The Role of Social Class in English Language Education

Abstract

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.