Addressing social equity by making explicit the implicit value systems within content and language learning

Abstract

Despite efforts to redress the problem of social inequity within education, data reveals the student attainment gap continues to widen on the basis of socioeconomic background, particularly within Anglophone contexts (OECD, 2019; Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009). Bourdieu’s (1986) concept of ‘cultural capital’ has been one especially powerful concept for understanding the causes of such inequity as it relates to social class, and how entrenched patterns of privilege within institutions, such as schools, value certain forms of cultural capital – and associated ways of knowing, being, and doing – over others. Much of the existing CLIL research on social (in)equity has tended to examine either the impact of programmatic conditions on dis/advantage (e.g., streaming, access; see also Evniskaya & Llinares, this issue), or the role of language for enabling more inclusive instructional practices (e.g., differentiation, scaffolding). Both lines of inquiry have produced valuable insights on how CLIL can contribute to more equitable outcomes, but this paper aims to offer a third line, focusing on how greater equity can be achieved through the conceptualization of culture within CLIL contexts. Informed by Bourdieu’s concept of ‘cultural capital’ which has helped advance class-based understandings of inequity, the paper develops a pedagogic framework that explicitly accounts for culture when there is a simultaneous focus on both language and content, drawing on examples from instructional practice.