculum, they found that the participants differed significantly in their individual listening skills, group language production, and self-efficacy: Adolescent males were disadvantaged by the time they reached high school in their estimation of the importance of listening and speaking skills, in their self-perception of linguistic effectiveness, in the way they made meaning with others, in oral production, and in discussing their language assignments with others, notwithstanding improved self-perceptions as listeners. (Hunter et al., 2005, pp. 347-348)
The literature provides various arguments/hypotheses for the gender gap. In general, male students‘ underperformance is related to their culture, which is less study oriented than that of female students (Van Houtte, 2004a, 2004b). Laddism or laddish attitudes and behaviours associated with young men who have an absorbed interest in sport, drinking and sex, and lack of interest in the values of education and social principles, is the label commonly used for this underperforming culture (Francis & Archer, 2005). The ethnographic study of Carr and Pauwels (2006) with high school students in Australia shows gendered differences in their attitudes towards foreign languages and so their findings attest to the concept of laddism. Language is constructed by male students as a 85
feminine pursuit, unsuitable for males and their sense of masculinity. Gendered discourses about languages as well as women‘s social positions also relate to English learning experiences of Japanese women. Kobayashi (2002) shows that socio-structural issues such as the feminisation of English, women‘s marginalised position, English as a tool for their liberation and lack of constraints on women travelling overseas, encourage them to have more positive attitudes towards English and, subsequently, to attain higher proficiency in English than their male counterparts. Explanations supporting differences in male and female students‘ academic culture can take other forms as well. For instance, DiMaggio (1982) and Dumais (2002) found that females participated more in high cultural activities which led to their higher academic performance in school in the US. At a more practical level, there are differences in males‘ and females‘ study habits at home, which may account for the latter‘s higher educational achievement: Specifically, compared with boys, girls reported more frequently working to manage their workspace, budget time, and monitor and control emotions. Similarly, girls reported that they spent more time doing homework and were less likely to come to class without homework. In addition, girls considered homework less boring than boys. (Xu, 2006, p.85)
Furthermore, female students‘ higher achievement is attributed to social expectations of sex-roles and women‘s conformity to such expectations. As Mickelson (2003, p. 374) notes, ‗women do well in school because they are socialised to comply with directives from authority figures like parents and teachers‘. While gender gaps in educational performance seem to be widening in favour of women owing to the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraphs, Connolly (2006) downplays gender effects in the context of GCSE attainment in the UK: While gender does tend to exert an influence on GCSE attainment such that boys in general tend to achieve less than girls, these differences are relatively small and tend to be overshadowed by the effects of social class and ethnicity. (Connolly, 2006, p. 14)
In the USA, conversely, the gender gap is marked even within the same ethnic and/or SES group. For example, Black females from low SES consistently outperformed Black males from similar SES backgrounds (Hubbard, 2005; Wheat, 1997). In the context of Bangladesh, the small amount of empirical work that has considered gender has produced inconclusive findings. For instance, Zaman (1999) found no differences in male and female students‘ attitudes or in their proficiency achievement in English. Maitra (2003), on the other hand, found significant differences in the achievement of males and females (see p. 73). Raynor (2005) contends that while positive discriminatory steps in favour of females, particularly 86
the Female Stipend Program (FSP) which provides financial support to female students in rural Bangladesh, have increased their enrolment in secondary schools, they still lag behind males in terms of academic achievement. In addition, Raynor notes, female students in rural areas still have lower pass rates. They also enter school-leaving examinations (SSC) in lower proportions than males do. In sum, research on gender and academic achievement has produced inconclusive findings, although the dominant trend suggests a widening gap in favour of women, particularly in language learning. In addition, there has been little work on gender and academic achievement in the context of learners‘ family educational capital and habitus. Therefore, the research question that the present study investigates is:
How does gender relate to family capital, habitus and academic achievement in English?
3.5 Conclusion This chapter has constructed the theoretical and empirical basis for the study of learners‘ social biographies and English achievement through a critical review of the relevant literature. It has justified the concept of social biography and the research questions by demonstrating that not much work has simultaneously examined forms of capital and habitus, which constitute learners‘ social biographies, in relation to academic achievement. The review of studies in the chapter also justifies the research design of the study (see Chapters 1 and 4). As has been shown in the review, not many studies have used measures of English achievement as their dependent variable. It is expected that using learners‘ academic achievement in English in relation to their social backgrounds will shed light on the mixed findings of social background and achievement studies reported in the literature. Moreover, existing research on the subject has favoured quantitative methodologies, while qualitative methodologies have received much less attention. More crucially, not many studies have combined these two methodologies in order to draw empirical insights into the relationships between learners‘ social biographies and their English learning outcomes. These research design and methodological issues are discussed in Chapter 4.
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Chapter 4 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY 4.1 Introduction This chapter discusses the design of the study with reference to epistemological and methodological issues. The discussion results in a research design that is soundly based and appropriate for the study of learners‘ social biographies and English achievement on the one hand, and sensitive to theoretical issues and contextual parameters on the other. The chapter is divided into four sections. The first discusses epistemological issues and introduces the mixed methods approach used in this thesis. The second describes the data collection instruments and different variables and how they are measured. The third is procedural, and describes how the different data for the study were collected from the research site, together with ethical and contextual issues influencing the data collection process and outcome. The last section presents a brief outline of data analysis techniques guiding the analyses of the quantitative (Chapter 6) and qualitative data (Chapter 7).
4.2 Philosophical and theoretical issues of research design 4.2.1 Research paradigms Methodology, in the present research, is understood as ‗a set of techniques or procedures designed to produce a certain kind of knowledge‘ (Greckhamer & Koro-Ljungberg, 2005, p. 732). As such, methodology denotes certain views about what constitutes knowledge or reality and how such reality can be known. As Crotty (1998, p. 2) argues, ‗our choice and particular use of methodology and methods is something that reaches into the assumptions about reality that we bring to our work‘. Hence it is relevant to introduce the concept of paradigm (Denscombe, 2008; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Kuhn, 1962), which embodies these philosophical positions about reality. ‗Paradigms are models of knowledge building that provide templates for studying social reality. They consist of the basic concepts and ideas by which a given discipline views the world‘ (Hesse-Biber & Leavy, 2008, p. 2). The major constituents of a paradigm are ontology and epistemology (Creswell, 2009). Ontology refers to the nature of reality implied (single and objective versus multiple and subjective), while epistemology refers to the way that reality can be understood (positivism versus constructivism). Positivism, which underpins quantitative research, was the dominant paradigm in the first three quarters of the 20th century (Creswell, 2009). In broad terms, it is characterised by realism, 88
objectivity, causal explanations and universal truth (Crotty, 1998; Greene, Kreider & Mayer, 2005; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Phillips & Burbules, 2000; Teddlie et al., 2008). Constructivism, on the other hand, emphasises the ‗interpretive, value-laden, contextual and contingent nature of social knowledge‘ (Greene et al., 2005, p. 274), and is generally identified with qualitative research. The dichotomous assumptions underlying the quantitative and qualitative (quan-qual)6 inquiries resulted in ‗paradigm wars‘ or the ‗great qualitative-quantitative debate‘ in the latter part of the twentieth century (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007; Denscombe, 2008; Greene, 2007; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004; Kelle, 2001; Scott, 2007; Teddlie et al., 2008; Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2003). This epistemic divide has been prominent in social and educational research over the last few decades (see Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2003 for details). Different researchers have reacted to the paradigms at war in different ways. The ‗purist‘ views suggest that worldviews underpinning positivist and constructivist philosophies are incompatible, and so paradigmatic boundaries should not be crossed (the incompatibility thesis: Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2003). These positions imply that research methods are aligned with particular worldviews, and since those views are incompatible, methods can and should never be mixed (Teddlie et al., 2008). The compatibility thesis, on the other hand, posits that methods are not necessarily tied to particular worldviews, and are amenable to mixing at different stages of the research process. The popularity of mixed methods research over the last two decades implies that the incompatibility thesis has lost its appeal for many researchers. The compatibility thesis represents the widely held consensus at present.
4.2.2 Mixed methods The mixed methods approach, which is increasingly used in social and educational research, is informed by the new paradigm of pragmatism. Pragmatism does not commit to one system of philosophy; rather it is pluralistic, problem-centred and real-world practice oriented (Creswell, 2009; Greene, 2008). In Chapter 1 the major characteristics of this alternative paradigm were discussed with reference to Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004). Creswell (2009) points out similar characteristics, and emphasises that pragmatism views reality both objectively and subjectively – i.e., both as a given and a construction – and thus it allows researchers to choose freely from methods and techniques that best meet their needs and purposes: ‗pragmatism opens the door to multiple methods, different worldviews, and different assumptions, as well as different forms of data collection and analysis‘ (2009, p. 11).
6
The use of this short form for ‗quantitative and qualitative‘ is established in the mixed methods literature. This form as well as other notations was initiated by Morse (1991) and is now part of mixed methods vocabulary.
