Special Issue 2014 - Social Class and Language Learning - Journal of Language, Identity and Education

Journal of
Language, Identity,
and Education
Volume 13, Number 2, 2014
SPECIAL FORUM:
Social Class in Language Learning and Teaching
Guest Editors:
Yasuko Kanno & Stephanie Vandrick
ARTICLES
The Role of Social Class in English Language Education
Stephanie Vandrick
Social-Class Identity and English Learning: Studies of Chinese Learners
Feng Gao
Social Class, Habitus, and Language Learning: The Case of Korean Early
Study-Abroad Students
Hyunjung Shin
85
92
99
Social Class in English Language Education in Oaxaca, Mexico

Mario E. Lpez-Gopar and William Sughrua
104
Social Class, Identity, and Migrant Students

Ron Darvin and Bonny Norton
111
Forum Commentary
Yasuko Kanno
118
BOOK REVIEWS
Articulate while Black: Barack Obama, language, and race in the U.S., by Alim,
H. Samy, & Smitherman, G.
Ersula J. Ore
124
Language, ethnography, and education: Bridging New Literacy Studies and Bourdieu,
by Grenfell, M., Bloome, D., Hardy, C., Pahl, K., Rowsell, J., & Street, B. V.
Ron Darvin
127
English language as hydra: Its impact on non-English language cultures, by

Rapatahana, V., & Bunce, P. (Eds.)
Ahmed Kabel
131
We would like to thank Sara Kangas and Bonny Norton for their help with reviewing and
editing the manuscripts for this forum.
This article was downloaded by: [Temple University Libraries]

On: 14 December 2014, At: 15:39
Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered
office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Journal of Language, Identity &

Education
Publication details, including instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hlie20
The Role of Social Class in English

Language Education
a
Stephanie Vandrick
a
University of San Francisco

Published online: 16 May 2014.
Click for updates

To cite this article: Stephanie Vandrick (2014) The Role of Social Class in English Language Education,
Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 13:2, 85-91, DOI: 10.1080/15348458.2014.901819
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2014.901819
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the
Content) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,
our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to
the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions
and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,
and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content
should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources
of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,
proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or
howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising
out of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any
substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,
systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &
Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/termsand-conditions
Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 13: 8591, 2014

Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1534-8458 print / 1532-7701 online
DOI: 10.1080/15348458.2014.901819
Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 15:39 14 December 2014
ARTICLES
The Role of Social Class in English Language Education

Stephanie Vandrick
University of San Francisco
English language educators are often advocates for social justice and often focus on learners identities, such as their race, gender, and ethnicity; however, they tend not to employ a social class lens in
analyzing students, teachers, classrooms, and institutions. Yet social class plays a significant, if unacknowledged, role in the field. Scholars do not often examine the whole range of social class (high to
low) or ways in which English language teaching (ELT) reproduces and reinforces privilege, or lack
thereof. This article briefly looks at existing literature and relevant theory on social class; explores
ways in which power and privilege play out in English-language education; queries the roles of coloniality and neoliberalism in exacerbating social stratification; notes intersections of social class with
other identities; and recommends increased attention to social class in English language education
research, teacher education, and language classrooms.
Key words: social class, English language education, priviledge, identity, status
This article provides a very brief introduction to the topic of social class. It outlines some historical and theoretical background relating to the concept of social class, first in general terms, then
in the field of education, and finally in the field of English language education. This introduction
thus serves as context for the other contributions to this forum on social class in language learning
and teaching.
INTRODUCTION
English language educators and scholars are often advocates for social justice and often focus
on learners identities, such as their race, gender, and ethnicity; however, these educators tend
not to employ a social class lens in analyzing students, teachers, classrooms, and institutions.
Correspondence should be sent to Stephanie Vandrick, Department of Rhetoric and Language, University of San
Francisco, 2130 Fulton St., KA-204, San Francisco, CA 94117. E-mail: vandricks@usfca.edu
86
VANDRICK
Yet social class plays a significant, if largely unacknowledged, role in the field (Collins, 2006).
In some countries, the existence of class is openly discussed. In others such as the United States,
on which I focus here, discussing or even acknowledging class often causes discomfort, as the
existence of class differences seems to contradict Americans traditional and treasured view that
in the United States everyone is equal and has an equal chance to succeed. A few theorists have
alerted us to the increasing effects of social class divisions. For example, hooks (2000) warns that
our nation [the United States] is fast becoming a class-segregated society where the plight of the
poor is forgotten and the greed of the rich is morally tolerated and condoned. As a nation we are
afraid to have a dialogue about class (p. vii).
In recent years, due to the increasing gap between the wealthiest and the poorest in the United
States and elsewhere, and due to political responses to that gap from many, there is slightly more
open acknowledgement of social class and its effects, both in society and in academe.
Social class is an amorphous term, but can generally be defined as an unofficial hierarchical
stratification of people in a given society, who are ranked according to their social, economic,
occupational, and educational statuses. The systems of categorization vary, from Marxs bourgeoisie versus proletariat (e.g., Marx & Engels, 1998) to the classic much-discussed three levels
of upper, middle, and lower class, to more elaborate schemes such as variations on a six-level
division into upper, upper-middle, middle, and lower-middle class; working poor; and the underclass (e.g., Gilbert, 2002). These categories, like most categories referring to social structures
and/or identities, lack distinct boundaries and are contingent on many factors. As Kubota (2003)
and others have cautioned, class is often a shifting rather than fixed identity.
Further, social class, like any identity, seldom operates in a vacuum. Kubota (2003) states that
class differences need to be unpacked in relation to power and discourse (p. 38). Class intersects
and interacts with other identities, such as race, gender, ethnicity, religion, and sexual identity, as
Luke (2010) and others have reminded us. The positive or negative effects of ones social class
status may be partially counterbalanced by another identity; for example, a working-class White
male may sometimes experience prejudice because of his class identity but may at other times
experience racial and gender privilege.
THEORETICAL CONTEXT
As with most scholars who discuss social class, my views and definitions are rooted at least
broadly in the work of Marx. Although it is still essentially true that the world is divided into
owners (capitalists, even when they are in ostensibly communist or socialist societies) and workers, various theorists over the years have pointed out that the divisions that Marx spoke of have
become more complex. Weber (1978) offered a more nuanced concept of class that included
attention to factors other than simply economics, such as politics and religion. He also asserted
that stratification was based not only on class but also on status, a concept associated with education and prestige. More recently, Ebert and Zavarzadeh (2008) question Marxs analysis as they
speak of the increasing diversity of the owners of the means of production and state that class is
not simply inequality that can be overcome by providing further opportunities for all within the
existing social system because the system itself produces inequality. . . . To make everyone equal
under capitalism simply means to exploit everyone equally (p. 15).
There is a body of scholarship about social class and education. A major emphasis in this literature is the concept of social reproduction. As Bourdieu and Passeron (1977) and others have
SOCIAL CLASS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION
87
argued, academic institutions themselves reproduce class differences. Other influential work on
social reproduction includes that of Bowles and Gintis (1976), who argue that schools reproduce
social class statusand thus the capitalist division of laborand socialize people to function in
their places in the corporate world. Also illuminating is the scholarship of Lois Weis. For example, her edited book, The Way Class Works, includes useful essays by such leading authors on
social class and education as Aronowitz, Lareau, Fine, and Weis herself; together these 24 essays
provide a good overview of class and education (Weis, 2008). Persell (1997) agrees that social
class has been consistently related to educational success through time (p. 88). She posits that
three features of U.S. education increase educational inequalities (p. 88). First is the structure
of schooling, which refers to such matters as differences among urban, rural, and suburban
schools, and differences between public and private schools (p. 88); students of similar backgrounds tend to attend similar schools, thus perpetuating class differences. Second is the beliefs
held by many members of U.S. society and hence by many educators, such as beliefs about IQ
(intelligence quotient) and cultural deprivation, two sets of ideas that have been offered to explain
why lower-class children often do less well in school (p. 88). The third feature that exacerbates
inequality in education, according to Persell, is certain curricular and teaching practices in U.S.
schools (p. 88), by which she means such practices as tracking children into various curricula.
The contentions of these educational theorists are demonstrated very explicitly in the research
of Anyon (1981), who states that social class differences in education are an important aspect of
the reproduction of unequal class structures (p. 3). In her research project involving five elementary schools in various social settings, she found subtle as well as dramatic differences in the
curriculum . . . among the schools (p. 3). Luke (2010) argues that the implications of Anyons
compelling research data are still applicable today. This assertion is reinforced by research in
higher education as well, research that shows that affluent students now form an even larger
proportion of U.S. students earning bachelors degrees than they did in the past (Clark, 2010).
Because many teachers are middle class, and educational systems emphasize middle-class
norms and values, students from working-class or lower-class backgrounds are often disadvantaged when they do not understand the system, or are wrongly regarded as purposely flouting
expectations. Palmer (2009), for example, writes that in the increasingly popular two-wayimmersion bilingual classrooms in elementary schools, there is often a sort of culture clash
between the middle-class, mostly White English-speaking students and the mostly working class,
Spanish-speaking students of immigrant families. The middle-class children often dominate the
classes, taking a disproportionate share of the teachers attention and class time.
SOCIAL CLASS PRIVILEGE IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS AND ELT

