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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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
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author Diego Cardona-Escobar
Melissa Barnes
Marc Pruyn
author_facet Diego Cardona-Escobar
Melissa Barnes
Marc Pruyn
author_sort Diego Cardona-Escobar
collection DOAJ
description 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.
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spelling doaj-art-12b9113fce7449acb3eb3d0241fca3f02025-08-20T03:17:32ZengUniversidad Nacional de ColombiaProfile: Issues in Teachers' Professional Development1657-07902256-57602023-07-012529511010.15446/profile.v25n2.103003The Enactment of the Colombian National Bilingual Program: Equal Access to Language Capital?Diego Cardona-Escobar0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9166-5128Melissa Barnes1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3090-2585Marc Pruyn2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5965-4303Institución Educativa AcadémicoLa Trobe UniversityMonash UniversityDrawing 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.https://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/profile/article/view/103003colombiaeducational equalityenglish as a foreign languagelanguage capitallanguage policypolicy enactment
spellingShingle Diego Cardona-Escobar
Melissa Barnes
Marc Pruyn
The Enactment of the Colombian National Bilingual Program: Equal Access to Language Capital?
Profile: Issues in Teachers' Professional Development
colombia
educational equality
english as a foreign language
language capital
language policy
policy enactment
title The Enactment of the Colombian National Bilingual Program: Equal Access to Language Capital?
title_full The Enactment of the Colombian National Bilingual Program: Equal Access to Language Capital?
title_fullStr The Enactment of the Colombian National Bilingual Program: Equal Access to Language Capital?
title_full_unstemmed The Enactment of the Colombian National Bilingual Program: Equal Access to Language Capital?
title_short The Enactment of the Colombian National Bilingual Program: Equal Access to Language Capital?
title_sort enactment of the colombian national bilingual program equal access to language capital
topic colombia
educational equality
english as a foreign language
language capital
language policy
policy enactment
url https://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/profile/article/view/103003
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