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Underpinned by these worldviews, mixed methods research recognises that both qualitative and quantitative approaches are legitimate (Teddlie et al., 2008). It calls, however, for mixing these legitimate approaches, which will ‗result in complementary strengths and nonoverlapping weaknesses‘ (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004, p. 18). As an approach to inquiry, mixed methods research combines or associates both qualitative and quantitative forms. It involves philosophical assumptions, the use of qualitative and quantitative approaches, and the mixing of both approaches in a study. Thus, it is more than simply collecting and analysing both kinds of data; it also involves the use of both approaches in tandem so that the overall strength of a study is greater than either qualitative or quantitative research. (Creswell, 2009, p. 4)
4.2.3 Why mixed methods in the present study? The research problem addressed by the present study concerns the relationships between students‘ social biographies and their English achievement. More specifically, the research questions guiding the study require both quantitative and qualitative data (see p. 14). Therefore, a mixed methods approach, which integrates both types of data, is more likely to generate a full understanding of the study‘s research problem. Epistemologically, the study draws on pragmatism to argue that some realities exist independent of human subjectivity and can be known objectively, while others do not have objective existence, and are constructed by human agents. Consequently, the study does not view the quan-qual approaches as incompatible; rather, both approaches should desirably be used in the same study to create a comprehensive inquiry. This non-rigid and ‗mixed‘ epistemic view underlies the study‘s conceptual model (Figure 3.2) illustrated in Chapter 3. Based on Bourdieu‘s concepts of capital and habitus, the model combines structural properties of learners‘ family social positions (i.e., forms of capital which can be objectively measured) with measures of their attitudes, motivations and dispositions (i.e., habitus, understood by subjective perceptions). The study, therefore, subscribes to the mixed methods approach and its various characteristics. Moreover, the review of studies in SLA and the sociology of education (Chapter 3) shows that the mixed methods approach is not commonly used in either of these fields. Duff (2008, p. 42) argues that ‗studies that effectively combine methods are rather few and far between in applied linguistics […], and there is a need for more, and better, mixed-method studies in the field‘. Similarly, not much research in the sociology of education is based on the mixed methods approach. Researchers in this field rely largely on the quantitative approach, and deal with national multipurpose samples and datasets. Studies not dealing with such datasets usually use surveys for collecting data from large samples in order to carry out various statistical analyses. Using mixed methods for the present research represents an innovative approach. 90
4.2.4 Dimensions of mixed methods The literature on mixed methods has proliferated since its emergence in the 1990s. One consequence of this proliferation is the difficulty in selecting an appropriate mixed methods design for a specific inquiry from a number of potential typologies (Creswell, 2009; Teddlie et al., 2008). Mixed methods typologies identify different types of mixed methods strategies that researchers may use in their proposed mixed methods studies (Creswell, 2009). For instance, Caracelli and Greene (1997) proposed two broad categories of mixed methods research: a) component (concurrent) designs, and b) integrated designs. In component designs ‗the different methods remain discrete through data collection and analysis and […] mixing the methods takes place at the level of the interpretation and inference‘ (Jang et al., 2008, p. 222). In the integrated design, on the other hand, ‗mixing‘ occurs ‗throughout the inquiry from data collection to analytic processes and to interpretation‘ (p. 223). This classification is based on the process of implementing mixed methods designs (Greene, 2008). Creswell (2009) proposes three general mixed methods strategies: sequential mixed methods, concurrent mixed methods and transformative mixed methods. The first two strategies refer to the time of mixing the quan-qual phases, while the transformative ‗procedures are those in which the researcher uses a theoretical lens […] as an overarching perspective within a design that contains both quantitative and qualitative data‘ (Creswell, p. 15). Further, the general typology of research designs proposed by Teddlie and Tashakkori (2006) includes four major types of mixed methods – sequential, concurrent, conversion and fully integrated. Conversion designs call for the transformation of data from one form into another (e.g., qualitative data into quantitative), while a fully integrated design mixes the quan-qual methods at all stages of the study in an interactive manner. All these design types are based on the research process (i.e., how and when the two approaches are integrated in the study). The designs proposed by Creswell and Plano Clark (2007), on the other hand, are based on the goals or purposes of mixing methods. Based on such purposes, they suggest four design types: triangulation, embedded, explanatory and exploratory. A summary of these design types along with the major dimensions of mixed methods research is shown in Table 4.1. The burgeoning literature, then, suggests a number of designs to choose from when planning a mixed methods study. However, research practice is always more complex than theory, and therefore a single prescriptive guide cannot anticipate the parameters of mixed methods designs in actual practice (Greene et al., 2005). Given this, Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004) recommend that researchers should not feel constrained by the a priori designs; rather, they should create their own designs that effectively address their research problems.
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Table 4.1: Mixed methods design types (adapted from Creswell and Plano Clark, 2007, p. 85). Design type Triangulation
Timing Concurrent: quan and qual at the same time
Mixing Merge the data during the interpretation or analysis
Weighting Usually equal
Notation QUAN + QUAL
Embedded
Concurrent or sequential
Embed one type of data within a larger design using the other type of data
Unequal
QUAN(qual) or QUAL(quan)
Explanatory
Sequential: quan followed by qual
Connect the data between the two phases
Usually quantitative
QUANqual
Exploratory
Sequential: qual followed by quan
Connect the data between the two phases
Usually qualitative
QUALquan
A critical review of mixed methods typologies suggests that the design types proposed by Creswell and Plano Clark (2007) are broadly based and, at the same time, less complicated than the other typologies. In addition, their design types demonstrate the underlying rationale for mixing methods, since these are based on, as previously noted, the purposes of mixing methods. Hence their typology is selected as a way of structuring the design and characteristics of the mixed methods followed in the present research. Creswell and Plano Clark (2007) present their design types in three dimensions: a) the time of mixing the quan-qual phases; b) the nature of mixing; and c) the relative weight of the two phases (Table 4.1). Their four design types are comparable to the influential scheme proposed by Greene, Caracelli and Graham (1989). This latter scheme proposed five goals (i.e., design types) for mixing methods: a) triangulation, b) complementarity, c) development, d) initiation, and e) expansion. Triangulation is the first type in both typologies, which requires that ‗the quantitative and qualitative methods be different from one another with respect to their inherent strengths and limitations/biases and that both method types be used to assess the same phenomenon‘ (Greene et al., 1989, p. 266). The functions of complementarity (i.e., using the findings from one method to elaborate or enhance or explain the findings from another method); initiation (i.e., mixing the quanqual phases to resolve contradictions in findings); and expansion (i.e., combining methods to widen the scope of inquiry) can be subsumed within the explanatory and exploratory design types in the Creswell and Plano Clark (2007) typology. The explanatory design type sets the qualitative method to follow the quantitative method. The qualitative findings are used to explain or elaborate or refine the quantitative findings. Therefore, the explanatory design is based on the complementarity and initiation functions. Similarly, the exploratory design which sets forth with the qualitative analysis and ends with a quantitative analysis corresponds to the complementarity as well as the expansion functions of the Greene et al. (1989) scheme. Finally, the development function (i.e., using the 92
results of the first method to select the sample or develop instruments for the other method) is similar to the embedded design, where one method or type of data is used to enhance the method or the interpretation of another method (Plano Clark et al., 2008). In short, although the two typologies use slightly different terminology, they focus on similar purposes of mixing methods. Creswell and Plano Clark‘s (2007) explanatory design is an approximate model for the current research. Using aspects of the Greene et al. (1989) typology further illuminates its mixed methods characteristics. In accordance with the explanatory design, the qualitative phase of the study follows the quantitative phase. Moreover, the qualitative phase explains and sheds lights on the relationships found between different aspects of family capital, habitus and English achievement in the quantitative phase. However, this phase also has some other goals. Importantly, by focusing on the same phenomena (i.e., social biographies and English achievement) at different levels (variables versus individual cases, see p. 147) and from different perspectives (p. 147), the two phases contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the relationships between learners‘ social biographies and their English learning outcomes. In other words, the two phases independently provide only a partial picture of the complex socio-educational phenomena, and it is in the combination of the two methods, perspectives and levels of evidence that a more complete understanding emerges (see Irwin, 2008). In addition to explanation, then, we have complementary and expansive purposes behind the methods integration. Furthermore, development in the sense used by Greene et al. (1989) is achieved by the integration of the two approaches. For instance, the analysis of the students‘ performance in the proficiency test (see Section 4.3.2) guides the selection of the sub-sample for interviews in the qualitative phase. Finally, the present research is also exploratory since it addresses the research problem in a new context, using a theoretical framework from a different field (see Chapters 1 and 3). This exploratory goal is appropriate for developing a deeper understanding of the socio-educational issues embedded in the social context (Chapter 2). To the extent that the study describes socio-educational phenomena in a specific social context (Kyburz-Graber, 2004), it can be called a case study (see p. 16). In sum, although the present study approximates Creswell and Plano Clark‘s (2007) explanatory design, the rationales for combining its two phases also include aspects of complementation, explanation and development. These multiple purposes of mixing inherent in the design point to the impracticality of basing one‘s research design entirely on one of the a priori models discussed in the literature demonstrating Jang et al.‘s (2008, p. 224) point that design options, in reality, are ‗neither exclusive nor singular‘. The impracticality of using a single a priori design type also manifests itself in other dimensions of mixed methods research. Timing or time orientation is an important factor (see Table 4.1), which suggests two possibilities: concurrent design and sequential design. However, it is 93
difficult to decide whether the present study represents a component (concurrent) or a sequential design. In fact, it incorporates characteristics of both. As an illustration, the quan-qual phases remain discrete until the findings of the two phases are integrated at the stage of interpretation (Chapter 8). At the same time, it follows a sequential design in that the quantitative data collection is followed by the qualitative data collection. Like data collection, the interpretation of the quantitative data analysis (Chapter 6) also precedes the qualitative data analysis (Chapter 7). To add to the complexity, the quan-qual phases are also mixed at different points in the research process. For example, although the design of the questionnaire survey is not guided by qualitative interviews or ethnographic fieldwork, designing the instrument was nonetheless informed by the researcher‘s first-hand knowledge and experience of the social, economic and cultural realities of the research context in which the fieldwork would occur (see Chapter 1). Based on this experiential knowledge, the researcher was able to make informed judgments about the aspects of social and cultural capital that were relevant to the participants and their schooling and academic achievement (see Chapter 5). So it can be argued that even in a sequential or component design, the quan-qual phases may interact and influence each other in constructing instruments and collecting data, although this interaction may not constitute a distinct phase or strand of the research. The relationships between the quan-qual samples constitute an important dimension of mixed methods research. Onwuegbuzie and Collins (2007, p. 292) discuss four such relationships – identical (where the same subjects participate in the quan-qual phases); parallel (where the quanqual samples are different but are taken from the same population); nested (where the sample selected for one phase of the study represents a subset of those participating in the other phase); and multilevel (where multiple samples are drawn from different populations). The sampling procedures of the present work discussed later in the chapter show that the quan-qual relationships have the characteristics of nested as well as multilevel models. For instance, the participants of the qualitative interviews are a sub-sample of those participating in the questionnaire survey and the proficiency test. On the other hand, the inclusion of parents, English teachers and head teachers in the qualitative component suggests multilevel relationships because they constitute different samples. The nature of mixing the quan-qual data and the way the two datasets are integrated constitute the second dimension in Creswell and Plano Clark‘s (2007) design types (Table 4.1). Bryman (2007) argues that data integration is a ‗fundamental issue‘ in mixed methods research. Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004) state that in mixed methods research the findings of the quanqual phases must be integrated at some stage. Despite this requirement, the quan-qual data integration appears to be ‗rare‘ in mixed methods research, and is not done to a ‗significant extent‘ (Greene et al., 1989). Bryman (2007) concludes that the practice of not integrating data continues: 94