Turning from general education to, more specifically, applied linguistics and English language
education, it can be seen that scholarship on social class is fairly meager. Block (2012a, 2012b,
and, most comprehensively, 2014) discusses social class and both its marginalization and its manifestations in applied linguistics. Ramanathan and Morgan (2009) assert that the field of TESOL
(Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) does not adequately acknowledge class;
for example, Ramanathans work with English and vernacular-medium teachers in Gujarat has
made [her] acutely aware of the extent to which English teaching is . . . a class-based endeavor
despite being seen to ostensibly have the power of splintering class-based enclaves (p. 155).
88
VANDRICK
Lin (1999) urges educators to understand the educational consequences of social class differences
that play out in schools and to interrogate the rules laid down by the privileged classes (p. 411).
Other language-education scholars who, directly or indirectly, allude to social class issues in the
United States and around the world include Auerbach and Burgess (1985), who remind us that
ESL (English as a Second Language) classrooms and texts, especially those aimed at survival
English for poorer immigrants, often prepare students for subservient social roles (p. 475).
Kannos (2008) research in five very different schools in Japan reveals that schools there that
are targeted toward and attended by students of different social classes offer unequal access to
studying elite languages, such as English, and devalue the language skills of children from poorer
immigrant backgrounds.
In the closely related field of foreign-language education, Kinginger (2004) researches class.
She tells the story of Alice, who felt that her lower-class background was subtly held against her
when she applied to study, and did eventually study, French abroad. Kinginger cites research
asserting that foreign language instruction may then be reserved for the monolingual elite
(p. 221).
Recent scholarship has explored connections between neoliberalism and applied
linguistics/ELT (e.g., Block, Gray, & Holborow, 2012; Chun, 2013; Clarke & Morgan,
2011). Neoliberalism, with its principles of unregulated markets, privatization, corporatization,
and the valorizing of individual responsibility over governments obligation to the public good
is relevant here because it is complicit in reproducing, reinforcing, and exacerbating social class
status inequalities through corporate and state influences on education. For example, students
who have high social class status are more likely than others to understand the educational and
work world systems and to have access to resources for success (Darvin & Norton, this forum).
The inequitable forces of neoliberalism are also seen in the increasing amount of corporate
control over testing, textbooks, and charter schools and in the attempts to demonize and erode the
autonomy of teachers. This is a sad retreat from the increased openness that educators achieved
in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
As for the influence of neoliberalism in ELT specifically, Chun (2009) points out that
neoliberalism is reinforced by the global nature of English; the reality is that many Englishlanguage classes and materials position students as consumers and serve as advertisements for
the globalized market. The destructive effects of neoliberalism on education and on social mobility echo, in a sense, the effects of coloniality. The neoliberal use and promotion of English as an
international language builds on the earlier colonial spread of English throughout India, parts of
Africa, and elsewhere and echoes too the ongoing spread of English as a signifier of social class
privilege and access (Lpez-Gopar & Sughrua, this forum). The prevalent belief that English,
and perhaps an education in an English-dominant country, will create a better future maintains
the class privilege that some English learners already have (Gao; Shin, this forum).
Educational practices such as testing and tracking (Benesch, 1991) and remediation (Benesch,
1988) further disadvantage already disadvantaged students by assuming a deficit model and
marginalizing immigrant and ESL students. Benesch (2010) points out other class-related aspects
of this discrimination; for example, military recruiters focus on colleges that serve students of
lower socioeconomic status and believe that they can be lured by the economic and educational
benefits promised by the military.
Although many immigrants hope that education will allow their children to enter the middle
class and have more secure futures, English language learners (ELLs) often do not do well in
89
school and have far lower rates of access to, and attainment in, postsecondary education, as Kanno
and Cromleys recent (2013) research demonstrates. Their research also shows that many of the
reasons for ELLs lower success rates are not linguistic but instead have to do with socioeconomic
level or class.
Textbooks and materials, both in language and in teacher education classes, are often oriented
toward middle-class students. If they discuss social class at all, they generally do not engage with
the power aspects of social class. Jacobson (2003) states that there is no discussion in ESOL
textbooks of how language use is affected by power relations between speakers, or by salient
social characteristics (p. 13).
Most of the small amount written about social class in English language education is concerned
with poverty and the working or lower classes. Less is written about the middle class (or classes),
and even less about the upper or most privileged class (or classes) (Gao; Shin, this forum). But
upper class privilege, especially economic privilege, also strongly affects ELT settings and participants. The anthropologist Nader (1972) makes a case for what she labels studying up (p. 284).
She states about anthropology that there is comparatively little field research on the middle class
and very little firsthand work on the upper classes, and asks, What if . . . anthropologists were
to study the colonizers rather than the colonized, the culture of power rather than the culture of the
powerless, the culture of affluence rather than the culture of poverty? (p. 289). These questions
are still pertinent today.
Some of my work (e.g., Vandrick, 2009, 2010) has focused on upper class privilege among
students in many ESL programs at universities in the United States and its effects on languagelearning settings. Social class privilege can and often does lessen the sometimes negative effects
of students being labeled and perceived as ESL students (Darvin & Norton, this forum). Other
students or even instructors may look down on ESL students or underestimate their intelligence
and knowledge because they do not speak English well or do not understand the dominant culture
well (Shin, this forum). However, if the students are from a high social class, they may be much
less affected by that condescension, prejudice, or discrimination. They may in fact feel superior
to those others because of their social status (Vandrick, 1995, 2011).
Second-language educators too are affected by their own social class status in relationship
to that of their students (Lpez-Gopar & Sughrua, this forum). For example, some instructors
from less affluent backgrounds may resent wealthy students, especially when those students seem
oblivious that their social class status and wealth is unearned, and not a result of some special
virtue or effort on their part (Vandrick, 1995). Tertiary educational institutions themselves have
class status. Private universities often have more status than public institutions; four-year colleges,
more than two-year colleges; research universities, more than others. Furthermore, within institutions, certain majors and programs have more prestige than others; English-language education
is very much on the low end of this continuum.
CONCLUSION
The effects of social class status are not abstract but strongly affect the lived experiences of participants in second-language education. Social class status can cause great disadvantage or grant
great privilege. Because it has such concrete consequences, it is important that those involved in
language education, whether teaching language, preparing language educators, or carrying out
90
VANDRICK
research on language education, consider addressing social class in their teaching and research.
Language educators can have their students reflect on why and how the world is so divided by
social class, and on the responsibilities of those who have social status and economic privilege.
Educators can choose their teaching materials with an awareness of whether or not those materials are reinforcing the social and economic status quo. Teacher educators, too, can seek out and
teach relevant materials and note and discuss with their students the consequences of social class
differences. Discussion should involve a critical approach, looking at how social class connects
with power. Finally, researchers can investigate the multiple manifestations and aspects of social
class in language education; more such research is needed.
REFERENCES
Anyon, J. (1981). Social class and school knowledge. Curriculum Inquiry, 11(1), 342. doi:10.2307/1179509
Auerbach, E. R., & Burgess, D. (1985). The hidden curriculum of survival ESL. TESOL Quarterly, 19(3), 475495.
doi:10.2307/3586274
Benesch, S. (Ed.). (1988). Ending remediation: Linking ESL and content in higher education. Washington, DC: TESOL.
Benesch, S. (1991). ESL on campus: Questioning testing and tracking policies. In S. Benesch (Ed.), ESL in America:
Myths and possibilities (pp. 5974). Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook.
Benesch, S. (2010). Critical praxis as materials development: Responding to military recruitment on a U.S. campus. In N.
Harwood (Ed.), English language teaching materials: Theory and practice (pp. 109128). New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press.
Block, D. (2012a). Class and SLA: Making connections. Language Teaching Research, 16(2), 188205.
doi:10.1177/1362168811428418
Block, D. (2012b). Economising globalisation and identity in applied linguistics in neoliberal times. In D. Block, J. Gray,
& M. Holborow (Eds.), Neoliberalism and applied linguistics (pp. 5685). New York, NY: Routledge.
Block, D. (2014). Social class in applied linguistics. New York, NY: Routledge.
Block, D., Gray, J., & Holborow, M. (Eds.). (2012). Neoliberalism and applied linguistics. New York, NY: Routledge.
Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.-C. (1977). Reproduction in education, society and culture (R. Nice, Trans.). London, United
Kingdom: Sage.
Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in capitalist America: Educational reform and the contradictions of economic
life. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Chun, C. W. (2009). Contesting neoliberal discourses in EAP: Critical praxis in an IEP classroom. Journal of English for
Academic Purposes, 8(2), 111120.
Chun, C. W. (2013). The neoliberal citizen: Resemiotizing globalized identities in EAP materials. In J. Gray (Ed.),
Critical perspectives on language teaching materials (pp. 6487). Hampshire, United Kingdom: Palgrave.
Clark, K. (2010, January 15). Rich students will get more college acceptance letters in 2010. U.S. News and
World Report: Education. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2010/01/15/rich-students-willget-more-college-acceptance-letters-in-2010
Clarke, M., & Morgan, B. (2011). Education and social justice in neoliberal times: Historical and pedagogical perspectives
from two postcolonial contexts. In M. Hawkins (Ed.), Social justice language teacher education (pp. 6385). Bristol,
United Kingdom: Multilingual Matters.
Collins, J. (2006). Wheres class in second language learning?, Working papers in urban language and literacies (Paper
41). London, United Kingdom: Kings College.
Ebert, T. L., & Zavarzadeh, M. (2008). Class in culture. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.
Gilbert, D. (2002). The American class structure in an age of growing inequality (6th ed.) New York, NY: Wadsworth.
hooks, B. (2000). Where we stand: Class matters. New York, NY: Routledge.
Jacobson, E. (2003). Critical sociolinguistics in the adult ESOL classroom. Radical Teacher, 68, 1317.
Kanno, Y. (2008). Language and education in Japan: Unequal access to bilingualism. Basingstoke, United Kingdom:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Kanno, Y., & Cromley, J. G. (2013). English language learners access to and attainment in postsecondary education.
TESOL Quarterly, 47(1), 89121. doi:10.1002/tesq.49
91
Kinginger, C. (2004). Alice doesnt live here anymore: Foreign language learning and identity reconstruction. In A.
Pavlenko & A. Blackledge (Eds.), Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts (pp. 219242). Clevedon, United
Kingdom: Multilingual Matters.
Kubota, R. (2003). New approaches to gender, class, and race in second language writing. Journal of Second Language
Writing, 12(1), 3147. doi:10.1016/S1060-3743(02)00125-X
Lin, A. M. Y. (1999). Doing-English-lessons in the reproduction or transformation of social worlds? TESOL Quarterly,
33(3), 393412. doi:10.2307/3587671
Luke, A. (2010). Documenting reproduction and inequality: Revisiting Jean Anyons Social class and school knowledge. Curriculum Inquiry, 40(1), 167182. doi:10.1111/j.1467-873X.2009.00474.x
Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1998). Communist manifesto. London, United Kingdom: Merlin Press. (Original work published
1848)
Nader, L. (1972). Up the anthropologist: Perspectives gained from studying up. In D. Hymes (Ed.), Reinventing
anthropology (pp. 284311). New York, NY: Pantheon.
Palmer, D. (2009). Middle-class English speakers in a two-way immersion bilingual classroom: Everybody should be
listening to Jonathan right now. TESOL Quarterly, 43(2), 177202.
Persell, C. H. (1997). Social class and educational inequality. In J. A. Banks & C. A. McGee Banks (Eds.), Multicultural
education: Issues and perspectives (3rd ed., pp.87107). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Ramanathan, V., & Morgan, B. (2009). Global warning? West-based TESOL, class-blindness and the challenge for critical
pedagogies. In F. Sharifian (Ed.), English as an international language: Perspectives and pedagogical issues (pp.
153168). Clevedon, United Kingdom: Multilingual Matters.
Vandrick, S. (1995). Privileged ESL university students. TESOL Quarterly, 29(2), 375381. doi:0.2307/3587629
Vandrick, S. (2009). Interrogating privilege: Reflections of a second language educator. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press.
Vandrick, S. (2010). Social class privilege among ESOL writing students. In M. Cox, J. Jordan, C. Ortmeier-Hooper, &
G. G. Schwartz (Eds.), Reinventing identities in second language writing (pp. 257272). Urbana, IL: National Council
of Teachers of English.
Vandrick, S. (2011). Students of the new global elite. TESOL Quarterly, 45(1), 160169. doi:10.5054/tq.2011.244020
Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society (4th ed., vols. 1-2). Berkeley: University of California Press. (Original work
published 1922)
Weis, L. (Ed.). (2008). The way class works: Readings on school, family, and the economy. New York, NY: Routledge.

