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Institutional, material and economicconstraints in languages education:unequal provision of linguisticresources in early childhood andprimary settings in AustraliaCriss Jones Díaza

a School of Education, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, NSW,AustraliaPublished online: 21 Jan 2013.

To cite this article: Criss Jones Díaz (2014) Institutional, material and economic constraints inlanguages education: unequal provision of linguistic resources in early childhood and primarysettings in Australia, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 17:3, 272-286,DOI: 10.1080/13670050.2012.754400

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Institutional, material and economic constraints in languages education:unequal provision of linguistic resources in early childhood and primarysettings in Australia

Criss Jones Dıaz*

School of Education, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

(Received 4 September 2012; final version received 22 November 2012)

In Australia, languages education in early childhood and primary educationincludes three main approaches: transitional, enrichment and full bilingualprogrammes. This article proposes that transitional and enrichment programmesin Australia are constituted and shaped by competing and contested institutional,material, discursive and economic conditions limiting their capacity to deliverquality languages education and home/community language support pro-grammes. Ultimately, this undermines the capacity of community languagesprogrammes and schools to be recognised as valid and legitimate institutions.Such lack of support impedes children’s interest in speaking and learning theirhome language. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of conversion, specifically, hisconcepts of the linguistic market and legitimacy, the data presented demonstratehow the unequal distribution of linguistic resources in Australia where homelanguages or community languages are offered inhibits effective implementationand provision of languages education in early childhood and primary education.

Keywords: language retention; bilingual students; ethnic language school;childhood bilingualism; community languages; language loss

Introduction

Prior to British colonisation, there were up to 600 languages and dialects spoken in

Australia (May 1997) with most of the speakers of these languages being multilingual

(Dixon 1980, cited in Clyne 1991). These languages and dialects represented diverse

linguistic and cultural practices. Of the 260 languages spoken in Australia, 60 of

these are Indigenous languages (ABS 2006). However, today, many of these

languages are under threat of extinction with less than 20 Indigenous languages

being learnt by children (McConvell 2008). May (2000) estimates that as few as 10%

of the Indigenous population have proficiency in an Indigenous language, and it is

predicted that by 2050 Indigenous languages will no longer be spoken in Australia

(McConvell and Thieberger 2001). They claim that the Australian continent is a

‘linguistic graveyard’, with up to 90% of Aboriginal languages near extinction.Inscribed in Australia’s colonial history, the enforced marginalisation of

Indigenous people not only resulted in social, political, economic and historical

domination, but also linguistic genocide (May 1997). Pennycook (1998) argues that

British colonisation has not only left legacies of dispossession, forced separation of

*Email: c.jonesdiaz@uws.edu.au

International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 2014

Vol. 17, No. 3, 272�286, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2012.754400

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families, economic and educational disadvantage, high mortality and poor health,

but also language death. He notes that many areas associated with Indigenous

health, land rights and education, access to language maintenance and bilingual

education remain low on the list of priorities.

Nevertheless, linguistic diversity in Australia has always been evident. Apart from

many Indigenous languages, Gaelic and Welsh speakers were amongst the early

convicts and free settlers during the nineteenth century. Jupp (1988) has estimated

that in 1871 Irish may have been the second most widely understood language in

Australia. Furthermore, Clyne (1991) claims that during this period Gaelic, Chinese,

German, Cantonese, French, Italian and Scandinavian languages were also spoken.

He argues that up until the late nineteenth century there was a laissez-faire policy

towards linguistic diversity. It was not until around federation (1901), when

Australia’s emerging Anglo-Celtic national identity reaffirmed allegiance to Britain,

that monolingualism became entrenched at institutional and educational levels.

Clyne (1991) argues that by 1919, Australia’s national identity was established interms of English monolingualism. Consequently, alongside such a widespread

institutional racism in the early nineteenth and twentieth centuries, minority

languages and bilingual education were perceived as potential threats to social

cohesion and national solidarity (Corson 1998).

In Australia, the combination of protectionist and assimilationist social policies

legislated up until the mid-1970s heavily encouraged bilingual families to abandon

the use of the home language. This abandonment often meant the loss of cultural

identity, in favour of the English language and Anglo-Australian cultural identity

(Clyne 1991). As a result, language shift in many third-generation migrant families

was inevitable. Subsequently many children acquired at best a limited and receptive

understanding of their parents’ language.

The Australian Language and Literacy Policy (ALLP: Dawkins 1991) aims to

conserve and develop Australia’s linguistic resources in promoting Australia’s

pluralist identity. May (1999) argues that while Australia’s language policy haspromoted the use of minority languages in the private domain, it has not extended

the use of minority languages to the public domain since in Australia all major events

and activities are monolingual. He argues that when minority languages remain

restricted and low status, language shift is largely unabated, marginalising and

impoverishing the language even further.