These findings and comments suggest that mixed methods researchers do not always bring their findings together and that the quantitative and qualitative components are treated as separate domains. (p. 9)
While data integration is rare in practice, the literature suggests a number of frameworks for doing so. For instance, Creswell and Plano Clark (2007) suggest three options for integrating the quan-qual data: merging, embedding and connecting (Table 4.1). Data are merged by ‗comparing and contrasting the quantitative results with the qualitative findings to see whether the two datasets converge and agree with each other. The results can also be interpreted to see whether one set of findings corroborates the other set‘ (Plano Clark et al, 2008, p. 379). In an embedded design the qualitative data can be embedded within the quantitative data, or the latter can be embedded within the former. Incorporating descriptive statistics within a case study design is an example of embedded designs. Finally, researchers connect an initial data collection and analysis in one method with the subsequent data collection in another method. For example, the findings of the quantitative data in the initial phase can be used to select participants for a subsequent qualitative phase. The quan-qual data are connected in this situation (Creswell, 2009). However, it is difficult to distinguish between merging and connecting, since both approaches involve comparing and contrasting data and findings from different phases of mixed methods research. For example, the present study compares and contrasts data on the relationships between different aspects of the students‘ home background characteristics and measures of their English achievement from the quantitative and qualitative phases in order to corroborate these relationships (see Chapter 8). At the same time, connecting is also a relevant process for the present study, because the findings from the two datasets are brought together at the stage of interpretation, which is the most common stage of data integration (Bryman, 2007; Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004). Greene (2008) suggests a number of analytical strategies in her model of mixed methods data integration (Table 4.2). The data integration of the present work involves the strategies of data importation and integrated data display, as well as results synthesis. The analysis of the students‘ test performance data informed the selection of the interview participants (data importation). In Chapter 8, data from multiple sources are integrated and discussed in order to shed light on the research questions (integrated data display and results synthesis).
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Table 4.2: Mixed methods data integration strategies (adapted from Greene, 2008, p. 15). Analysis phase Data transformation
Mixed methods analysis strategy Data transformation, one form to another Data consolidation or merging, multiple data sets into one
Data comparison, looking for patterns
Data importation–using interim results of analyses of one data set to inform the analysis of another data set (e.g., extreme case analysis) Integrated data display–presenting data from multiple sources in one display, thereby enabling cross-method comparison and analyses
Major analyses for inferences and conclusions
Warranted assertion analysis–iteratively reviewing all data for purposes of directly generating inferences Patterns matching Results synthesis
The final dimension of mixed methods research is the relative emphasis given to the quanqual components. Creswell and Plano Clark (2007) suggest that the quantitative phase has more weight in an explanatory design (Table 4.1). However, in the present study it is difficult to decide which phase has more weight. The quantitative phase explores the relationships of different aspects of family capital and habitus with English achievement, taking an analytical perspective; the qualitative phase also explores these relationships, taking a holistic approach. In addition, the latter explains those relationships and expands them by drawing on the parent, English teacher and head teacher perspectives. The two phases are mutually complementary, informative and illuminating (Bryman, 2007). They are approximately of equal weight, which can be described using the notation: QUAN ↔ QUAL (see Creswell, 2009; Morse, 1991). Table 4.3 summarises the mixed methods characteristics of the present research. As can be seen from the table, this study is largely an explanatory design which combines the quan-qual approaches in order to develop an in-depth understanding of the relationships between learners‘ social biographies and their English achievement in the rural Bangladeshi context. The mixed methods approach is adopted at the stage of the research question formulation. Despite some interactions between the two components at some other stages of the research process, they largely remain independent of each other until they are integrated at the stage of interpretation of the findings. The study contains the characteristics of both sequential and concurrent designs. The quan-qual phases are almost of equal weight, and the two data sets are merged and connected at the stage of interpretation.
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Table 4.3: Summary of mixed methods characteristics of the present study. Design types and dimensions in theory Design types
Design types and dimensions as apply to the present study Largely explanatory, but can also be exploratory (see rationale in the next row)
Comments
Rationale for mixing
Complementation, explanation and development
Based on Greene et al. (1989)
Time
Both concurrent and sequential
Nature of mixing
Merging, connecting
Stage of mixing
Formulation of research questions and at other stages of research
Relations between quanqual samples
Nested and multilevel
Relative weight of quanqual phases
Approximately equal
Data integration strategies
Data importation, integrated data display and results synthesis
Based on Creswell & Plano Clark (2007).
Based on Onwuegbuzie & Collins (2007)
Based on Greene (2008)
4.3 Practical issues of research design 4.3.1 Participants and sampling Except for the judges who contributed to the development of habitus and social capital scales (see Chapter 5), all other research participants were drawn from Nadiranga. The participants in the quantitative phase were 228 10th grade students from eight secondary schools in the subdistrict. A sub-sample of 14 students from the survey sample, and small samples of 10 parents, six English teachers and six head teachers participated in the qualitative phase. Schools There are 12 secondary schools in Nadiranga, from which eight schools were selected for the study. Table 4.4 presents a list of the schools, their locations and the sizes of the sub-samples drawn from each school. The selection of the schools was guided by stratified sampling (Onwuegbuzie & Collins, 2007). The criteria included gender of the student population (singe sex, mixed) and location (the subdistrict town or peripheral areas). Two of the 12 schools are located in the small Nadiranga town. One of these is for males and the other is for females. Both these schools were selected based on the two criteria. The other six schools were randomly selected from the remaining 10 schools following the raffle draw technique. The names of the schools were written on small pieces of paper and were left in a plastic jar. The first six names on the pieces of paper picked up one by one were the schools selected for the study.
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Table 4.4: Students and their schools participating in the quantitative phase. School code
School type
BBH BGH BTH FHS NKH SHS TGS THS
Co-education Female Co-education Co-education Co-education Co-education Female Male
Location
Remote Remote Remote Remote Remote Remote Subdistrict town Subdistrict town Total
Total no. of 10th graders (approx.) 35 37 40 33 30 39 130 150 494
Sample sizes Total
Boys
Girls
18 17 21 20 12 24 62 54 228
12 -13 14 06 11 -54 110
06 17 08 06 06 13 62 -118
Student participants in the quantitative phase All 10th grade students attending these schools were potential participants (n = 494) in the study. The researcher visited each of the schools once or twice (depending on how many students were present on the first day), and all students present at school were requested to participate in the study. The total number of 10th graders finally participating in the survey (n = 228) is shown in Table 4.4 (see Section 4.3.4 for details). Only 10th grade students were selected for the study. The 10th grade is a crucial stage in Bangladeshi education. Students must take the first national school-leaving examination (SSC) at the end of this grade. GPAs obtained in this examination have implications for their college education (Year 11-12, equivalent to senior high school years in many countries), since the college (as well as university) admission systems provide bonus points for students‘ performance in the SSC (as well as HSC, at the end of Year 12) examination. Moreover, the student attendance remains moderately high up to this grade level, but drops significantly at Grade l1 because of substantial failure rates in the SSC examination; because of students not going to college for socio-economic reasons; or because of their preference for low-income jobs for similar reasons. Furthermore, the 10th graders, who belong to the 15-16 age group, may be old enough to have already started developing some understanding of their life-situations, of the economic, educational and political situations of their country, of their future education and career plans, and of their responsibility as secondary students, future higher education seekers and income earners in a competitive society. Student participants in the qualitative phase The selection of the students for the semi-structured interviews represents nested relationships (see p. 94) between the quantitative and qualitative samples. A sub-sample of 14 students was drawn from all students who participated in the questionnaire survey. They were selected based on their performance in the school-based SSC-qualifying test as well as in the proficiency test administered by the researcher. Both the lowest (nine) and highest performing 98
students (five) in these two testing contexts were interviewed. The aim was to see whether differences in their performance fell along family capital and habitus profile lines (see Chapter 7). Initially 19 students were targeted for the interviews, but the interviewer was able to meet with only 14 of them for a variety of logistical reasons relating to travel and timetables. For instance, one school was located on a sandy (char in Bangla) island across the river (see Chapter 2). It was difficult to arrange a second trip to this remote location by hiring a boat after the first trip during which the students were given the survey questionnaire and the proficiency test. Parents One parent for each of the 14 students was requested to participate in a semi-structured interview. However, only 10 parents were available for interview on the scheduled dates. Fathers were given priority for interviews because Bangladeshi families are usually headed by them. As the data in Chapter 6 show, in most of the families the fathers were the sole income earners. Mothers were interviewed only when fathers were not available. For instance, one student‘s father was dead; another student‘s father, who was a manual worker in building construction, was away working in Dhaka. The sample included eight fathers and two mothers. English teachers All English teachers teaching 10th grade students in the eight schools were targeted as prospective participants. Usually one teacher was responsible for this grade level in each of the schools. However, the researcher was able to interview six of the eight. The English teacher located in the island school could not be reached for the reason previously mentioned, while another teacher did not respond to requests for a meeting. Head teachers The participation of the head teachers was not initially planned. However, during the fieldwork the researcher came to understand that the head teachers were in crucial positions to provide reliable assessment of the teaching and learning of English, and of the overall level of students‘ achievement in their schools. Although all head teachers of the eight schools were targeted for informal, open-ended interviews, the researcher was able to meet with only six of them. An appointment was made with one of the remaining two head teachers. However, he had to cancel the meeting because there emerged an unanticipated disciplinary issue involving two students at his school, and he had to manage that situation at the interview time. The other head teacher was from the island school, which was difficult to travel to, as previously noted.
