Languages discourses in Australian middle-class schools: parent and student perspectives |
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| Authors: | Jan Wright Ken Cruickshank Stephen Black |
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| Institution: | 1. Faculty of Social Science, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia;2. Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia;3. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia |
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| Abstract: | Much of the literature on social class and language study in schools argues that for middle-class parents and their children, languages are chosen for their capacity to offer forms of distinction that provide an edge in the global labour market. In this paper, we draw on data collected from interviews with parents and children in middle-class schools in Australia to demonstrate how a complex amalgam of elite, cultural identity and/or trade language discourses came into play to explain the choice (or not) to study a language and the choice of specific languages. For many of the parents languages provided a limited form of ‘civic multiculturalism’, as a means of better understanding and respecting the ‘other’. We argue that the value attributed to high status languages via this discourse, means their continued presence in schools hoping to attract middle-class parents, but their relative absence in schools with largely working-class populations, where more ‘practical’ concerns dominate. |
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| Keywords: | Languages social class middle-class schools language policy linguistic capital parents’ and students’ attitudes |
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