Inequities in English Language Education for Low-Income Children in the Global South

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Six
  In Roundtable Session: English Language Education and Students From Low-Income Backgrounds in the Indian Context: Service or Disservice? (Table 15)

Abstract

Objective or Purpose
This study examines the implications of the privilege of access to the colonial language, English, for low-income, multilingual students in India within the current context of globalization and education.
Perspective(s) or Theoretical Framework
It uses a postcolonial lens to examine the hegemony of linguistic cultural capital (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990; Motha, 2014) with the emergence of English as the current global lingua franca. It draws on Phillipson’s (1992) framework of linguistic imperialism, which asserts that English language teaching perpetuates the political-economic dominance of global North over global South, and from disability critical theory in disability studies in education, which examines the intersectionality of attributes like socio-economic status with perceptions of disability in educational settings (Annamma, Ferri, & Connor, 2018).
Methods
A qualitative ethnographic research study using a case study approach allowing for data saturation (Schwandt & Gates, 2018) was conducted over a four-month period in three low-fee-paying (LFP), private, English-medium schools in Mumbai, India. Data was analyzed through manual coding and NVivo using a recursive, constant comparison approach for a thematic analysis towards a grounded theory (Charmaz, 2014; Corbin & Strauss, 2015).
Data Sources
Data sources of participant observations, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis allowed for triangulation of data. Students were regional language speakers whose parents were primarily migrant laborers. Observations were conducted in classroom grades 3 to 5. Interviews were conducted with teachers, principals at the schools, parents, tutors at supplementary services like tuition centers and private tuition classes, and clinicians at diagnostic clinics. Document analysis (Bowen, 2009) was conducted with national policies, student work samples, and class textbooks.
Results and/or Substantiated Conclusions
LFP schools tended to cut costs with large class sizes of 50 to 60 students and hiring less-qualified, poorly-paid teachers (Chattopadhay & Roy, 2017). While low-income parents sent their children to English-medium schools believing that English language skills would facilitate their children’s social and economic mobility, the teachers struggled to respond to their students’ needs. Instead they focused on rote “teaching to the test”, and misinterpreted students’ difficulty with learning English with a cognitive deficit and considered them learning disabled.
Scientific or Scholarly Significance of the Study or Work
This study is significant in highlighting a disturbing trend in India towards identifying learning deficits in low-income, multilingual students who are struggling to learn English. Rather than recognizing the structural inequities that result in low-income students receiving a poor quality of education where they do not acquire fluency in English, teachers perceive students to have innate deficits and are ‘made disabled’. It cautions against subverting the purpose of Education For All by marginalizing a new group of students. It asks the audience to think critically about the neoliberal argument which credits English language teaching as a key element in social redistribution, alleviation of poverty and social disadvantage, arguing that English acquisition can be as much a barrier as a facilitator to social mobility for the poor.

Author

• Sarina Chugani Molina, University of San Diego
  Presenting Author