On: 14 December 2014, At: 15:39

Education
Social-Class Identity and English

Learning: Studies of Chinese Learners
Feng Gao
Beijing International Studies University

Click for updates

To cite this article: Feng Gao (2014) Social-Class Identity and English Learning: Studies
of Chinese Learners, Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 13:2, 92-98, DOI:
10.1080/15348458.2014.901820


DOI: 10.1080/15348458.2014.901820
Social-Class Identity and English Learning: Studies

of Chinese Learners
Feng Gao
Beijing International Studies University
This article first looks at the complex conceptualization of Chinese learners social-class identities
with respect to a shifting Chinese class stratification. It then examines the link between social
class and second-language learning in the Chinese context by reviewing several studies on Chinese
learners social-class backgrounds and their English language learning experiences, discussing the
strengths and limitations of these studies and suggesting some directions for future research.
Key words: social class, identity, English learning, Chinese
DEFINING CHINESE LEARNERS SOCIAL-CLASS IDENTITIES

Under Maos leadership, the threefold socialist-era categories of workers, peasants, and cadres
were used to classify the Chinese people (Liang, 1997). Since 1978, however, China has undergone a rapid economic development and dramatic social reform. Simultaneously, increasing
socioeconomic disparity has become a problem that could potentially destabilize the economic
reform, and the existing rigid social-status hierarchy that grew out of a state socialist economy is
no longer suited to represent the increasing social and economic fragmentation of Chinese society
(Bian, 2002). Under these circumstances, the Chinese government called for a new social-class
analysis, which could help them carefully monitor social inequality so as to maintain social stability, continue economic growth, and develop a harmonious society. To meet this requirement to
carry out the analysis, the term social strata replaced social class, defined by Marxist class analysis as a new expression through which to study Chinas changing social structure in the 1990s
(Anagnost, 2008). Marxs class differentiation model was based on the ownership of the means
of production, which divided a society into two opposing groups: the rulers and the ruled (Marx,
1976). Marxs theory of class polarization and Maos concept of class warfare once trapped the
Chinese in an endless dialectic of class struggle, which prevented the development of the Chinese
market economy. In contrast, the concept of social strata is used to address social inequality without assuming social antagonism. In this way, socioeconomic inequality is articulated as cultural
difference in a hierarchy of national belonging rather than class-based conflict (Anagnost, 2008).
People from various social strata may have different occupations, incomes, or lifestyles but not,
Correspondence should be sent to Feng Gao, School of English Language, Literature and Culture, Beijing
International Studies University, No 1 Ding Fu Zhuang Nan Li, Chao Yang District, Beijing 100024, P. R. China. E-mail:
20090036@bisu.edu.cn
SOCIAL CLASS IDENTITY AND ENGLISH LEARNING
93
necessarily, contradictory political stances. Although there is contradiction and conflict among
the social strata, the class struggles of Chinas past are no longer desirable (Wu & Xu, 1997). The
complexly differentiated social strata inspire individual Chinese to pursue their self-interests and
climb the social ladder, which fits the market reforms in China (Liang, 1997).
For two decades, Chinese sociologists have adopted a variety of theoretical approaches to
analyze the new social strata. One of the most comprehensive systematic analyses appears in The
Report on Social Stratification Research in Contemporary China issued in 2002 by the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). In this report, Lu (2002) employs a mixture of neo-Marxist
concepts of ownership and control (which posit the concentrated ownership by the ruling class
as well as the import of middle-class values), the Weberian concept of authority (which regards
authority as legitimate power), and Bourdieus concept of capital (which distinguishes class categories by the combination of varying degrees of social, economic, and cultural capital) and
analyzes a nationwide sample organized by CASSs Institute of Sociology. Lu defines Chinese
citizens social-strata positions in terms of their occupations and their differential access to power,
money, and status. Chinese society can thereby be divided into 10 social strata. Lu then groups
the 10 social strata into five social classes, based on the quantity and value of the resources each
social-stratum occupies (see Figure 1).
Lus social-strata model gives a vivid picture of Chinas new social structure, which is characterized as complex and dynamic. The 10 distinct social strata characterize the complexity of
market-driven social differences in contemporary China. Further, each category of social strata
encompasses a diverse array of social positions with different degrees of affluence and power.
In contrast to the fixed social stratification of the past, Lu addresses the social mobility among
different social strata. In Chinas market economic environment, social mobility exists not only
between social strata but also within a social stratum.
Adapted from Lu, X. E. (Ed.). (2002). The report on social stratification research in
contemporary China (p. 9). Beijing: Social Sciences Documentation.
Considering the complicated and fluid reality of Chinas emerging social structure, I draw on a
broader conception of social class to study the relationship between Chinese learners social-class
identities and their English-learning experiences. Social class can be defined by income, occupation, social status, education level, values, lifestyle, patterns of consumption, taste and aesthetic
values, life chances, and self-perception. Self-perception here refers to individuals own beliefs
or perceptions of the social class to which they belong. In spite of the hierarchical strata system
proposed by sociologists such as Lu (2002), Chinese learners may not consciously classify themselves according to the system. Thus, when researching English learners social-class identities in
China, it might be appropriate for the researcher to describe the participants social-class position
from various dimensions and also to encourage the participants to make sense of their social-class
identities from their own social backgrounds.
SOCIAL CLASS AND ENGLISH LEARNING IN THE CHINESE CONTEXT

English proficiency can provide Chinese learners not only with access to more prestigious forms
of education but also with desired positions in the workforce or on social-mobility ladders.
English is one of the three subjects on the national university entrance examination. Hence, in
order to be admitted to a good university, Chinese students have to make an effort to study English
94
GAO
Five Social Classes
Ten Social Strata

rural cadres
upper class
managers
private entrepreneurs
upper middle class
professionals
office workers
middle class
lower middle class
household business owners

and individual industrialists
and commercialists
business and service
workers
manufacturing workers
peasants
lower class
unemployed and
underemployed people
FIGURE 1 Social Structure of Contemporary China. All or part of the
members of one social stratum can be classified into the social classes that
the corresponding arrow points to.
The Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Reproduced by permission of The Institute of Sociology, Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences. Permission to reuse must be obtained from
the rightsholder.
from primary school to high school. Even at the university level, the certificates of the College
English Test or the Test for English Majors have been one of the graduation requirements for
undergraduates. After graduation, English competence enhances ones opportunities for landing
a good job and getting promoted in the workplace. However, with the growing social inequality
in China, English education is increasingly becoming a site for the reproduction of social-class
differences (Butler, 2013; Zou & Zhang, 2011). The new Standards of English Teaching for high
schools (Ministry of Education of the Peoples Republic of China, 2005) raised the requirements
for students learning outcomes dramatically, especially for oral communicative competence.
In order to help their children gain competitive academic records, parents possessing economic
capital and social capital tend to send their children to high-quality schools and use out-of-school
English-teaching programs to supplement school learning. Due to the difficulty of being admitted
95
into good schools, and the cost of the commercial programs, lower class parents, compared to
higher class parents, usually face more challenges when trying to provide their children with
a good English-learning environment. Accordingly, social class can be figured as an important
construct in Chinese learners English-learning processes.
This intricate relationship between social class and English-language learning in the Chinese
context has not yet been investigated systematically. The few empirical studies conducted so far
have investigated how parents socioeconomic backgrounds are related to their childrens English
achievement (Butler, 2013; Zou & Zhang, 2011) and English-learning motivation (Liu, 2012; Xu,
2008). Although all these scholars focused on socioeconomic factors in their studies, there is no
mention of social class except by Liu (2012). Xu (2008) used family background to refer to the
participants family economic status. In Butlers (2013) study, the term socioeconomic status
(SES) was employed in reference to the household income and the parents education levels.
Social class and family background were used by Liu (2012) and Zou and Zhang (2011), respectively, to include the parents financial status, cultural status, and social status. In the following
section, I look at how social class influences and is influenced by learners English-learning
experiences in the Chinese context by examining 3 studies more closely.
ASPECTS OF RESEARCHING SOCIAL CLASS AND ENGLISH LEARNING

Butler (2013) studied how parents SES and their beliefs and behaviors related to English education influence their childrens English-learning outcomes. She conducted an extensive survey
with 572 students and their parents at 2 primary schools and 2 middle schools in a mediumsized city in the eastern coastal area of China. When defining SES, Butler used a 4-level
ordinal measure for parents income level and a 6-level ordinal measure for their education level.
Additionally, she administered 2 tests to measure the students listening, reading, writing, and
speaking skills in English. Her analysis of the combined data suggested that the parents SES
had little impact on the students achievements in English listening, reading, and writing in primary school; however, the parents SES had significant effects in middle school. The students
English-speaking performance was substantially different according to their parents socioeconomic backgrounds, both during their primary and middle school years. Socioeconomic factors
had an earlier impact on the students English-speaking performance than on their English listening, English reading, and English writing performance. This may be because acquiring good
English-speaking skills requires the parents capacity to provide more resources and opportunities, such as accessing high-quality schools, financing private lessons by trained teachers with
high oral competency, and offering other English-learning chances and support during childhood.
Liu (2012) examined factors that motivated middle school students from different social
classes to learn English in China. The participants for this study were 1,542 parents and their students from 14 middle schools in Shenyang, Nanjing, and Beijing. Surveys and interviews were
employed in this study. By adding together the values of the variables for parents education,
occupation, position, and income, Liu grouped the students into 5 classes. He found that compared to the students from the lower class, the students from upper-class and upper-middle class
families showed higher motivation to study abroad and to further personal development, as well
as stronger intrinsic motivation to learn English. The parents beliefs and behaviors about investment in English education varied significantly across different social classes. The investment of
96
GAO
the parents from the upper and upper-middle classes had more positive effects on their childrens
English-learning motivation than did the investment of the lower-class parents.
Butler (2013) and Liu (2012) both provide large-scale quantitative data to demonstrate that
social class is associated with English-language learning in the Chinese context. However, it
is also worth noting that social class does not always positively impact an individuals Englishlearning experience. As Zou and Zhangs (2011) data suggested, within the same economic-status
group, there are students who have good and students who have poor English-learning outcomes
at the primary school and middle school stage. Xu (2008) also indicated that a familys economic
background affected Chinese university students English-learning motivation to a certain degree,
yet its impact was not invariably large or significant. Therefore, social class can be considered
a contributing factor in Chinese learners English-learning process but not a determiner of their
English-learning motivations, attitudes, and performance.
In addition to the cases of social class influencing learners English-learning experiences,
sometimes English-learning experiences can also affect social-class identities. My longitudinal ethnographic research investigated how a group of privileged Chinese learners social-class
identities were expressed and negotiated through their English language learning journeys in
Britain (Gao, 2010). I followed six Chinese students for nine months, from their registration in
long-term programs in three language schools in the UK, to their completion of the programs.
The multiple sources of data collected from this case study indicated that on the one hand, the
participants social economic statuses and self-identified social class positions influenced their
opportunities to practice English, and structured their friendship networks. On the other hand, the
participants senses of their middle-class or upper-class identities were reinforced during their
English-language journeys in Britain. When they perceived new behavior and attitudes associated with middle class or upper class in Britain, they tended to adjust themselves socioculturally.
For example, influenced by language teachers, peers, the media, and the social environment in
Britain, the participants perceived that there was a link between social prestige and fashion. Thus,
they chose to wear certain brands to signify their social-class identities.
In summary, these empirical studies demonstrate that investigating the relationship between
social class and English learning in the socioeconomically stratified Chinese context can help us
understand how English as symbolic capital mediates Chinese learners investment in English
learning; how and why Chinese learners orient themselves to and engage with English-learning
processes related to their class positions; and how individual Chinese learners social-class
identities are negotiated through their English-learning journeys.
DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