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4.3.2 Instruments Survey questionnaire A structured questionnaire was the main instrument for collecting the quantitative data. It was divided into two parts (see Appendix A). Part I contained questions/items on different aspects of economic and cultural capital related to the students‘ families (see Section 4.3.3.2). Some of the questions required dichotomous answers (yes/no), while others had multiple options. The selection of the questions/items was based on a number of factors, such as a) the researcher‘s understanding of Bourdieu‘s definition of capital (see Chapter 3); b) empirical work on different forms of capital; and c) the researcher‘s first-hand knowledge of the social context of the study. Part II of the questionnaire contained items/statements about habitus and social capital (see Chapter 5). They were arranged on a five-point Likert scale: 1 (Strongly Disagree), 2 (Disagree), 3 (Neutral), 4 (Agree) and 5 (Strongly Agree). Both parts of the questionnaire presented the items in English as well as in Bangla. In Part I the item/question was first presented in English and was followed by its translation in Bangla. In Part II the statements were vertically presented in parallel rows. The English version was on the left side and the Bangla on the right, with boxes for marking responses in the middle. The back-translation technique was followed to make sure that the English and the Bangla versions of the items had linguistically identical meanings. The researcher sought the help of colleagues from the departments of Bangla and English at the University of Dhaka for this purpose. In addition, the questionnaire was pilot tested (see Section 4.3.4.1) in order to ensure that the target respondents would have no problems in understanding the content. English proficiency test An English proficiency test was administered to the survey participants as a measure of their English achievement. Although the students‘ standardised grades in English from the SSC examination were collected from the schools, it was understood that having more than one measure of their English achievement would provide for greater reliability of the English achievement construct. Initially, the researcher intended to design an English test by himself or purchase a commercially available test. However, resources and time constraints were the main obstacles to both options. Therefore, it was decided to use an English test which was locally produced for the same level of learners by the English Teaching Task Force commissioned by the Ministry of Education of the Bangladesh Government (BEERI, 1976). The aim of the test produced by the Task Force was to create a baseline for secondary students‘ proficiency in English. The 60-point test consists of three components: grammar in scripted dialogue (30 points), vocabulary (20 points) and reading comprehension (10 points) (see Appendix B for a sample test). The test has been widely used in secondary schools all over the 100
country for its reliability and validity (Zaman, 1999). Another advantage of the test was that it was locally designed by local experts. Therefore, sociocultural appropriateness of the test content was optimised. In addition, it was a pen and paper test which could be easily administered to test-takers. On the downside, the test was designed in the late 70s and has never been updated. Moreover, it did not test all four macro-skills, which would have been more appropriate for the communicative approach, which is officially prescribed for English teaching and learning (Hamid, 2005; Hamid & Baldauf, 2008). Despite these two drawbacks, it was the best option when the question of resources, time and other contextual factors were taken into consideration. Moreover, although the secondary English curriculum adopted the communicative approach, communication in English in everyday life is neither essential nor commonly observed, particularly in rural Bangladesh. Given this, neither within-school nor school-leaving examinations ever assess students‘ communicative competence. This gap between what the official curriculum prescribes for English learning goals and what is actually done (see Hamid & Baldauf, 2008) is similar to the gap reported by Kobayashi (2001) in her study of secondary school students‘ perceptions of English for university entrance examinations in Japan. Finally, although the test was dated, it is similar to the existing tests given to students in national school-leaving examinations. Student interview protocols The student interviews were semi-structured, and the interview protocols were designed in advance. The same protocols were followed in all 14 interviews, although the follow-up questions differed from interviewee to interviewee, depending on their initial responses. The order of the questions also varied from participant to participant, depending on the circumstances. Although the interview questions focused on topics related to different forms of capital and habitus, the emphasis was on learner habitus. The interviews particularly focused on eliciting the students‘ attitudes, motivations, expectations, preferences and perceptions of their family situations and their experience of schooling and academic achievement. All interviews were conducted in Bangla, the L1 of the interviewees and the interviewer, and were audio-recorded. Appendix C contains a copy of the interview protocols translated into English. Parent interview protocols The parent interviews were also semi-structured, and followed interview protocols (see Appendix D). However, the protocols were used flexibly, depending on the interviewees‘ responses. The interview was a new experience for most of the parents. They were not familiar with the interview procedures or what might be expected of them in such circumstances.
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Teacher interview protocols The English teachers‘ interview protocols contained conversation topics only, and no complete questions. The topics included aspects of their profession including their views, perceptions and reactions to different aspects of their teaching practice, professional development, their own English language proficiency, their knowledge and understanding of CLT, their learners‘ motivations, learning expectations and their social backgrounds. Appendix E contains the English teacher interview protocols. Head teacher interviews The head teacher interviews were informal and unstructured, and did not follow any formal protocols. However, the researcher brainstormed conversation topics prior to the interviews. The interviews focused on a wide range of issues including the teaching and learning of English in their schools, the English teachers and teacher qualifications, opportunities for professional development and the practice of private tutoring in English. The interviews also covered student related issues including their levels of English proficiency, school performance in the SSC examination, the socio-economic situations of the locality and of the students. In addition, issues of school infrastructure, logistics and school management were discussed. Each of the interviews lasted approximately one hour.
4.3.3 Variables and their measures 4.3.3.1 Dependent variable The dependent variable is the English language proficiency attained by the learners. Two measures of their proficiency were used in the study: the students‘ scores on the proficiency test and their grades in English in the SSC examination, 2007.
4.3.3.2 Independent variables The independent variables are the constituents of the students‘ social biographies. As described in Chapter 1, social means the familial and social origins and contexts of learners, while biography denotes their personal and psychological characteristics and tendencies. Together, social biography denotes the totality of learners‘ life-situations in psychological, biographical, familial and socio-economic contexts. Social biography consists of four sets of variables: family economic capital, cultural capital, social capital and learner habitus. Each of the sets of variables is further defined by a number of sub-components which are discussed in the four sections which follow. In these sections, some of the materials on which these sub-components or constructs are based ‒ also see Chapter 3 ‒ are mentioned to indicate the underlying construct validity of the variables. In
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Chapter 5, a statistical analysis of the data related to social capital and habitus scales is undertaken to provide further evidence for their psychometric reliability and validity. Economic capital From an economic perspective, economic capital is the most fundamental capital for a family, as it creates entitlements to cultural and social capital and other resources needed for ensuring quality of living and financing children‘s education. Measures of this type of capital included four sets of variables, which were selected based on the review of SES studies in Chapter 3 (Section 3.3.4.1): Parental occupation is a major source of family economic capital from which children‘s educational expenses are met. Being a member of the local community, the researcher was familiar with different occupational options available in the region. The occupational categories (six for fathers, seven for mothers) in the final questionnaire (see Appendix A) were based on empirical data. In the pilot test parental occupation was presented as an open-ended item. The pilot testtakers‘ responses to the question were classified in order to derive the final occupational categories. Parental income includes the net incomes of both parents as well as family possession of wealth, if any. It refers to actual income, rather than official income. The distinction applies particularly to government employees, many of whom earn an extra income in order to meet their family expenses. Like parental occupation, income was also presented as an open-ended item in the pilot questionnaire, and students‘ responses were classified to derive the five ordered categories of parental income in Bangladeshi currency (Taka) per month. Economic support from social network needs to be considered because in Bangladesh people generally help their relatives (Aminuzzaman, Baldersheim & Jamil, 2003, p. 335). If a family receives significant help from relatives or other social networks, parental income may not accurately measure family socio-economic well-being. This variable was measured using four different categories: 1) yes, received help, 2) no, did not receive, 3) not sure, 4) do not require such help. Education expenditure per month provides a direct and more reliable measure of economic investment in children‘s education. In a study reported in Chapter 3, Maitra (2003) argues that measuring household expenditure is easier compared to household income, and it can be measured with less error. Furthermore, ‗while income may be subject to transitory fluctuations, households typically use a variety of mechanisms to smooth consumption over time‘ (Maitra, p. 134). Maitra refers to household expenditure, but the argument applies to education expenditure as well. Monthly education expenditure includes expenses on tuition, paying for private tutoring, if any, buying educational resources and equipment, and other essential student needs. The five ordered levels of 103
educational expenses in the final questionnaire were based on students‘ open-ended responses to the question in the pilot questionnaire. Cultural capital Cultural capital, as defined in the study, refers to cultural goods such as books, instruments and technologies: capital in the objectified state as well as opportunities and activities (e.g., private tutoring) which may result in cultural capital in the institutionalised state (see Chapter 3). Children‘s attainment of this capital is determined not only by family possession of economic and cultural capital, it is also contingent on the social context which controls opportunities for practice and achievement of such capital. Consequently, measures of cultural capital, as identified in the study, refer to goods and activities which are relevant to the social context of the study. Moreover, as argued in Chapter 3, this capital refers to measures which are relevant to educational achievement in general, and to English achievement in particular. Nine aspects of cultural capital were identified that are relevant to the present study: Parental education: Both parents‘ highest educational attainment is considered in this variable. There are two reasons for including this SES-indicator under the composite variable of cultural capital. The first is the students‘ parents‘ educational qualifications are by themselves institutionalised cultural capital in Bourdieu‘s conceptualisation. And second, parental education is a major source of children‘s cultural capital. The variable was presented as five ordered categories for each parent (no formal education, primary, secondary, higher secondary and tertiary) in the questionnaire. Private tutoring: This beyond-the-school learning opportunity must be included in the discussion of formal schooling at the primary and secondary levels in Bangladesh. It plays a vital role in students‘ performance in school-based and school-leaving examinations (Deabnath, 2007, 2008; Hamid, Sussex & Khan, in press;7 Raynor, 2005). Consequently, taking after-hours private lessons can be considered a crucial element of cultural capital for the 10th graders. Since the study focuses on their achievement in English, only private tutoring in English (PT-E) is considered in the investigation. This was presented as a dichotomous variable (yes/no). Study desk at home: This indirectly indicates the possession of economic capital by the family. It is considered cultural capital because it represents an essential aspect of infrastructure for academic engagement at home. It was presented as a dichotomous variable (yes/no). English books and materials: These refer to the students‘ possession of English books and other English learning resources, including dictionaries, grammar books and other practice 7
This paper is based on the private tutoring data of the present study and was accepted in TESOL Quarterly on 19 February 2009.
