A critical examination of the structural and agentic forces that contribute to social class inequalities and impact attainment of communicative competency in English (CCE) : a comparative case study analysis of three middle schools in Karachi

This thesis critically examines how the structural and agentic forces in the field of English language learning in Pakistan and the habitus of agents, intersect to reproduce class-based inequalities through cultural capital. Communicative competence in English (CCE) positioned as legitimate knowledge, is the most salient form of cultural capital. Thus it acts as the prime site for the expression of these inequalities and therefore struggle for equality. English, as the official language of Pakistan, dominates all local languages and has been the focus of federal policy. Education policies have allowed a private education market that provides English-medium schooling for upper to lower-middle classes, to flourish. An internationally aligned English language curriculum framework has also been introduced for Grades 1 to 12. Yet mainstream students are still unable to achieve CCE, and under-perform within the International English Language Testing System , which currently serves as one of the few objective measures of CCE in Pakistan. There continues to be a large disparity in attainment of communicative competence in English, based on the socioeconomic class to which students belong. Through this study it is argued that forces such as the organising ideology of the education market, differential schooling practices, agentic dispositions influenced by the various dimensions of the class habitus, and the complicity of agents, as a result of symbolic violence and illusio of the field, all act to create this disparity. The findings demonstrated that structural and agentic forces operating through the secondary as well as primary habitus of agents contributed to the inequities in means of access to CCE for students of different socio-economic classes in Karachi, resulting in differences in embodied and other cultural capital. The findings provide insight into individual stakeholders’ perspectives on English language education, the factors that influence these perspectives and the impact these have on their practices, in order to determine the current capacity of stakeholders to effectively utilise policy incentives. Recommendations from the findings of this study stand to inform policy and pedagogy, to enable equitable means of access to and attainment of CCE by students across the entire socioeconomic spectrum in Pakistan that builds on cultural capital and agency for families and their children