Since the current Chinese social-class system is open and evolving, and the contemporary theorization of Chinese social class is still emerging, there are no agreed-upon criteria for how class
is conceptualized within China. L2 scholars have thus adopted various approaches to understand
their research participants social-class positions. For example, Butler (2013) and Liu (2011) used
survey questions to classify the parents social class. The questions encompassed the dimensions of income, education level, and social status. Taking another approach, in my own study
(Gao, 2010) I invited the participants to define their family social-class positions without providing any guidelines in the interview. The participants, creating their own definitions, classified
97
their families based on the dimensions of income, occupation, lifestyle, patterns of consumption,
aesthetic values, life chances, and self-perception. As there is no agreed-upon way of measuring social class as a variable in China, it is important for L2 researchers to integrate various
and multiple dimensions in conceptualizing social-class identity. In this way, Chinese learners
complicated and shifting social-class identities can be reflected from different perspectives.
Not only does social-class status influence the learning of English, but the reverse is also true:
learning English affects social-class status. Hence, another potentially fruitful line of inquiry
would be to explore what aspects of Chinese learners English-learning processes help to construct their social-class identities. As English is not only an important academic subject in the
exam-oriented educational system in China but also a form of cultural capital in the globalizing world, English learning is becoming a means of promoting social mobility (Butler, 2013;
Zou & Zhang, 2011). On the other hand, in terms of increasing investment in English education,
English learning functions as a means of reproducing class hierarchies. Longitudinal qualitative
and quantitative studies are needed to thoroughly explore how individual Chinese learners particular English-learning experiences increase or reduce their life chances and opportunities for
social mobility.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Stephanie Vandrick and Yasuko Kanno for their thoughtful comments on earlier versions
of this piece.
FUNDING
I appreciate the support from the Special Items Fund of Beijing International Studies University
and grants awarded by the Innovation Center of Beijing International Studies University.
REFERENCES
Anagnost, A. (2008). From class to social strata: Grasping the social totality in reform-era China. Third World
Quarterly, 29(3), 497519. doi:10.1080/01436590801931488
Bian, Y. J. (2002). Chinese social stratification and social mobility. Annual Review of Sociology, 28, 91116.
doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.28.110601.140823
Butler, Y. G. (2013). Parental factors and early English education as foreign language: A case study in Mainland China.
Research papers in education. doi:10.1080/02671522.2013.776625
Gao, F. (2010). Negotiation of Chinese learners social class identities in their English language learning journeys in
Britain. Journal of Cambridge Studies, 5(2-3), 6477.
Liang, X. S. (1997). A comprehensive analysis of social stratification in China. Beijing, China: Economic Daily Press.
Liu, H. G. (2012). Parental investment and junior high school students English learning motivation: A social class
perspective (Unpublished doctoral Thesis). Peking University, Beijing, China.
Lu, X. E. (Ed.). (2002). The report on social stratification research in contemporary China. Beijing, China: Social
Sciences Documentation Publishing House.
Marx, K. (1976). Preface and introduction to a contribution to the critique of political economy. Peking, China: Foreign
Languages Press. Retrieved from http://www.marx2mao.com/M&E/PI.html (Original work published 185758)
98
GAO
Ministry of Education of the Peoples Republic of China. (2005). The new standards of English teaching for high schools.
Retrieved from http://www.doc88.com/p-598323248017.html
Wu, J. P., & Xu, Y. (1997). Who am I? Social position in contemporary China. Huhhot, China: Inner Mongolia Peoples
Press.
Xu, J. (2008). The social factors that influence Chinese university students English learning motivation. ComputerAssisted Foreign Language Education, 121, 6164.
Zou, W. C., & Zhang, S. L. (2011). Family background and English learning at compulsory stage in Shanghai. In
A. Feng (Ed.), English language education across greater China (pp.189211). Bristol, United Kingdom:
Multilingual Matters.

On: 14 December 2014, At: 15:39

Education
Social Class, Habitus, and Language

Learning: The Case of Korean Early
Study-Abroad Students
Hyunjung Shin
University of Saskatchewan
Click for updates

To cite this article: Hyunjung Shin (2014) Social Class, Habitus, and Language Learning: The Case of
Korean Early Study-Abroad Students, Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 13:2, 99-103, DOI:
10.1080/15348458.2014.901821


DOI: 10.1080/15348458.2014.901821
Social Class, Habitus, and Language Learning: The Case

of Korean Early Study-Abroad Students
Hyunjung Shin
University of Saskatchewan
In this article, I draw on Bourdieus (1984, 1991) notion of habitus in order to explore the relationship
between social class, language learning, and language teaching in the context of the global economy.
To illustrate my points, I use Early Study Abroad (ESA), the transnational educational migration that
Korean middle-class families engage in in order to acquire valuable forms of global English capital.
Through a discussion of the identities and language practices of Korean ESA students in Toronto,
where they invested in a class-based consumption of Korean language and culture to contest the
racial and linguistic stigmatization they experienced in the local context, and to index their global
cosmopolitanism, I reveal how the concept of class privilege in actual practice is multilayered and
sometimes contradictory; moreover, I posit that acquiring linguistic capital and leveraging it to gain
class privilege are difficult and fraught ventures.
Key words: social class, habitus, ESL, international students, identity, South Korea
In this article, I consider social class to explore the underlying question of my research: What
is the role of language and education in the construction of social inequality and are language
and education potential resources for social change? More specifically, I examine the relationship between social class, language learning, and teaching in the context of the global economy.
I find Bourdieus (1984, 1991) approach to social class, which highlights the role of the symbolic system (as well as material conditions) and boundaries between classes in the analysis of
class relations, effective in putting social class at the center of my reflection. Particularly, I draw
on his notion of habitus to examine ways in which social class intersects with other social categories such as race, ethnicity, and citizenship in the context of language learning in sometimes
unexpected ways.
According to Bourdieu (1991), linguistic habitus, a subset of ones class habitus, is constituted
through trajectories of experiences of reinforcements or sanctions for ones linguistic products
across different linguistic markets. Habitus thus offers speakers a certain sense of the social value
of linguistic utterances (of their own and of others) and hence of ones place in the linguistic
markets concerned, giving speakers a feel for the game (p. 76). Subsequently, ones linguistic
(and social) investment is often mediated through his/her habitus in relation to anticipated profit
(or sanction).
Correspondence should be sent to Hyunjung Shin, Department of Curriculum Studies, University of Saskatchewan,
3120 College of Education, 28 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, SK S7N 0X1, Canada. E-mail: hyunjung.shin@usask.ca
100
SHIN
I illustrate my points through a discussion of Early Study Abroad (ESA, or precollege-age