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materials, English newspapers and magazines. The English textbook was distinguished separately from these resources and was presented as a dichotomous variable in the questionnaire. Use of English at home: This linguistic aspect of cultural capital assessed the extent to which individual learners can use English at home and/or discuss English lessons with their parents, siblings or any other family members, which may result in positive outcomes. It was presented in five ordered categories in terms of the frequency of English use: never, rarely, sometimes, almost always and always. TV at home: Having access to television at home is an advantage because students can watch different English programs such as news, movies and the Open University lessons broadcast regularly on the state-owned Bangladesh Television (BTV). This was presented as a dichotomous variable. Home/mobile phone: This is considered cultural capital because it enables the students to access teachers and private tutors. Possession of this item of capital can claim some advantage because it marks one‘s economic capital as well as social standing. This was also measured as a dichotomous variable. Computer at home: Computers are potentially beneficial to English learning and academic achievement. This was also presented as a dichotomous variable. Social capital Social capital is used in the sense of parental involvement in and support for children‘s education. Research on social capital (see Section 3.3.5.2) has not provided a ready to use psychometric scale for this construct. However, the studies reviewed in Chapter 3 suggest four dimensions or sub-components of social capital in the sense of parental involvement which are the basis for the construction of the social capital scale in the present study (see Chapter 5): Parental expectations: What sort of expectations parents have about their children‘s educational attainment and careers, and the extent to which they communicate these expectations to their children. Parental encouragement in English learning: The extent to which parents encourage their children to work hard towards their educational and occupational expectations and goals. Parental involvement in English studies: The extent to which parents are directly involved in children‘s education at home. Parental responsiveness: The extent to which parents consider themselves responsive to their children‘s long-term and short-term education needs, such as appointing private tutors and buying educational supplies when required.
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Learner habitus Learner habitus is a crucial independent variable in the study. While the different forms of capital possessed by the family exert a variety of influences on learners, learners themselves may direct those influences towards their own preferred ends by means of their habitus. This composite variable draws on learners‘ own views of their educational and schooling experience in the context of diverse influences from their life situations. One of the objectives of the study was to see whether family capital and learner habitus exist in a homogeneous relationship, or whether the relationships between them were complex and heterogeneous. As the review of studies in Chapter 3 (Section 3.3.5.3) showed, the concept of habitus is yet to be widely used in empirical work. So far Dumais (2002) and Nora (2004) have operationalised the construct: Dumais used the single indicator of students‘ future occupational expectations, while Nora referred to eight indicators, including personal acceptance and personal and social fit (see p. 82 for details). Based on these two and other studies (see Chapter 5), the present study identified nine attitudinal, motivational, personal and psychological measures which form the basis for constructing the scales of habitus. These nine dimensions of habitus are: Academic self-concept in English: This refers to students‘ own evaluation of their academic ability in relation to their study of English. Attitudes towards English: How students relate to the English language and its learning in their own context. Beliefs about success-education link: How students perceive the link between education and material achievement (e.g., job, wealth, social status). Education and career expectations: What sort of careers students want to build in future. Higher career expectations require them to be more motivated in learning and to work hard toward these career goals. Efforts at learning English: These refer to students‘ self-assessment of their efforts at learning English. Expectations of English learning: The level of English proficiency that learners will get to achieve. Higher expectations would call for greater investment from them in terms of motivation and consequent efforts. Interest in reading: How learners describe their own level of interest in reading in general. Higher interest would motivate them to read more, both in English and other languages, which could enhance their reading skills. Learner-school fit: How learners perceive themselves in relation to the culture of schooling.
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Motivation for learning English: How serious and motivated students consider themselves to be in their academic achievement in general and English achievement in particular. The initial sub-components of social capital and learner habitus are further analysed in Chapter 5 to determine the reliability and validity of these scale-based variables. The analysis leads to the development of psychometric scales for these two constructs. As the process of the scale development has the potential to impact on the quality of the research and on its findings, a separate chapter on scale development was warranted (Chapter 5). In addition to the four sets of independent variables constituting students‘ social biographies, students‘ gender was also taken into consideration in the study.
4.3.4 Data collection procedures The present research was approved by the Ethics Committee of the School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies of the University of Queensland (clearance no. 7-06) in July 2006. Most of the data were collected between August and December 2006. The researcher travelled to the research site in Bangladesh from Australia in order to collect the data. The researcher applied for permission to work with the schools from the central education authorities in Dhaka in early August 2006. The application had to pass through the standard bureaucratic process, but permission was granted in about two weeks. Permission was also obtained later from the head teachers of the schools concerned. In addition, parental permission was obtained through consent forms (see Appendix F) for the participation of the 15-16 year-old-students.
4.3.4.1 Pilot test Piloting the survey questionnaire was the most significant step before the main data collection. The instrument was tested with a sample of 33 10th graders from three schools in three different locations in northern Bangladesh. One sub-sample (11 students) was taken from the 10th grade students studying in secondary schools in Nadiranga. The researcher‘s personal connection with teachers in different schools enabled him to contact these students and request them to participate in the pilot test. Another sub-sample (11 students) was drawn from a government secondary school for males located in the district town. Because this school was fully funded by the government and was located in the town, the students were expected to have higher levels of academic achievement and family educational capital. The last sub-sample (11 students) was taken from another government school for females, which was located in another town in the northern region. These participants were expected to have even higher levels of family capital and academic achievement because they
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were attending a prestigious urban school. The other procedures related to the pilot testing are described in Chapter 5.
4.3.4.2 Quantitative data collection procedures The survey questionnaire and the proficiency test were administered to students in the eight schools listed in Table 4.4. The researcher first visited each of the schools, discussed the research with the head teachers, and obtained their permission to work with their 10th graders. Then he negotiated a convenient date with them on which he would come to work with the target students. On the appointed day he met the students in one of the classrooms, described the study to them, asked them to read the participant information sheet, answered their questions, if any, and requested their participation. Subsequent to their consent, they were first given the proficiency test, which required an hour to complete. Then they were given a 10-minute break before they started working on the questionnaire. The researcher explained how they were to fill in the survey, provided examples and demonstrations on the chalkboard and checked their understanding all the way through. He was also present in each of the meetings so that the students could ask him for clarification. Most of the students completed both parts of the questionnaire on the spot. However, in each school a few students took the first part of the questionnaire home to consult their parents in order to provide such information as family income and educational expenses. Depending on the number of the students met on the first visit, the researcher either worked with those present, or requested the head teachers to allow him to come again on another date to work with the missing students. Alternatively, if the initial group of students were very few in number, he cancelled the first date and requested all the students to work on another day which was first approved by the head teachers. All students were enthusiastic about the study and were willing to cooperate with the researcher. Their positive attitude can be explained in several ways. First, the researcher was not only one of the local community members, but also an ex-student of one of these schools. Secondly, they might have felt from his briefing that the study was about their views, concerns, expectations and experiences of learning English in their own context. At the end of the survey and the proficiency test, the researcher asked each cohort of students about their feelings and experiences of doing the test and completing the questionnaire. Each group of students observed that they liked the survey because it was about them and their circumstances. Some of them informed the researcher that up until that day they had never had the opportunity to express their views and opinions about their schooling and English learning in any form. Nevertheless, the student participation rate in the study was somewhat lower than expected. There were several reasons for this. First, the period of data collection (August-December 2006) 108
was not optimal on several grounds. This was contrary to what had been expected and planned. It had been anticipated that the whole country, which experiences political volatility almost round the year, would remain peaceful during this period because the government in power would step down at the end of their term and the country would be ruled by a non-partisan, Caretaker Government8 for three months. During their rule, the interim government would hold general elections and hand over power to the winning political party[ies]. However, contrary to expectations, the whole country was subjected to a series of political strikes over the selection of the caretaker government. As a consequence, it was difficult to travel back and forth between Dhaka and Nadiranga. Although the research was based in Nadiranga, the researcher had to return to Dhaka occasionally to inform his academic advisors in Australia of the progress of data collection, to analyse the pilot survey and to prepare the final questionnaire. As a consequence of the political turmoil, appointments with some schools had to be cancelled and rescheduled. Fortunately, the whole region was covered by a mobile phone network (see Aminuzzaman et al., 2003), and so it was easy to contact the head teachers and request rescheduling, given the unavoidable circumstances. The second factor that affected the data collection process was related to weather. Most of the students in Nadiranga walk long distances to school, between three and eight kilometres. If it rains, not many students are able to be present at school. Many students cannot afford to buy umbrellas, and umbrellas are not much help either if they have to walk for an hour or so in the rain. During a week when the researcher scheduled appointments with two schools – one of them for females – it rained almost continuously for four days. This meant that it was not possible for some students to attend school, despite their willingness to participate. Finally, the month of November is not a good time to work with students in Bangladeshi schools. Annual examinations are held in this month, and teachers and students are generally busy with examinations. Although the researcher was aware of this, he could not delay the data collection process because of the time-frame of the research. On the other hand, he wanted to take advantage of the expected political period of calm, as previously noted, although in the event this turned out to be an unrealised expectation.
