The struggle for legitimacy: language provision in two ‘residual’ comprehensive high schools in Australia

ABSTRACT

Despite the contemporary policy rhetoric of global citizenry and the importance of languages and intercultural capabilities, language learning in Australian schools struggles for recognition and support. The curriculum marginalisation of languages, however, is uneven, affecting some school sectors more than others. In this article, we examine the provision of languages in two government comprehensive high schools, both low socio-economic status, located in urban areas in New South Wales, Australia’s largest state. They are termed ‘residual’ high schools because they cater for the students remaining in the local schools while others attend either private or selective government high schools. We provide a qualitative picture of language provision in these two schools from the perspectives of key stakeholders – school principals, teachers, students and parents. We also draw on observational data of language classes. The aim is to provide, within a largely social class framework, an understanding of the state of language provision in these schools. We argue that currently students in these schools are experiencing unequal access to the linguistic and cultural capital associated with language learning relative to students in more privileged communities and schools.

KEYWORDS:

• Language learning
• language teaching
• neoliberalism
• social class
• socio-economic status

Disclosure statement

The authors have no financial interest or benefit arising from the direct applications of this research.

Notes

1. ICSEA is a national scale of relative socio-educational advantage that enables comparisons to be made across schools. The average ICSEA value is 1000. The two schools featured in this article fell below 1000.

2. Continuers is for Year 11 students who have typically studied the language for 200–400 h. Beginners is for Year 11 students starting the language (previous study of less than 100 h).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [LP110100441].

Notes on contributors

Stephen Black

Stephen Black is a researcher at the University of Technology Sydney. His research and publications have focused mainly on language, literacy and numeracy studies from a critical social practice perspective.

Jan Wright

Jan Wright is a Professorial Fellow in the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Wollongong, Australia. Her research draws on feminist and poststructuralist theory to critically engage issues associated with social class, education and health.

Ken Cruickshank

Ken Cruickshank is an Associate Professor at the University of Sydney and Lectures in Education and TESOL. His research interests are literacy and language teaching and issues of equity.