study abroad), the transnational educational migration Korean middle-class families participate
in in order to acquire valuable forms of global English capital. One representative form of ESA
involves gireogi gajok (wild goose family), which refers to a split-household transnational family
that is composed of a middle-class mother with children in elementary or middle school at the
time of departure. The children living with their mother study in an English-speaking country
while the father remains in Korea so that he can financially support the family. Some ESA students
stay in the host country for higher education while others return to Korea. I highlight how ESA
students in Toronto high schools mobilized their class power to invest in capital that has high
value in the (transnational) Korean market, such as Korean fashion and texting. Furthermore,
I reveal how the students constructed themselves as elite transnationals in response to the ways
they were marginalized as ESL learners in the local context and the consequences of such identity
practice.
As suggested by the term English Divide, which refers to social polarization resulting from
differential access to English instruction, which recently appeared in policy descriptions and
in media reports in Korea, English has long been a key source of symbolic capital in Korean
class distinction (Shin, 2007). Furthermore, with the increasing commodification of language and
the marketization of education in the new economy as well as the rapid neoliberalization of the
Korean economy since the Asian financial market crisis in late 1990s, ESA, a means to obtain the
global capital of authentic English, has become a prominent middle-class obsession among
Koreans (Park & Lo, 2012).
Why do middle-class citizens in a democratic nation with a respectable public school system
embark upon such a journey abroad? While study abroad at the postgraduate level has long been
crucial to build elite credentials in Korea, the pace and extent to which ESA has spread into different tiers in the middle classdespite the increased class disparity and the collapse of segments of
the middle class during and after the financial crisisdeserves attention. For example, the number of ESA students who left Korea on student visas increased nearly fivefold, between the years
of 2000 and 2005, from 4,397 to 20,400 (Korea Ministry of Education and Human Resources
Development, 2006, p. 13), and it reached 27,349 in 2008 (Korea Ministry of Education and
Human Resources Development, 2011, p. 111). In 2007, Koreans represented about 60% of the
international student population at a large school district in Toronto (Shin, 2010). ESA represents
a Korean middle-classs strategy to reproduce social position by creating new capital of distinction (Bourdieu, 1984) in response to the increasingly intense competition in the Korean job
market and education, which has been growing since the 1990s (Park & Lo, 2012; Shin, 2013).
My ethnographic case study of 4 Korean ESA high school students in Toronto revealed, however, that ESA creates both possibilities and constraints for the Korean middle class, who are
in search of the best strategy for social mobility under the new political economic conditions in
Korea (for details, see Shin, 2012). On the one hand, ESA offers some middle-class individuals
alternative paths to acquire high-status Western educational and linguistic capital, without going
through the arduous Korean education system within which they would have to compete with the
Korean elites. On the other hand, upon their migration to Western countries, ESA students and
their families enter another social hierarchy in which they are marginalized as ethnoracial minorities. For example, Yu-ri, who was a 12th-grader in a Toronto high school at the time of the study,
had studied in New Zealand before she moved to Toronto. At the school she attended in New
Zealand, Yu-ri was hurt by racial slurs such as yellow monkey and by her White classmates
SOCIAL CLASS, HABITUS, AND LANGUAGE LEARNING
101
who mocked her accented Asian English (see e.g., Lippi-Green, 1997); thus, she did not speak
up in class. Even in Toronto, making friends with White Canadian students was difficult for her.
She did not feel that the Korean immigrant students were welcoming either, therefore, she mostly
socialized with other ESA students.
In reactions to the linguistic and racial stigmatization and downward social mobility experienced in their transnational activities, these ESA students employed class-based consumption of
Korean language and culture as strategies of distinction, in order to claim status as global cosmopolitans in the local Toronto context. That is, they constructed themselves as new transnational
subjects, yuhaksaeng (visa students), who are wealthy, modern, and cosmopolitan, distinguishing themselves from both long-term immigrants in local Korean diasporic communities and
Canadians by deploying (as stylistic resources) revalued varieties of Korean language and culture
in the globalized new economy. For example, ESA students and their families often located themselves in middle-class high rises in North York, an upscale residential area in northern Toronto
(rather than in downtown Koreatown, which is associated with older and poorer immigrants).
These ESA students also followed the most up-to-date fashion trends in Korea and associated
with other ESA students at Korean restaurants and karaoke bars while enjoying K-pop and texting
using Korean slang. As such, the identity construction of these ESA students is partly based on
stylistic practices; that is, practices of language and lifestyle associated with ones class habitus
including taste in dress, appearance, and residence, as symbols of social distinction (Auer, 2007).
This identity construction practice, however, has resulted in contradictions that have constrained
their English capital acquisitionthe very resource they claimed to pursue through migration.
To explain how such contradictions occurred, I highlight how ones linguistic (and social)
investment is often mediated through habitus. The linguistic habitus of Korean ESA students was
formed through their trajectories through multiple linguistic markets. On the one hand, the linguistic and racial stigmatization ESA students experienced in their Western schools formed their
sense of anticipated sanctions (e.g., ridicule, laughter, disrespect, lack of recognition) for their linguistic production and thus resulted in their minimal speaking of English. On the other hand, their
ongoing interactions with (transnational) Koreans in various transnational social spaces formed
a sense of anticipated rewards for their knowledge of English in the Korean (and transnational
Korean) markets. For example, one of the participants worked as a translator for his part-time
job when he went to visit Korea one summer; the employer thought his English must be better
than that of Korean university students, due to his studying in Canada. ESA students constructed
themselves as better speakers of English than Koreans remaining in Korea, in relation to the
symbolic power of the North American academic credentials they would hold. Subsequently,
ESA students chose to focus on investing in acquisition of the English credentials required for
university admission. For this purpose, the information that circulated in peer social networks of
Korean students was crucial to ESA students, who wished to obtain good marks on the school
exams for ESA students, for example. These Korean students strategies of linguistic investment
in the acquisition of academic credentials while socializing with Korean peers should be understood in relation to the social conditions that made it worthwhile for them to make this form
of linguistic investment rather than as mere individual choice. Their very investment in credentials sometimes undermined, however, their access to legitimate English in their Canadian
schools, thereby further marginalizing ESA students in the dominant Canadian market. For
example, Yu-ri attended a Korean tutoring agency to improve her scores on the school exam,
102
SHIN
which did not really help her acquisition of (oral) academic English proficiency in the school
context.
The dynamic nature of the habitus formation of the ESA students that occurred through their
journey across multiple global markets helps us to recognize the agency of transnational migrants
in traversing boundaries of linguistic markets as they seek class mobility that responds to the
demands of the market. At the same time, the story of ESA students also reveals how such
transnational strategies are ultimately rooted in relations of social class and power, with the rise of
transnationalism as a sign of class and cosmopolitanism (Park & Lo, 2012). Thus, understanding
how identity, class, and language learning intersect in the lives of the ESA students and how their
linguistic investments are mediated through the habitus formed through processes of social exclusion from White Canada, helps us to move towards a nuanced view of the relationship between
social class, power, and language learning and teaching. The interplay of class privilege held
by these ESA students and the way the students are racially marginalized by White Canadians
illustrate how the concept of social class in actual practice is multilayered and sometimes contradictory; furthermore, acquiring linguistic capital and leveraging it to gain class privilege is a
venture that is difficult and fraught.
I hope that the Korean case represented in this paper helps us to turn our attention to the central
role of social class in language learning and teaching, which is still underresearched in applied
linguistics. Theorizing the role of social class and power in language learning and teaching with
the specificity of the examples from the lives of Korean ESA students gives us insight into the
complex relation between social class and language learning, given that these students come
from privileged backgroundsthat is, Korean ESA students are themselves engaged in the active
reproduction of social inequality because they employ certain cultural and linguistic practices in
order to stress the class privileges that allowed them to engage in ESA in the first place. At the
same time, however, they are subject to certain amounts of racial and linguistic discrimination
in their adoptive country and their investment thus resulted in self-marginalizing practices and
unanticipated consequences.
The story of the ESA students also allows us to reflect on how to intervene in the (re)production
of the inequalities, as well as to understand where we might begin to take action to advocate for
social change. For example, strategies of linguistic investment of the ESA students indicated the
salient role of habitus, as learned through their trajectories through multiple linguistic markets,
in shaping students language practices and hence their language learning.
How can language teachers make sense of the individuals struggles for social mobility while
at the same time moving towards a more critical engagement with social class, and designing
transformative pedagogies given the dominant class-based inequalities across the globe? Can we,
as teachers, theorize habitus as a pedagogical concept so that we can help students to rebuild their
habitus so they will not invest in marginalizing practices? How might we do so?
REFERENCES
Auer, P. (Ed.). (2007). Style and social identities: Alternative approaches to linguistic heterogeneity. Berlin, Germany:
Mouton de Gruyter.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
SOCIAL CLASS, HABITUS, AND LANGUAGE LEARNING
103
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power(J. B. Thompson Ed.; G.Raymond & M.Adamson Trans.). Cambridge,
United Kingdom: Polity Press.
Korea Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development (Ed.). (2006). Success and failure case studies of early
study abroad and suggestions for parent education [jogi yuhak seong gong gwa shil pae sarye josa mit hakbumo
gyedo rul wihan hongbo bangan yeongu]. Seoul, Korea: Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development.
Korea Educational Development Institute. (2011). The analysis of education statistics, Annual report. Retrieved from
https://www.kedi.re.kr/khome/main/research/selectPubForm.do?plNum0=7990
Lippi-Green, R. (1997). English with an accent: Language, ideology, and discrimination in the United States. London,
United Kingdom: Routledge.
Park, J., & Lo, A. (2012). Transnational South Korea as a site for a sociolinguistics of globalization: Markets, timescales,
neoliberalism. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 16(2), 147164. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9841.2011.00524.x
Shin, H. (2007). English language teaching in Korea: Toward globalization or glocalization? In J. Cummins & C. Davison
(Eds.), International handbook of English language teaching (Vol. 1, pp. 7586). Norwel, MA: Springer.
Shin, H. (2010). Gireogi Gajok: Transnationalism and language learning (Doctoral thesis, University of Toronto,
Toronto, Canada). Retrieved from https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/19133
Shin, H. (2012). From FOB to COOL: Transnational migrant students in Toronto and the styling of global linguistic
capital. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 16(2), 184200. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9841.2011.00523.x
Shin, H. (2013). Ambivalent calculations in Toronto: Negotiating the meaning of success among early study abroad high
school students. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 22(4), 527546.

On: 14 December 2014, At: 15:39

Education
Social Class in English Language

Education in Oaxaca, Mexico
a
Mario E. Lpez-Gopar & William Sughrua

a
Universidad Autnoma Benito Jurez de Oaxaca

Click for updates

To cite this article: Mario E. Lpez-Gopar & William Sughrua (2014) Social Class in English Language
Education in Oaxaca, Mexico, Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 13:2, 104-110, DOI:
10.1080/15348458.2014.901822


DOI: 10.1080/15348458.2014.901822
Social Class in English Language Education in Oaxaca,

Mexico
Mario E. Lpez-Gopar and William Sughrua
Universidad Autnoma Benito Jurez de Oaxaca
This article explores social class in English-language education in Oaxaca, Mexico. To this end, first,
we discuss social class in Mexico as related to coloniality; second, for illustration, the paper presents
the authors own social-class analysis as language educators in Oaxaca; third, we discuss how social
class impacts English education access, Mexican teachers of English, and the curriculum; and finally,
we offer conclusions related to the prevalence of coloniality in Oaxaca and the consequential need to
engage critically with social class and its connection to English teaching.
Key words: Oaxaca, Mexico, social class, coloniality, colonial difference, ELT
This article discusses how social class impacts English-language education in Oaxaca, the most
culturally and linguistically diverse state in Mexico and the second poorest. This article has four
related sections. First, heeding Blocks (2012) call to analyze social class in applied linguistics
by tak[ing] not only economics seriously . . . but also history (p. 63), we (Mario and William)
first provide a historical overview of social class in Mexico and its connection to coloniality. The
term coloniality refers to the manner in which colonial power controls or dominates a community
by imposing on that community certain Western or Eurocentric models of subjectivity, authority, economy, and knowledge (Mignolo, 2009). Coloniality, in this sense, currently remains the
most prevalent and widespread form of subjugation in the world, even though the actual political
system of colonialism has long since been replaced, for the most part, with independent nation
states (Quijano, 2007). This sense of confinement within coloniality is illustrated in the second
section of our paper. Here, taking Oaxaca as a locus of enunciation, the place where coloniality
is experienced firsthand and in turn impacts concrete lives and ideological positioning (Mignolo,
2009), we present our own social-class self-analysis as language educators. The purpose here is to
illustrate social class as bound up in coloniality and in what is termed colonial difference. Then,
through this same lens, we move to a discussion of how social class in Mexico impacts English
education access, Mexican teachers of English, and the curriculum. This discussion, in the fourth
and final section, leads us to call for further critical engagement on the issue of social class and
English-language education. We begin with the historical perspective.
Correspondence should be sent to Mario E. Lpez-Gopar, Priv. Puerto La Paz 137-B, Col. Eliseo Jimnez Ruiz,
Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mxico, 68120. E-mail: lopezmario9@gmail.com
SOCIAL CLASS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION IN MEXICO
105
MODERNITY/COLONIALITY AND COLONIAL DIFFERENCE