8
The Caretaker Government is a unique system in the political context of Bangladesh. This was introduced in 1991. Between 1981 and 1990, Bangladesh was ruled by a military ruler, who had overthrown a democratic government to come to power. The whole period of his rule was characterised by political movements, strikes and mass arrests. The movements were successful in forcing the military ruler to step down and pave the way for return to democracy. However, because of the mistrust between the major political parties, a non-partisan caretaker government was created which held the general elections in 1991. The system was repeated in 1996 and 2001 when the elected governments handed over power to the care-taker government at the end of their tenures. However, the system proved ineffective in 2006 when the existing government and the main opposition party disagreed over the formation of the caretaker government.
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Given these constraints the researcher had to schedule two appointments on two separate days with some of the schools to work with the participants. In the end, the sample was 228 students, which is substantial, and is relatively representative of the school populations in the region.
4.3.4.3 Qualitative data collection procedures The qualitative data of the study were gathered after the questionnaire survey and the proficiency test had been completed. For the interviews with the students and their parents, the researcher first visited each of the students‘ homes and made an appointment with them. The student and his/her parent, if available, were interviewed on the same day. The English teachers and the head teachers were first requested for their consent to interviews. Appointments were then organised. Most of these teachers were interviewed in their homes or at school. Only one English teacher was interviewed in his coaching centre, where he taught English to his students after-hours.
4.3.5 Ethical concerns Working with the 10th grade students and the other participants involved several ethical questions. The first concern was related to the identity of the researcher. ‗People considering embarking on insider research have to think very carefully about what taking on the role and identity of researcher can mean and involve in a setting where they are normally seen as someone else with particular responsibilities and powers‘ (Sikes, 2006, p. 110). The researcher was a member of the local community (see pp. 10-11). During the period of research, he was present in a new role. He was also affiliated with a prestigious university in the country, and was the only person in the whole community to have that professional identity. The latter identity and its valuation, particularly in a disadvantaged community, created social distance between him and his interviewees. This identity may have impacted on the interactions with different groups of participants in complex ways. For instance, he was addressed as ‗Sir‘ by most of the students. However, the researcher could not find an alternative address form which would be socially more appropriate for the 15-16 year olds. Moreover, it was common practice in the society to address teachers as ‗Sir‘ by students and other people, even if the latter were not taught by the former. Often it was hard to find out which of the identities of the researcher the participants used while interacting with him. Most of the students preferred the professional identity because there was no other viable alternative. Some other students avoided using any address form altogether. For the English teachers and head teachers, it was more complex. While some teachers were found to have taken the researcher as ‗one of them‘, at the same time, they probably thought that because of 110
his professional identity, he could have connections with the central education authorities. That is probably why they refused to allow the interviews to be tape-recorded. In the context of the different identities and their implications, the researcher adopted ethically, socially and professionally appropriate conduct. For instance, he was aware of his own identity and made every effort not to raise it during his interaction with the participants. Regarding the teachers‘ apprehension that he might have connections with higher education authorities in Dhaka, he made it clear to them that the study was part of his PhD studies at the University of Queensland in Australia, and was not commissioned by any authority in or outside Bangladesh. Moreover, he was investigating the teaching and learning of English in the locality out of his personal, professional and community interest. He also pointed out that he would be happy if the findings of the study brought national policy changes in the teaching and learning of English in rural Bangladesh, but he was not obliged to report the findings to any state authority. He also explained to them that as researcher he was guided by the principles of privacy, confidentiality, anonymity and the participants‘ right to withdrawal from the study, as dictated by the ethical code of conduct of the University of Queensland. The second ethical question was related to the remuneration of the ‗service‘ provided by the participants and the consequence of interviewing them in their homes. The researcher believed in treating the time spent on the research by the participants as service deserving compensation. Unfortunately, it was not possible to pay all 228 survey respondents, although each of them was given a pen as a token of appreciation for their valuable service and cooperation. For the student and parent interviewees, however, the researcher paid in cash or kind out of his own pocket. For the students from well-off families he brought stationery items or books; for others he paid some money which they could spend on whatever educational purposes they liked. While making appointments with some parents the researcher requested them to stay at home on the scheduled date and so he paid them for the whole day. Paying the English teachers and head teachers would have been impolite so the researcher did not attempt it. In all these interactions the researcher maintained appropriate social norms and behaviours expected in Bangladeshi society. Bangladeshi people, particularly in rural areas, are very hospitable to their guests and visitors. It was understood that one consequence of doing the interviews in the participants‘ homes would be accepting their hospitality. Despite the researcher‘s knowledge of this cultural practice, the interviews could not be conducted outside their homes because of the difficulty of finding appropriate places, travel requirements for the participants and issues of gender. For instance, it would have been socially inappropriate for the male researcher to interview female students outside their homes. The home was therefore the default option. However, in anticipation of the hospitality, which the researcher was to be shown, he brought a pack of local sweets to each of the homes. This 111
was not only socially appropriate but was also a token of respect to the families, and some form of return for their hospitality. Other ethical issues might have operated at the micro level – that is, at the level of interaction with the participants. It was understood that many of the participants, both the 15-16 year olds and adults, had no experience of being interviewed. The researcher was also aware of the age of the students, their potential vulnerability and any psychological impact of the interview. In order to address these issues, the researcher showed scrupulous respect for their persons, values, views, opinions and feelings. Some of the students were reticent. The researcher patiently encouraged them to speak, supported them, and assured them that their views were confidential to him. Although he patiently and politely tried to elicit their views when they were reticent, he gave up after several attempts because he was aware that they had the right to silence, and that he should not cause them undue stress. When interviewing the female students, the researcher requested their mothers or sisters to be present, which was socially more appropriate given the gender differences between the interviewer and the interviewee. Finally, the interviews were conducted in their own homes and their social surroundings, and in their language, to make sure that they could maintain their customary composure.
4.4. Data analysis As previously noted, the quantitative and qualitative data of the research are analysed separately and are integrated at the stage of the interpretation of the findings (Chapter 8). The quantitative data analysis (Chapter 6) utilises the scale data developed in Chapter 5 and both descriptive and inferential statistics. The analysis is built up gradually with bivariate analysis built upon univariate and, finally, multivariate analysis following bivariate analysis. The bivariate analyses examine the relationships between two variables without control for the effects of other variables. These effects are taken into consideration in the ordinal regression models at the multivariate level in order to find out associations between variables more accurately. All statistical tests use SPSS, the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (Version 15). The qualitative data, particularly the student interviews, are transcribed and then analysed using qualitative content analysis (see Chapter 7). This analytical method is an appropriate choice for tapping the participants‘ views and perceptions of the phenomena of interest. The method allows for a systematic, rule-governed and category-based analysis of the data. The different levels of the analysis lead to identifying a number of major themes which are described, analysed, illustrated and interpreted for drawing inferences.
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4.5 Summary This chapter has been devoted to describing and specifying the methodological issues of the present research. The question of methodology was explored at different levels: at the philosophical level, the question of ontology and epistemology was introduced and connected with the research design of the present study; at the practical level, specific methods and instruments for conducting the research were described in detail. The study selected a mixed methods design which is not only appropriate for addressing the research questions but is also argued to be innovative, since its potential is yet to be fully explored by related studies reviewed in Chapter 3. The chapter has also described the detailed data collection procedures, emphasising contextual constraints as well as ethical concerns. The researcher addressed those issues taking a critical, ethical and contextsensitive approach. The next chapter discusses the development of the subscales of social capital and habitus used in the research.
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Chapter 5 SCALE DEVELOPMENT AND ANALYSIS 5.1 Introduction As discussed in Chapter 4, the present study involves a number of constructs including economic capital, cultural capital, social capital and habitus. From these constructs scales were developed for the ‗multi-layered‘ concepts of habitus and social capital. As indicated in the literature review (Chapter 3), both of these constructs may be composed of a number of measures or indicators, which may take the form of behavioural and/or factual statements. When such statements or items are rationally and/or empirically organised in sets, they are called scales. Scales facilitate indirect measurement of abstract or psychological constructs which do not lend themselves to direct observation or measurement. This chapter is concerned with the development and analysis of the scales of social capital and habitus from their constituent components. The whole process has a number of stages in which the pre-survey and the post-survey are two distinct phases (see Chapter 4 for details on the survey). The chapter therefore is organised around these two phases. The scale construction in the chapter starts from the literature, which is then grounded in empirical data. It is ultimately the data that take precedence over rational and intuitive thinking about scales and determine their final makeup. The scale construction efforts in this chapter represent a back to basics exercise. This is because there are no scales related to habitus and social capital as such in the literature, particularly for understanding students‘ academic achievement in English. In other words, this study represents an initial attempt to measure habitus and social capital using psychometric techniques. The notion of habitus, in particular, has remained predominantly theoretical because the scattered attempts to develop measures useful for empirical work (see Chapter 3) are far from systematic or consistent.
