The Enactment of the Colombian National Bilingual Program: Equal Access to Language Capital?

Drawing upon Bourdieu’s concept of capital, this article examines the enactment of the Programa Nacional de Bilingüismo (National Bilingual Program), a policy that aims to provide Colombian students equal opportunities to learn English. In this exploratory, sequential mixed-methods study, data were...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Diego Cardona-Escobar, Melissa Barnes, Marc Pruyn
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universidad Nacional de Colombia 2023-07-01
Series:Profile Issues in Teachers' Professional Development
Subjects:
Online Access:https://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/profile/article/view/103003
Description
Summary:Drawing upon Bourdieu’s concept of capital, this article examines the enactment of the Programa Nacional de Bilingüismo (National Bilingual Program), a policy that aims to provide Colombian students equal opportunities to learn English. In this exploratory, sequential mixed-methods study, data were collected from teachers and students from three Grade 5 classrooms of public schools in Colombia. The findings revealed that the plan’s differentiated enactment generates unequal access to opportunities to build language capital and unequal levels of academic language achievement among the three schools. We argue that the enactment of the plan to equalize opportunities and achievement and therefore build the language capital of Colombian students is obstructed by existing funding structures.
ISSN:1657-0790
2256-5760