Mexico, along with the rest of Latin America, suffered colonization in the 15th century. Mignolo
(2000b) considers the emergence of the Atlantic commercial circuit in the 16th century as fundamental in the history of capitalism and modernity/coloniality (p. 56, our translation), which
brought exploitation and despair to the Americas. Quijano and Wallerstein (1992) argue that
there could not have been a capitalist world-economy without the Americas (p. 549). Galeano
(1971), in his seminal book The Open Veins of Latin America, vividly portrays the exploitation
suffered both by Amerindians and African slaves during several centuries and argues that the
poverty of the inhabitants was caused by the richness of their land, which was used to build the
so-called modern Europe. The late Hugo Chavez, former president of Venezuela, presented a
copy of this book to U.S. President Barack Obama as a must-read for understanding U.S. and
European economic and political interference in Latin America.
Dussel (2002), Mignolo (2000b), and Quijano (2007) state that coloniality is the other side of
modernity, the tale that emerged from the expansion of European capitalism in the Americas
and other parts of the world. Without coloniality there is no modernity: The rhetoric of modernity
(salvation, novelty, progress, development) appeared with the logic of coloniality (Mignolo,
2009, p. 43; our translation); that is, if there had to be salvation, it was because someone
needed to be saved; if there had to be novelty, progress, and development, it was because
someone was backward and primitive. This someone was the Amerindians, the Africans,
and the Asians who were different from the European colonizers and capitalists. Hence, the
tale of modernity involves colonial difference.
Colonial difference has its origins in 16th-century discussions about whether or not the
Mayans, Aztecs, Quechuas, Aimaras, and the other peoples of the Americas grouped as Indians
should be considered people of equal value to the Spaniards. At this time, under the influence of
Francisco de Vitoria, who is considered to have been the father of international rights during
the 16th century, it was decided to consider Indians as fellow human beings (Mignolo, 2009).
However, Vitoria also concluded that the Indians were not as mature or cognitively developed
as the Spaniards and thus required the Spaniards guidance (Mignolo, 2009). This conclusion
marked the emergence of colonial difference. According to Mignolo (2009), colonial difference
places human beings at different levels of worth according to an ontological and epistemological
rationale. This rationale holds a supposed reality that some human beings will always be inferior to others and that this inferiority results from a deficiency in knowledge, especially in terms
of reason and aesthetics. Within the modernity/coloniality narrative, White European males were
placed at the top of the social-class structure and indigenous people and African slaves, at the bottom. Mignolo (2000a) thus concludes that the colonial difference is an abstract space in which, on
one hand, colonial power is wielded and, on the other hand, that same power is contested through
the assertion of the subaltern knowledge that has been marginalized and discriminated against by
coloniality. In other words, colonial difference is the space in which those who are considered
different from and inferior to modern individuals are able to exert their agency in order to resist
and challenge the hegemonic discourses of modernity/coloniality that regard them as inferior.
For such individuals, therefore, the colonial difference becomes a locus of enunciation, the place
where they voice their resistance (Mignolo, 2009).
In Mexico, the colonial difference accentuates social-class structure. At the onset of
colonialism in Mexico, ethnicity, race, and economics determined the social strata (e.g.,
Spanish/Creoles/Mexicans; White/Brown/Black; rich/poor). Nowadays, as a result of mestizaje
(mixture among races), social class in Mexico can be defined as the interplay between economics,
language, racial features, schooling, and ways of being, acting and consuming. In other words,
106
LPEZ-GOPAR AND SUGHRUA
social status seems determined by whether or not one is rich or poor (economics); whether one
speaks Spanish, another modern language such as English, or an indigenous language (language); whether one is White, Brown, or Black (race); whether one has been formally educated
(education); whether one has attended or is attending a private or public school or an urban or
rural school (schooling); and whether or not one behaves, acts, and consumes modernly (ways
of being). These social categories seem to be consciously or unconsciously used by Mexican people to negotiate their social-class identity and to contest the colonial difference. For instance, if
someone is Brown or Black, she may want to display her level of schooling and ways of being
modern in order to contest her race, which places her in a lower social class. This negotiation is
coconstructive, situated, and intersubjective in the sense of being performed and accepted by the
social audience at a particular place and time in history (Blommaert, 2005).
ECONOMICS AND SOCIAL CLASS IN MEXICO

Even though different factors influence social strata in Mexico, economics is paramount. Among
the countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD), Mexico is the country with the widest gap between rich and poor people (Gonzlez
Amador, 2013). Sixty million people, 50% of the countrys population, live in poverty, and
51.5 million experience food shortage (Enciso, 2013a). Despite these statistics, Mexico is home
to Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world. In addition, 43% of the countrys wealth is controlled
by 0.02% percent of the population. Only 20% of the population is considered neither nonpoor
nor nonvulnerable (Olivares Alonso, 2013), and 80% struggle financially on a daily basis.
In Oaxaca, 16 different indigenous groups suffer financially, more so than the rest of the population. Indeed, many indigenous families survive on minimum wage, US$4.50 for 8 hours of
work (Enciso & Camacho, 2013), and 76% of indigenous children and young adults in Oaxaca
live in poverty and suffer ill nutrition (Enciso, 2013b). In sum, 50% of the people in Mexico and
in Oaxaca are poor or of very low socioeconomic status (SES), 30% are of low-SES, 19.8% are
middle class, and 0.02% are in the category extremely high-upper class. Each of these categories,
though, has a wide range. For instance, blue- and white-collar workers, as well as well-paid
politicians, fall in the middle-class category. However, social class in Mexico involves more than
economics, as we now illustrate by placing ourselves in this analysis.
DETERMINING OUR OWN SOCIAL STATUS IN OAXACA, MEXICO

We (Mario and William) write this article from our situatedness in the colonial difference that we
experience in Oaxaca. As explained above, the colonial difference reflects social class structure.
For this reason, we consider it pertinent to include our own brief self-analysis of social status, so
as to illustrate the concepts set forth in the sections above.
To begin, we believe that we could be considered middle class, as we are neither poor nor vulnerable. Yet in some respects we fall into the very lowest category of the middle class since we
teach at the lowest paying public university in the country. In addition, we both live in workingclass neighborhoods. However, our PhD degrees from foreign institutions, academic travels,
purchasing power based on financial credit, and especially English proficiency seem to place
107
us into the very highest category of middle class, at least in the eyes of the general Oaxacan public. This perception seems to be enhanced by ethnicity and race: William was born in the United
States and is White; and although Mario is Oaxacan and Brown, his background as descended
from African slaves makes him much taller than most Oaxacans, giving him a non-Oaxacan
look that for practical purposes excludes him from the low-SES category, which usually comprises Brown, short people. Nevertheless, our style of dress and behavior in Oaxaca (e.g., eating
breakfast at market stands) puts us at the low end of the middle-class category. Further, we both
struggle with colonial difference in Mexican academia, as our research generates knowledge in a
country where foreign or imported knowledge seems preferred.
In short, our social class seems delineated but also blurred and contradictory. It perhaps
depends on the perceiver: the agents (e.g., Mario and William); outsiders (e.g., Marios and
Williams neighbors or coworkers); or the intersubjectivity of both (e.g., Marios and Williams
acceptance of the perspectives of their neighbors or coworkers, and vice versa). However, where
the perception of social class seems more decisive is regarding English proficiency. It is mainly
our English proficiency that gives us both a high-end middle-class distinction, especially now that
Mexicos coloniality contrasts with the United States modernity. This force of the English
language seems quite apparent in Mexico and Oaxaca in particular, as we now go on to discuss.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION AND SOCIAL CLASS STATUS IN OAXACA,

MEXICO
In Mexico, access to English education depends on social class as related to economics. English
instruction in public schools starts in middle school, except for a few public elementary schools
now piloting the National English Program for Basic Education, which intends to place English
as a subject in the curricula of elementary schools in several years time. In Oaxaca, this English
instruction in the middle school automatically excludes 40% of the state population (1.2 million people) since this 40% does not finish elementary school education (INEGI, 2010). Further,
English instruction in public secondary and middle schools produces poor results due to the limited hours of instruction, inadequately prepared teachers, and incongruous curricula. Hence, most
low-SES Mexican students have very low levels of English proficiency, except those who decide
to pursue a BA in English teaching in public universities and study this language extensively at
this level.
Because of the absence of English instruction in public elementary schools, private elementary
schools offering English as a subject and bilingual elementary schools (English and Spanish)
began to flourish in Mexico during the late 1990s. This coincided with Mexico signing the North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada, at which time
English and commercial relations with the United States began to be sold by the government
as a way to climb the social-class ladder. This perception of English as conveying social-class
prestige has contributed to a rapid increase in the number of private elementary schools and
bilingual schools throughout Mexico and in Oaxaca.
In Oaxaca, the tuition at private schools is very expensive. For instance, a low-SES Oaxacan
family would have to invest its entire monthly income to pay one months tuition for only 1 of
the children in a private school where she or he could learn English. Equally expensive are
the private English-language institutes. Only 5% of the Oaxacan population can afford private
108
schooling. Hence, many of the students attending these private institutions could be considered middle or upper-middle class, not only because of income but also (as explained above)
because of their place of residence, consumption patterns, dressing habits, sociolect, and emerging English proficiency. Nevertheless, most of these students are brown-skinned, and their height
and facial features accord with their indigenous heritage, which places them in a lower class
category. It seems then that they rely on their middle-class characteristics (above) in order to
challenge the colonial difference prevailing in Mexico and thus negotiate their social-class identity. For example, Lpez Gopar (2013) documented how his student Alfredo, a 3rd-grader who
was brown-skinned and from professional working parents, used his Spanish-posh accent and
his emergent English proficiency to display how he was better than other low-SES children in
the neighborhood where his private school was located. Indeed, this posturing as exemplified by
Alfredo seems so common in Oaxacan private schools that English teachers such as Lopez Gopar
(2013) wonder whether by providing the children of the Oaxacan elite with an English education they are unintentionally contributing to the widening of the gap between social classes in
Oaxaca.
ENGLISH STUDENT TEACHERS SOCIAL-CLASS STATUS AND PRAXIS