5.1.1 Pre-survey stage Early stages The first step in the scale development was developing theoretical and conceptual knowledge and understanding of the concepts of habitus and social capital. At this stage Bourdieu‘s concepts of habitus and capital were explored. Likewise, an understanding was developed of Coleman‘s (1988) conceptualisation of social capital, which is relevant to the present study (see p. 13). As explained in Chapter 3, one of Coleman‘s conceptualisations of social capital relates it to parental involvement in children‘s education (McNeal, 1999). Since the present study investigates parental
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input into school learners‘ academic achievement in English, social capital in the sense of parental involvement needs to be taken into consideration (see Chapter 3). As a next step the application of habitus and social capital in empirical work was examined. The concepts of social capital and habitus have neither been understood uniformly nor have been applied consistently by researchers. For example, while Reay (1995, 2004) considers habitus to consist of such elements as dispositions, subjective vocations, and adaptability or feeling at home, Dumais (2002) uses a single measure of individuals‘ career expectations. Nora (2004), on the other hand, identified eight dimensions of habitus (see Section 3.3.5.3). Given the indeterminacy of the concept, it has taken on a variable range of meanings and interpretations in research in different social contexts. A broader understanding of the flexible interpretations and variable operationalisations of social capital and habitus led the present research to derive working subscales for these constructs from the literature, including the work of Adams and Wu (2002), Baldauf and Lawrence (1990), Dumais (2002), Gardner and Lambert (1972), James (2002), Liando (2007), McNeal (1999), Mickelson (1990), Nora (2004), Reay (1995, 2004), Sullivan (2000) and Wen (1997). The researcher‘s first-hand knowledge of the social context of the study – of its social, cultural, and economic realities – served as a filter which helped to decide whether a particular subscale and its components were relevant to this particular social context. In other words, the initial subscales were responsive to social realities of the context and were designed to produce a new dataset with a new set of dimensions. Table 5.1 presents these initial scales and constituent sub-components of social capital and habitus. As can be seen from Table 5.1, initially the constructs of social capital and habitus had four and nine subscales respectively with varying numbers of items or sub-components. Some of the items making up the sub-components were framed as negative statements, while others were positive, in the way the underlying construct was presented. For example, the statement ‗Studying English is important because it will enable me to build my desired career in future’ is a positive representation, while ‗Learning English is a waste of time’ is keyed negatively (see Appendix A). The purpose of mixing positive and negative items was to discourage participants from responding blindly and thoughtlessly to unidirectional sets of items. In the next phase of the scale construction, the scales and their sub-components were presented to experts for their evaluation. This is in line with the common practice in psychology, which incorporates expert judgments into the construction of psychometric instruments. For instance, expert judgments played an important part in designing a psychometric questionnaire in Uddin et al. (2008), which is meant for use in student evaluation of teacher efficiency and performance in public universities in Bangladesh.
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Table 5.1: Preliminary subscales of social capital and habitus and constituent sub-components. Subscales Social Capital 1. Parental encouragement in English learning 2. Parental involvement in English studies 3. Parental expectations 4. Parental responsiveness Total Habitus 1. Interest in reading 2. Learner-school fit 3. Attitudes towards English 4. Motivation for learning English 5. Efforts at learning English 6. Academic self-concept in English 7. Expectations of English learning 8. Education and career expectations 9. Beliefs about education-success link Total
Number of items
Positive items
Negative items
7 10 8 3 28
6 9 5 3 23
1 1 3 0 5
7 9 8 12 7 9 5 6 7 70
3 5 4 11 5 6 3 3 4 44
4 4 4 1 2 3 2 3 3 26
Expert judgement in scale construction The preliminary items developed for the scales, the numbers of which are presented in Table 5.1, were examined for face-validity and student-judged appropriateness (i.e., pilot test, see pp. 117118) before their inclusion in the final questionnaire. The first phase of this construct validation process was judgmental in nature, which is comparable to Lanteigne‘s (2006) confirmatory survey. This survey aimed at judging the cultural appropriateness of criterion tasks before they were included as test tasks. Twenty-nine English teachers in the Arabian Gulf region, who were from different countries in Asia and Africa, were asked to rate three specific tasks in terms of their cultural appropriateness in their home regions. Lanteigne used a 4-point scale in which the points denoted different degrees of appropriateness of the tasks (culturally appropriate > somewhat appropriate > somewhat inappropriate > very inappropriate). Although the present study focused on judging the relevance of the items for a particular subscale, the initial procedures followed were similar to those followed in the Gulf study which evaluated the cultural appropriateness of test tasks. Fifteen academics from the University of Dhaka and the University of Queensland were approached for their participation in the face-validity survey. The selection of the institutions and the experts was determined by convenience. The researcher was affiliated with both universities – as an academic in the former and as a PhD scholar in the latter. The selection of the experts was similarly guided by the researcher‘s professional connections. However, experts from diverse fields were selected to ensure that relevant expertise from multiple areas could be incorporated into the face-validity judgment. The fields of applied linguistics, sociolinguistics and English language education are directly relevant because the main focus of the thesis is on learners‘ English language 116
achievement. Expertise from psychology is also relevant and useful to the task because scales and scale construction have their origins in psychology, and it is in this and related fields where scales are predominantly used. Finally, sociological expertise is drawn on because habitus and social capital are sociological concepts and are used in sociological research. Table 5.2: Judges and their disciplines and affiliations. Field/discipline Applied linguistics Applied linguistics Sociolinguistics English language education Psychology Sociology Total
Number of judges 3 2 1 2
L1 background of judges English Bangla English Bangla
Affiliation
2 2 12
Bangla Bangla
University of Dhaka University of Dhaka
University of Queensland University of Dhaka University of Queensland University of Dhaka
Of the 15 judges from the University of Dhaka and the University of Queensland, 12 returned the completed questionnaire. The degree of relevance of each of the items was measured on a 5-point scale where 1 indicated entirely irrelevant and 5 meant entirely relevant. The middle point, 3, denoted not sure (see Appendix G for the face-validity questionnaire). The responses of the judges were totalled and averaged, and items with a mean of 4 or above were deemed to have face-validity. The cut off point was fixed at 4 because item means below this point denoted either uncertainty (3 = not sure) about the relevance of an item to the corresponding subscale or its stated irrelevance (2 = considerably irrelevant, 1 = entirely irrelevant). Only six items (items 7, 11, 35, 48, 49 and 86 on the face-validity questionnaire) were found to have a mean below 4 and were dropped from further consideration. The remaining 92 items were arranged in a questionnaire for pilot testing. They appeared in the questionnaire in the same order as in the facevalidity survey: i.e., all items constituting a particular subscale were grouped together. Piloting the questionnaire The pilot questionnaire contained the 92 items judged valid by the experts, together with questions for measuring the other variables in the study (i.e., economic capital and cultural capital). A total of 33 10th graders were selected from three secondary schools for the pilot test (see Section 4.3.4.1for details). The pilot test and its purpose were fully explained to the head teacher in each of the schools. They were requested to nominate a group of 10 to 12 10th graders who should be of mixed academic abilities and who would roughly represent the different levels of English proficiency in their cohort.
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Participant responses to the 92 items were entered into the SPSS and bivariate analysis was carried out to obtain item-total correlations. Only the 62 items which were found to correlate significantly at the p < 0.05 level with the total of all items were retained for the questionnaire used in the study. The final questionnaire contained these 62 items distributed between the scales of habitus (40 items) and social capital (22 items). The raffle draw technique (see p. 97) was used for ordering the items on the questionnaire.
5.1.2 Post-survey phase Statistical analyses were carried out in the post-survey phase to examine whether the final dataset (n = 228) supported the existence of the working subscales (4 for social capital; 9 for habitus, Table 5.1), or whether the items needed to be restructured on some other basis. Exploratory Factor Analysis was the main mechanism used in this process. Factor analysis is a data reduction technique that reorganises items and produces components or factors based on inter-item correlations. Principal Component Analysis (PCA), the factor analytical procedure used in this study, is the most frequently used data reduction method to examine a priori subscales. However, results obtained from this analysis, as discussed in the two sections which follow, were not highly congruent with the rationally developed and pre-tested subcomponents. It may be hypothesised that the principal reason for these results is that there are no standard definitions for habitus and social capital and so the actual properties of these constructs are hard to define objectively. It was also noted earlier that different researchers have used different indicators of these constructs in different research settings. Based on the literature, a range of rationally plausible, but untested, measures for these constructs were used in this study. Because clear boundaries often cannot be drawn between the different indicators making up the items and sub-components, some items were found to be correlated with one other. This can be seen from an examination of the factor loadings of the components included in Appendix H. The intercorrelations of the indicators meant that the PCA did not confirm the distinct rational factors or components. Given this, the results of factor analytical processes were further examined in order to make them interpretable and usable.
5.1.2.1 Social capital scale The final dataset (n = 228) was analysed using the PCA, with varimax rotation. Since the items in the four subscales had been rationally predetermined, the initial aim was to examine whether the data supported the existence of these four subscales. The results, however, did not confirm the developmental process, as indicated earlier. Six components were found that had
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eigenvalues9 greater than 1, with the first component dominating (eigenvalues 6.036; other components had eigenvalues around 1). This initial component explained 27.5% of the total variance. The scree plot (graph of the eigenvalues) also clearly showed the dominance of this single component, which is common in the PCA. The factor loadings for each of the items in the four-factor rotated component matrix were examined. Fifteen items loaded heavily (loadings of > 0.30) on the first component, while the other three components had two, three and one item(s) respectively. Four items did not load significantly on any subscale. Since the number of items in each of the last three components was very small, they did not constitute acceptable separate subscales. These components were removed from the analysis because a close examination showed that items of all four a priori subscales (Table 5.1) were already represented in the first component. This probably occurred because the a priori subscales contained conceptually overlapping items. Consequently, a single scale for social capital, which was constituted by the 15 items which loaded heavily on the first component, was constructed. The scale was labelled parental input, which adequately covers all the items that grouped together in this factor. Alpha internal-consistency reliability for the scale was 0.81. Other scale statistics are provided in Appendix I. Strong claims cannot be made about data reduction by factor analytical procedures because of the elements of subjectivity in the process on the one hand (e.g., selecting method of rotation, deciding the cut point for eigenvalues), and data-sensitivity on the other (i.e., a different or even a larger sample may produce different results). With these caveats in mind, one can see that this particular dataset did not support the separate rational constructs underlying the items within the four constituent subscales. One explanation for the divergence between our understanding of the concept of social capital (as well as of habitus, as discussed later) and its empirical manifestations could be that our rational understanding of the construct was, apparently, inadequate. However, as previously noted, the 15 items that grouped together drew items from all four rationally constructed working subscales. In other words, items from all four subscales were represented in the single broader component of parental input. The way the participants responded to the items suggests that rather than there being a number of distinct subscales, the items making up the construct had a strong commonality as a group. This single-factor solution is plausible because all the four subscales that were initially constructed contributed to different dimensions of the same concept: parental input into their children‘s English studies.