Most of the graduates from our universitys BA program in English teaching end up working
as teachers in private institutions. Most could be considered low-SES and are first-generation
university graduates from indigenous backgrounds or mestizo families. To us, the authors, they
are humble in their dress and ways of being. However, on our university campus, our students
are considered fresas (posh) due to their emergent English proficiency, which gives them contact
with tourists and hence international lifestyles. This English proficiency, further, gives our students opportunities to travel to the United States for study scholarships, jobs at summer camps,
and other incentives. International travel is primarily typical of upper-middle-class families in
Mexico.
Nevertheless, as the main workforce of private institutions, our graduates are exploited. They
receive very low salaries (e.g., US$3$4 hourly or US$300$600 monthly for a full-time position)
with no employee benefits. As teachers in private schools, our graduates have to contest the
colonial difference, as carried by their ethnic, racial, and low-SES status. To do this, they need to
assert their near-native-like accent or their high TOEFL scores in order to prove their legitimacy
as English teachers (Sayer, 2012). Sadly, our English graduates must toil as teachers with low
pay in order to help the high-middle and upper-class people maintain their comfortable social
status through the acquisition of English; and by receiving low pay for this work, our graduates
themselves remain at their low-SES level with a modest aspiration to reach, at most, a lowermiddlesocial-class level as teachers.
Not only do Mexican English teachers struggle with colonial difference, legitimacy, and
exploitation in private English institutions, but they also have to deal with middle- and upperclass lifestyles and values present in English textbooks as well as the curriculum. Most textbooks
and curricula used in English institutions come from Mexico City or foreign countries. Rarely do
these materials depict the realities of poor or low-SES people. For instance, based on a typical
textbook lesson concerning the modal can, Mexican English teachers have their students survey
the class by asking each other whether or not they can play the piano, ski, speak French, or drive a
109
car. Such particular musical, sport, and life competencies, however, are not usually possessed by
most Mexican students, or even by most Mexican English teachers. Equally unrealistic were the
textbooks and curricula used in an English program (Ingls Enciclomedia) piloted in the public
elementary schools (Lpez-Gopar, Nez Mndez, Montes Medina & Cantera Martnez, 2009).
This inappropriateness of English-related textbooks and curricula speaks to the need for
English instruction to be conducted critically (Pennycook, 2001) in Mexico. In general terms,
the critical English teacher would relate her or his teaching practice to broader social, cultural,
and political domains so as to address issues of access, power, disparity, desire, difference, and
resistance (p. 10). Without such a critical approach, English teaching would maintain the social
class stratification and the colonial difference already existing in Mexico.
CONCLUSION
Pursuant to the colonial difference, Mexican English teachers are part and parcel of the intrusion of the English language with its connection to globalization and neoliberalism as well as
to its perpetuation of the gap between social classes. Hence, English-language teaching and its
relation to social class must be problematized in research, language policies, educational initiatives, teacher preparation, and curriculum development. If we neglect such problematizations, we
will be doomed to become the proletariat tool of the new economic world situation, which benefits very few people while negatively affecting most. English-language teaching must be used to
challenge the colonial difference and to explore more egalitarian social systems.
REFERENCES
Block, D. (2012). Economising globalisation and identity in applied linguistics in neoliberal times. In D. Block, J. Gray,
& M. Holborow (Eds.), Neoliberalism and applied linguistics (pp. 5685). London, UK: Routledge,
Blommaert, J. (2005). Discourse: Key topics in sociolinguistics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Dussel, E. (2002). World-system and trans-modernity. Nepantla: Views from South, 3(2), 221244.
Enciso, A. (2013a). En seguridad alimentaria, 51.5 millones de mexicanos: Coneval [In food security, 51.5 millions of
Mexicans: Coneval]. La Jornada. Retrieved from http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/08/01/sociedad/035n1soc
Enciso, A. (2013b). En Mxico, 56% de los nios menores de cinco aos viven en la pobreza [In Mexico, 56% of
children under five years of age live in poverty]. La Jornada. Retrieved from http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/04/
04/sociedad/040nlsoc
Enciso, A., & Camacho, F. (2013). Enfrentan indgenas ms carencias que el resto de mexicanos pobres [Indigenous
peoples face more shortages than the rest of poor Mexicans]. La Jornada. Retrieved from http://www.jornada.unam.
mx/2013/08/09/sociedad/033n1soc
Galeano, E. (1971). Las venas abiertas de Amrica Latina [The open veins of Latin America]. Mexico D. F., Mexico:
Siglo XXI Editores.
Gonzlez Amador, E. (2013). En Mxico la brecha entre ricos y pobres es la ms amplia de la OCDE
[In Mexico the gap between rich and poor is the widest within the OCDE]. La Jornada. Retrieved from
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/05/15/economia/029n2eco
INEGI. (2010). Mxico en Cifras: Oaxaca [Mexico in numbers: Oaxaca]. Retrieved from http://www.inegi.org.mx/
sistemas/mexicocifras/default.aspx?e=20
Lpez-Gopar, M. (2013). My biography: From an English teacher to an educator attempting to be critical. In M.
Lengeling (Ed.), Entering into the EFL teaching profession: Stories of teacher socialization in Mexico (pp. 7394).
Guanajuato, Mexico: Universidad de Guanajuato.
110
Lpez-Gopar, M. E., Nez Mndez, O., Montes Medina, L., & Cantera Martnez, M. (2009). Ingls enciclomedia:
A ground-breaking program for young Mexican children? Teaching English to younger learners [Special Issue].
Mextesol Journal, 33(1), 6786.
Mignolo, W. (2000a). Local histories/global designs: Coloniality, subaltern knowledges, and border thinking. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.
Mignolo, W. (2000b). La colonialidad a lo largo y a lo ancho: El hemisferio occidental en el horizonte colonial de la modernidad [Coloniality in length and width: The western hemisphere at the colonial horizon of modernity]. In E. Lander
(Ed.), La colonialidad del saber: Eurocentrismo y ciencias sociales: Perspectivas latinoamericanas [Coloniality of
knowledge: Eurocentricism and social sciences: Latin American perspectives] (pp. 5585). Buenos Aires, Argentina:
Clasco.
Mignolo, W. (2009). La colonialidad: La cara oculta de la modernidad [Coloniality: The hidden face of modernity]. In
S. Breitwiser (Ed.), Catalog of Museum Exhibit: Modernologies, Museo de Arte Moderno de Barcelona (pp. 3949).
Barcelona, Spain: MACBA.
Olivares Alonso, E. (2013). Slo 19.3 % de la poblacin en el grupo de personas no pobres ni vulnerables [Only
19.3% of the population in the group of people neither poor nor vulnerable]. La Jornada. Retrieved from
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/03/15/sociedad/045n2soc
Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical applied linguistics: A critical introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Quijano, A. (2007). Coloniality and modernity/rationality. Cultural Studies, 21(23), 168178.
Quijano, A., & Wallerstein, I. (1992). Americanity as a concept, or the Americas in the modern world-system.
International Social Sciences Journal, 134, 549557.
Sayer, P. (2012). Ambiguities and tensions in English language teaching: Portraits of EFL teachers as legitimate speakers.
New York: Routledge.

On: 14 December 2014, At: 15:39

Education
Forum Commentary
Yasuko Kanno
Temple University
Click for updates

To cite this article: Yasuko Kanno (2014) Forum Commentary, Journal of Language, Identity &
Education, 13:2, 118-123, DOI: 10.1080/15348458.2014.901825


DOI: 10.1080/15348458.2014.901825
Forum Commentary
Yasuko Kanno
Temple University
Social class has been underresearched in the field of applied linguistics. The central goal of this forum
was to stimulate more conversation about social class as it impacts language learning and teaching.
In this article, I comment on 3 salient themes that have emerged in the 5 articles: (1) agency and
structure in language learning and teaching, (2) transnationalism and social class, and (3) framing
social class in applied linguistic research.
Vandrick and I first proposed this forum out of our concern that applied linguistics research has
not so far confronted issues of social class head-on as other related fields such as education and
sociology have done. As Vandrick notes in her introduction to the forum, in the field of applied
linguistics scholarship on social class is fairly meager. This is a serious concern given that
income inequality has dramatically increased in recent years, and that the learning of English in
many parts of the world has become implicated in the reproduction of social classes. We wanted
to provide a forum in which we begin to address directly how social class influences and is
influenced by language learning and teaching.
AGENCY AND STRUCTURE IN LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING

One of the things that the articles in this forum do very well is portray language learners as
active agents who make decisions to invest in their language learning. In my opinion, applied
linguistics research (mine included) often focuses too narrowly on the challenges and adverse
conditions of second-language learning (especially in the context of immigrants learning the
dominant language in their adoptive countries) and in the process, has unwittingly perpetuated
the image of language learners as incomplete, powerless, and disadvantaged. In contrast,
in this forum language learners are described as their own agents, marshaling whatever resources
they have to learn the target language and vie for class status and privilege. As a second-language
learner myself who has slowly made English her own through 3 decades of learning and use, I
find such portraits refreshing.
Correspondence should be sent to Yasuko Kanno, Department of Teaching and Learning, College of Education,
Temple University, Ritter Hall 462, 1301 Cecil B. Moore Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19122. E-mail: ykanno@temple.edu
FORUM COMMENTARY
119
In this context, it is fascinating that even in countries in which English has traditionally been
thought of as a foreign language, English has become a critical means of gaining and maintaining a class distinction (Gao; Lpez-Gopar & Sughrua; Shin, this forum). Thus, in both China and
Mexico, upper-class parents are keen to mobilize their economic and cultural capital to facilitate
their childrens acquisition of English so that the children in turn will maintain their class privilege. In the meantime, Koreas enthusiasm for English has reached such a feverish pitch that many
families are willing to endure a prolonged separation from one another in order to send their children to English-speaking countries with their mothers. Their hope is that high English proficiency
coupled with educational credentials from an English-speaking country will ensure the childrens
marketability in the brutally competitive Korean economy. One could read such reports and dismiss them as yet another extreme form of English linguistic imperialism (Phillipson, 2000), and
no doubt there is some truth in the notion. Nonetheless, these portraits also highlight language
learners agentive decisions to invest in language learning in order to survive and thrive in a
rapidly changing global economy.
At the same time, in their efforts to elevate their status through language learning, language
learners can simultaneously become subjects and objects of social reproduction. Shins paper
does a brilliant job of highlighting this duality in Early Study Abroad (ESA) students experiences. First of all, it is important to remember that not all Korean families have the means to
send children and their mothers abroad to facilitate the childrens English learning; it is only a
privileged segment of Korean society that has the economic means to do so. Second, by gaining valuable linguistic and cultural capital through ESA, these families can further their class
privilege once they return to Korea. At the same time, the ESA students, thus privileged in
one way, are subject to other kinds of discrimination: the host country citizens racism and
ridicule of their nonnative English. In other words, while they are contributing to one kind
of social reproduction, ESA students are also victimized in another kind of social reproduction. Similarly, although their high English proficiency places Lpez-Gopar and Sughrua at the
upper end of the middle class on the social class scale in Oaxaca, they wonder if they and
other English teachers like them are perpetuating social inequality by teaching English mainly
to children from affluent families. Meanwhile, the student-teachers whom Lpez-Gopar and
Sughrua have taught in their teacher education program and who have gone on to become English
teachers are largely confined to lower SES status because of the meager salaries they earn teaching English to children of privilege in private schools. Thus, while acting through their own
agency, language learners and teachers are also inevitably influenced by the forces of the social
structure.
The above examples illustrate the importance of critically examining the dialectic relationship between structure and agency when studying social class in language learning and teaching.
The structure-agency relationship has been one of the most enduring problems in sociology:
Thinkers such as Bourdieu (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992), Swartz (1997), and Giddens (1979)
have extensive discussions on the topic. Fundamentally, the debate concerns how social structures (including race, class, gender, ideologies, laws, marriage, family, governments, schools,
and collective histories) condition human conduct, on the one hand, and to what extent individuals can exercise their will to determine their own fate, on the other hand. The analysis of social
class in relation to language learning and teaching is in essence the investigation into and critique
of how a social structure (class) conditions an agentive act (language learning and teaching) and
how the agentive act in turn might reproduce or challenge the social structure.
120
KANNO
TRANSNATIONALISM AND SOCIAL CLASS

Another theme that is salient in the forum articles is transnationalism. Transnationalism, characterized by liv[ing] dual lives; speaking two languages, having homes in two languages, and
making a living through continuous regular contact across national borders (Portes, Guarnizo, &
Landolt, 1999, p. 217) is not limited to any particular class of people. For instance, working-class
Vietnamese immigrants in Philadelphia may regularly send remittances to family members in
Vietnam, stay connected with friends and relatives all over the world through social networking
media, and budget trips to Vietnam every few years. Nonetheless, living abroad, fluidly going
back and forth, and maintaining active ties in multiple communities across borders is still easier
to imagine and practice for middle-class and upper-class populations because such a lifestyle is
expensive. I noted earlier that countries such as Korea, China, and Mexico may still be considered
English-as-a foreign-language countries, but for upper-class segments of these countries, English
may very well be more than a foreign language if they foresee the real possibility of living in an
English-speaking country. They may spend a significant portion of their lives in English-speaking
countries and/or go back and forth between their country and another country, retaining strong
ties to both at all times. For people of such classes, English is not simply a mark of distinction
but also a critical tool kit for leading a transnational life.
Darvin and Norton introduced the concept transnational habitus in their article. Habitus refers
to class-based dispositions that inform ones interpretation of and reaction to a situation. But
habitus is not rigid and unchanging dispositions once acquired; rather, habituses are permeable
and responsive to what is going on around them. Current circumstances are not just there to
be acted upon, but are internalised and become yet another layer to add to those from earlier
socialisations (Reay, David, & Ball, 2005, p. 26). It is important to remember this permeable and
responsive nature of habitus, since the essential nature of transnational existence is the rapidly
changing sociocultural environments to which transnational individuals must adapt. Thus, the
middle-class status that Korean and Chinese students take for granted back in their own country
needs to be asserted with fashion, consumption patterns, and accommodations in the context of
their adopted country (Gao; Shin, this forum). Although it is easy to dismiss their consumption
patterns as the indulgence of spoiled rich kids from Korea and China, it takes on a deeper meaning
when placed in the context of their transnational experiences: Sensing that their middle-class
prestige is at risk in their adopted country because of racial, ethnic, and linguistic stereotyping
and discrimination, they need to signal their class identity through the means that are available
to them. In contrast, Ayrton, an upper-class immigrant in Darvin and Nortons article, seems
secure enough in his upper-class identity not to feel a strong need to assert his class identity in
Canada.
FRAMING SOCIAL CLASS IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS RESEARCH

Another important contribution of this forum is its discussion of various ways of conceptualizing
and theorizing social class. Gaos article illustrates the difficulty of capturing and operationalizing
social class in a society whose economic system is undergoing a transformation. Researchers such
as Gao who are working in the Chinese context are tasked with not simply taking social class as
a factor but fundamentally thinking about how to capture the notion of class. Lpez-Gopar and
FORUM COMMENTARY
121
Sughrua present another way of framing social class in terms of colonial difference. By describing
their own experiences and those of their student-teachers, the authors provide a glimpse into a
multifaceted system of indexing ones social class.
The other 3 articles by Vandrick, Shin, and Darvin and Norton, set in North America, mark the
strong influence of Bourdieus theory of social reproduction. It is no coincidence that Bourdieus
work is familiar to many applied linguists because of Nortons seminal TESOL Quarterly paper
(Norton Peirce, 1995) and her subsequent book (Norton, 2000, 2013). What is particularly attractive about Bourdieus theory to applied linguists is his conceptualization of social class as largely
a matter of cultural and symbolic resources, not just a matter of economic wealth. As Darvin
and Norton argue in this forum, While [social class] has always been recognized as an economic
position, it has also increasingly been regarded as a cultural process, marked by consumption patterns, identity formations, and bodily attributes like accent, behavior, and dress. Since language
figures prominently in Bourdieus conceptualization of social class (1977, 1991), it lends itself
well as a framework for applied linguistics research.
However, Bourdieus theory is by no means the only conceptual framework that is available to
explore social class in relation to language learning and teaching. There are alternative theories
that are potentially powerful. For example, Yossos (2005) critical race theory and community
cultural wealth provide a useful corollary to Bourdieus conceptualization of capital. Yossos
theory of community cultural wealth takes the idea of capital from Bourdieu and proposes a
set of alternative forms of capital that minority students are likely to have access to, such as
aspirational capital, linguistic capital, familial capital, social capital, navigational capital, and
resistant capital. Together, these forms of capital characterize minority communities and students
as being in possession of rich cultural knowledge, skills, and contacts, in contrast to the common
characterization of these communities and students in deficit terms. By focusing on such alternative forms of capital, and speaking from the position of these communities as rich in valuable
capital, we can begin to challenge the status quo in school and begin to question why schools have
so far failed to utilize these forms of capital that minority and poor students bring to the table, as
opposed to how to inculcate these students in the cultural values and resources of the dominant
class. For example, we can use Bourdieus notion of linguistic capital to analyze how workingclass English language learners lack of English proficiency limits their educational opportunities
in schoolsas I have done in my own analysis (Kanno & Kangas, 2013). However, Yossos definition of linguistic capital is different from that of Bourdieu and reflects the idea that Students
of Color arrive at school with multiple language and communication skills (Yosso, 2005, p. 78).
We can thus use Yossos conceptualization of linguistic capital to interrogate the obvious paradox
whereby those who arrive to school with multiple language and communication skills nonetheless
almost always end up being characterized as lacking in linguistic proficiency.
I also believe that Bowles and Gintiss (1976) theory of social reproduction is a useful
framework for applied linguists to consider, as Vandrick pointed out in her article. Although
their correspondence principle has been criticized as being too deterministic, my observation
of practices in schools that serve different social class populations largely affirms Bowles and
Gintiss argument that working-class students are socialized to be obedient, to follow instructions, and to not get too ambitious, whereas upper-class students are socialized to lead, to question
authority, and to seek new opportunities. Language learning can be analyzed through that lens:
In Ayrtons experiences (Darvin & Norton, this forum), we can see an upper-class youth being
led to have ambitions, to nurture a sense of entitlement, and to be bold, and his learning and use
122
KANNO
of English is part of his elite education. In contrast, Johns experience of English learning is very
much that of a working-class immigrant, who needs to learn English in order to survive in school
and in society but at the same time who is not given enough access to learn the language to the
extent that he is able to leverage it for his own benefit.
CONCLUSION
As the 5 articles in this forum have illustrated, investigating the relationship between social class
and language learning involves a number of balancing acts. Ideally, we want to critically examine the (often harsh) conditions of language learning for working-class and poor immigrants
without stigmatizing the learners themselves while also studying the language learning of more
privileged learners without trivializing their experiences. We need to detail the local context of
language learning while also paying attention to the global forces that may have motivated the
learning in the first place. And we also need to conceptualize social class without reducing it
to a matter of economic wealth while, nonetheless, remembering the fundamental importance of
the economic factor in social class. But despite such challenges, the relationship between social
class and language learning and teaching is a critical area of investigation for applied linguists.
As Vandrick noted at the beginning of this section, many of us in applied linguistics are advocates
for social justice. However, we cannot critique or advocate for something without first examining
it. Just as race/ethnicity and gender have been productive lenses that have revealed many aspects
of language learning and teaching that would otherwise have been hidden, social class can also be
a highly illuminating lens. Through that lens, we can examine how languages are being learned
and taught in a way that reproduces or disrupts the existing social structure.
REFERENCES
Bourdieu, P. (1977). The economics of linguistic exchanges. Social Science Information, 16(6), 645668.
doi:10.1177/053901847701600601
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power (G. Raymond & M. Adamson, Trans.; J. B. Thompson, Ed.).
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. D. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Bowles, S., & Gintis, H. (1976). Schooling in capitalist America: Education reform and the contradictions of economic
life. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Giddens, A. (1979). Central problems in social theory: Action, structure, and contradiction in social analysis. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Kanno, Y., & Kangas, S. N. (2013, April). English language learners limited access to high level courses in high school.
American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting (AERA), San Francisco, CA.
Norton, B. (2000). Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity and educational change. Harlow, United Kingdom:
Longman/Pearson Education.
Norton, B. (2013). Identity and language learning: Extending the conversation (2nd ed.). Bristol, United Kingdom:
Multilingual Matters.
Norton Peirce, B. (1995). Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL Quarterly, 29(1), 931.
doi:10.2307%2F3587803
Phillipson, R. (2000). English in the new world order: Variations on a theme of linguistic imperialism and World
English. In T. Ricento (Ed.), Ideology, politics and language policies: Focus on English (pp.88106). Amsterdam,
Netherlands: John Benjamins.
FORUM COMMENTARY
123
Portes, A., Guarnizo, L. E., & Landolt, P. (1999). The study of transnationalism: Pitfalls and promise of an emergent
research field. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 22(2), 217237. doi:10.1080/014198799329468
Reay, D., David, M. E., & Ball, S. (2005). Degrees of choice: Class, race, gender and higher education. Stoke on Trent,
United Kingdom: Trenthan Books.
Swartz, D. (1997). Culture and power: The sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital?: A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race
Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 6991. doi:10.1080/1361332052000341006

Special Issue 2014 - Social Class and Language Learning - Journal of Language, Identity and Education

Enviado por

Dados do documento

Direitos autorais

Formatos disponíveis

Compartilhar este documento

Compartilhar ou incorporar documento

Opções de compartilhamento

Você considera este documento útil?

Este conteúdo é inapropriado?

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

Special Issue 2014 - Social Class and Language Learning - Journal of Language, Identity and Education

Enviado por

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

Journal of

Social Class in English Language Education in Oaxaca, Mexico

Social Class, Identity, and Migrant Students

English language as hydra: Its impact on non-English language cultures, by

This article was downloaded by: [Temple University Libraries]

Journal of Language, Identity &

The Role of Social Class in English

University of San Francisco

Click for updates

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 13: 8591, 2014

Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 15:39 14 December 2014

The Role of Social Class in English Language Education

Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 15:39 14 December 2014

Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 15:39 14 December 2014

SOCIAL CLASS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION

SOCIAL CLASS PRIVILEGE IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS AND ELT

Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 15:39 14 December 2014

Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 15:39 14 December 2014

SOCIAL CLASS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION

Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 15:39 14 December 2014

Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 15:39 14 December 2014

SOCIAL CLASS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION

This article was downloaded by: [Temple University Libraries]

Journal of Language, Identity &

Social-Class Identity and English

Beijing International Studies University

Click for updates

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 15:39 14 December 2014

Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/termsand-conditions

Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 13: 9298, 2014

Social-Class Identity and English Learning: Studies

Beijing International Studies University

DEFINING CHINESE LEARNERS SOCIAL-CLASS IDENTITIES

Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 15:39 14 December 2014

SOCIAL CLASS IDENTITY AND ENGLISH LEARNING

SOCIAL CLASS AND ENGLISH LEARNING IN THE CHINESE CONTEXT

Five Social Classes

Ten Social Strata

Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 15:39 14 December 2014

upper middle class

lower middle class

household business owners

Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 15:39 14 December 2014

SOCIAL CLASS IDENTITY AND ENGLISH LEARNING

ASPECTS OF RESEARCHING SOCIAL CLASS AND ENGLISH LEARNING

Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 15:39 14 December 2014

DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 15:39 14 December 2014

SOCIAL CLASS IDENTITY AND ENGLISH LEARNING

Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 15:39 14 December 2014

This article was downloaded by: [Temple University Libraries]

Journal of Language, Identity &

Social Class, Habitus, and Language

Click for updates

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 15:39 14 December 2014

Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/termsand-conditions

Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 13: 99103, 2014

Social Class, Habitus, and Language Learning: The Case

Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 15:39 14 December 2014

I illustrate my points through a discussion of Early Study Abroad (ESA, or precollege-age

Downloaded by [Temple University Libraries] at 15:39 14 December 2014