9
Eigenvalues are computed when extracting the latent roots underlying a construct. These are interpreted as the proportion of variance accounted for by the correlation between the respective latent roots, that is, of the weighted sum scores of the two sets of variables.
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5.1.2.2 Habitus scale The procedures previously described for social capital were repeated for reducing the number of items to subscales for habitus. The findings did not support the initially constructed subscales in this case either. Therefore, the a priori subscales were discarded and the results of the PCA were used to produce the final subscales for habitus. Principal Component Analysis was carried out to examine whether the dataset supported the nine pre-determined subscales for habitus. As with social capital, results of the varimax rotation did not provide a sound basis for the initial subscales. Results showed that a total of 11 components appeared with eigenvalues greater than 1. Although the first component was considerably more dominant than the others (it explained 22% of the variance), the scree plot showed that three other components could also be distinguished. These components (second, third and fourth) explained 8%, 5% and 4% of the total variance respectively. On the basis of these results, it was decided to accept the first four components which were made up of 30 of the 40 items in the questionnaire. The remaining factors, whose numbers of items varied from one to four, were removed from the analysis on several grounds. First, the number of items constituting each of these factors was very small. Second, the nine components produced by PCA were different from the nine working subscales of habitus, both in terms of items and the underlying constructs which made them up. The rotated items were regrouped within new components, creating new dimensions of the underlying construct. As previously mentioned, 30 out of 40 items were already included in the four selected components, which meant that these redefined constructs were inclusive in nature. It was found that the items related to the nine constructs underlying the 10 remaining items were already represented in the first four components. This is plausible because the original subscales included overlapping items. The items constituting the first four components in the PCA were closely examined. The aim was to check whether the items that grouped together empirically could also be conceptualised as a rational group. Since the items and subscales were inter-correlated, some items loaded strongly on several components and were placed with the one where there was the best rational fit for that item. That is, some items which loaded heavily on two or more components, with a factor loading of above 0.30 on each component (a factor loading of 0.30 is usually the common lower cut point in the PCA: Brace, Kemp & Snelgar, 2006) were placed in the component in which it fitted logically rather than in the component in which it might have been placed because of its slightly higher factor loading. There were five occasions where items were re-assigned based on the weight of rational versus statistical evidence, and these cases demonstrate the previous observation that items were found to be inter-correlated. For example, item 26 (I want to go to a university or a medical or engineering college after passing my HSC exam) loaded heavily on the first (factor loading 0.344) 120
and the second (factor loading 0.447) components. Because this item was more heavily loaded on the second component (i.e., Habitus 2: Efforts at learning English: see p. 122) statistically, it should have been grouped with the second component rather than the first. However, an examination of the definition of the two constructs underlying the components (i.e., the meaning of the other items) showed that this item was more appropriate for the construct of ‗Habitus 1: Success-oriented academic self, beliefs and motivation‘ (i.e., the first component) than the second component which defined efforts at learning English. A second instance where rational and statistical evidence was combined related to item 50 (I try to do my best to acquire the knowledge and skills taught in the English class) which was loaded on the first (factor loading 0.436), the second (factor loading 0.389) and the fifth (factor loading 0.485) component. The fifth component was removed from the analysis (see the previous discussion), but the item could still have been retained either in the first or second component. Although the item loaded more heavily on the first component (Habitus 1: Success-oriented academic self, beliefs and motivation), the underlying rational construct suggested that it was more aligned with the second component (Habitus 2: Efforts at learning English) than the first. In all five instances where decisions were made about item placement on scales based on rational versus statistical evidence, a check was made to be sure that the change of an item did not affect the alpha reliability of the subscale concerned. Habitus 1: Success-oriented academic self, beliefs and motivation The 12 items (see Appendix I) that grouped under the first component came from four of the initial rational constructs: motivation for studying English, academic self-concept, education and career expectations, and beliefs about English-education-career success links (see Table 5.1). Hence it was difficult to find an appropriate label or superordinate term for the new statistically based construct. Apparently, the multidimensionality of the component was similar to a broader definition of motivation provided by McDonough (2007). According to McDonough, there are at least four elements which constitute motivation: 1) reasons for our learning; 2) the strength of our desire to learn; 3) the kind of person that we are (i.e., our self-concept); and 4) our estimation of what is required of us for learning (p. 369). A closer examination of the 12 items (see Appendix I) shows that they represent all these elements of motivation. However, the component also includes some items which represent individuals‘ strong beliefs about the connections between English learning and general educational achievement which in turn lead to career success. Even the broader conceptualisation of motivation found in McDonough (2007) does not include individual beliefs. Therefore, despite being very close, instrumental motivation cannot be an umbrella term for all dimensions of the component. The alternative was to settle for a set of descriptors which represent 121
the hybrid nature of the component constituted by the 12 items. The alpha reliability for this subscale is 0.85 (see Appendix I). Habitus 2: Efforts at learning English Five items grouped together in the second component. Compared to the first component, this was considerably more straightforward and less hybrid in terms of its underlying construct. ‗Efforts at learning English‘ is an adequate label for this component. The alpha reliability for this subscale is 0.73. Habitus 3: Negative outlook on English and schooling The eight items that grouped under the third component suggest an individual‘s negative attitudes towards English and schooling and, consequently, a disbelief in the instrumental value of English and its learning. This component also draws on complex and multidimensional ideas. However, the negative aspects of the items provide the focus for all dimensions of the component and therefore its label. The items have a reliability coefficient of 0.75.
Habitus 4: School and reading-friendly habitus The fourth component suggests an individual habitus which is disposed to reading and schooling. The alpha reliability of this scale is 0.68. It consists of five items.
5.2 Conclusion This chapter has discussed the rationale, processes and outcomes of constructing subscales for the theoretical concepts of habitus and social capital. The discussion has also underscored the challenge of measuring these constructs on a psychometric basis. First, previous research has not designed psychometric scales for the constructs of habitus and social capital for understanding students‘ English achievement. As a consequence, scale development in this study could not be based on available models. Second, concepts such as habitus are indeterminate and poorly defined (see Section 5.1.1). Consequently, these constructs have been variably operationalised in different studies. Moreover, operationalisations of these concepts cannot be context-independent, which means that the measures or indicators chosen must respond to the socio-economic and cultural realities in a particular social context. The construction of the single scale for social capital and the four subscales for habitus, as discussed in this chapter, should be evaluated against the background just described. Arguably, the psychometric tools could have been made more reliable if a much larger sample were used, or if the scales could be tested with a different sample. However, practical constraints did not permit the researcher to utilise these measures. Nevertheless, the very attempt at operationalising them serves 122
as a valuable precedent for future studies. In addition, the scale scores, although different from the initial rational constructs, show statistical reliability and validity for this situation, and can be used as predictors of outcome measures (i.e., students‘ English achievement) as well as outcomes of family capital, both economic and cultural. These analyses are undertaken in Chapter 6.
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Chapter 6 QUANTITATIVE DATA AND ANALYSIS 6.1 Introduction This chapter analyses the quantitative data of the present study. The first section presents the descriptive statistics related to the data and prepares for the bivariate and multivariate analyses carried out in the next two sections. This is in line with the principle that in applied linguistics research ‗all statistical analyses should be accompanied by the descriptive statistics on which they are based‘ (Lazaraton, 2000, p. 178). The data analyses generate findings which shed light on the research questions that are discussed in Chapter 8.
6.2 Descriptive statistics The independent variables of the research are constituted by different aspects of family economic capital, cultural capital, social capital and learner habitus, while the dependent variable is comprised of a) learners‘ scores on the English proficiency test administered as part of the study; and b) their grades in English in the national school-leaving examination as measures of English language proficiency.
6.2.1 Economic capital The constituents of economic capital include 1) parental occupations, 2) parental income, 3) education expenses per student per month, and 4) financial help received from relatives/institutions. The upper section of Table 6.1 shows parental occupations of the 10th grade student sample. As can be seen, while fathers were involved in all the occupational categories listed, mothers were overwhelmingly engaged in home-making (91%). This is not surprising in the rural Bangladeshi context, where women contribute to the family mainly by working from within. Although their contribution is substantial, it is a fact that home-making does not add to the income of the family. Since an overwhelming majority of mothers were engaged in home-making, mother‘s occupation does not provide variability to influence results and was not considered further in the statistical analysis. Farming was the main occupation of the fathers, reported by about one-third of the study participants. It was followed by business, which employed about 22% of the total sample‘s parents. Government and non-government services were represented by 13% and 14% of fathers respectively. These two sub-categories were merged as ‗salaried service‘ to create a sizable data segment in the category, which can generate more meaningful data analysis and findings. So there 124
were four categories of occupation for further analysis: salaried service (27%), business (22%), farming (33%) and manual and other (18%).
Table 6.1: Percentage distribution of different aspects of economic capital (n = 228).
Parental occupation Govt. service Non-govt. service Business Farming Manual work Home-making Other
Father 13.2 14.0 21.9 32.5 9.2 -9.2
Parental income per month Tk.