Nevertheless, the ALLP effectively promoted linguistic diversity and Australian

pluralist identity as important social, linguistic and cultural resources. However, it

has failed to include explicit policy initiatives for children between birth and five

years of age. This is precisely the age in which extensive support to languages

learning is needed (Fillmore 1991; Jones Dıaz 2003). As the research has shown,

language shift in early childhood and primary education occurs when children are

exposed to English-only educational settings at such a young age (Fillmore 1991;

Pacini-Ketchabow, Bernhard, and Freire 2001). Hence, the prior-to-school sector is a

critical educational site through which targeted policy directives should be

implemented.1 Still, in Australia, the reality is the contrary. Policy initiatives,

directives and funding guidelines associated with languages support and English as asecond language remain exclusive to children attending school settings. In the

absence of such policy direction in the prior-to-school sector, I propose that this lack

of language policy articulation has resulted in inadequate provision for bilingual

children at the state and federal levels.

International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 273

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This article describes transitional, enrichment and full bilingual programmes in

Australia in terms of their implementation of bilingual support in prior-to-school

and school settings. By drawing on selected findings from a broader study that

examined bilingual Spanish/English-speaking children’s voices and experiences of

growing up bilingual in family, community and educational settings, the data

highlighted show how unequal distribution of linguistic resources in Australia

inhibits effective provision of languages education programmes.

Limited provision of formal community language programmes

In Australia, languages other than English and Indigenous languages have shared an

unequal status since colonisation due to the fact that English is afforded greater

value than other languages, through the legitimisation and institutionalisation of its

power (May 1997; Pennycook 1998). May (2000) argues that languages gain official

status through processes of legitimisation in which a language is recognised as the

primary national language and sanctioned through constitutional and legislativebenediction.

May (2000) also argues that through processes of institutionalisation in social,

cultural and linguistic fields operating on formal and informal levels, their ‘taken-for-

granted’ acceptance is adopted by many of the nation’s citizens in the public and civic

realm. It is only when minority languages are legitimated by the state and

institutionalised through public social fields that this unequal status of languages

other than English (including Indigenous languages) will change (May 1997; Nelde,

Strubell, and Williams 1996).In Australia, English has gained much of its power through these officially

sanctioned channels, rendering other languages marginal and private. Lo Bianco

(2000) argues that since 1991 Australia has embarked on a ‘One Literacy’ or English-

only literacy movement, which marginalises minority languages and literacies. In

educational settings, this marginal status has meant that there is limited provision of

home language support to bilingual children. For example, of the 350 languages

spoken in Australian homes, workplaces and communities (ABS 2006, cited in Clyne,

Hajek, and Kipp 2008), 133, including 50 Indigenous languages, were taught in somekind of primary formal education programme in 2006 (Lo Bianco and Slaughter

2009).

In 2011, through the New South Wales K�6 Community Languages Schools

Program, 30 languages were offered at the mainstream school settings (Department

of Education and Communities, NSW [DEC] 2011). In comparison, 58 languages

were taught through community languages schools in non-mainstream settings such

as afterschool and Saturday programmes (DEC, NSW 2012). There are more

community languages taught in the non-mainstream settings. The disparity betweenthe numbers of languages taught in the mainstream and non-mainstream settings in

NSW suggests a lack of commitment from the NSW government towards languages

education. Much of the responsibility for languages education in non-mainstream

settings is relegated to the ‘ethnic’ communities through the Community Languages

Schools Program. In Australia, whilst there is a vast array of community languages

spoken and ‘tolerated’, there appears to be unequal distribution of linguistic

resources in educational, political and social fields within the community.

Unfortunately such an unequal provision of formal community languageprogrammes is reflected in the uptake of students studying a second language in

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Australia. As few as 13% of High School students study a second language for their

Higher School Certificate (HSC),2 compared to the Netherlands where 99% study a

second language in their final year of high school (Clyne, Puszka, and Brown 2007).

This is despite the fact that according to a recent survey conducted by the Australian

Council of State School Organisations 70% of parents wanted languages to be

compulsory from early primary school to Year 10, and 90% of parents and 70% of

children believed that learning would help their understanding of the world (Clyne,

Puszka, and Brown 2007).

Types of languages programmes in Australia

As previously mentioned, languages education in early childhood and primary

education includes three main approaches: transitional, enrichment and full bilingual

programmes. In prior-to-school settings transitional approaches predominate. Such

approaches adopt strategies that assist children who do not speak English to settle

into dominant English-speaking environments. Casual bilingual workers areemployed on a temporary basis (up to four hours for 10 weeks) to integrate the

child into the dominant English-speaking environments. The use of home languages

is specifically for the purpose of bridging the gap between children’s homes and the

setting. Integration is the primary focus, and it often occurs at the expense of the

home language (Robinson and Jones Dıaz 2000, 2006).

As the child’s English proficiency increases, the need for the provision of bilingual

support simultaneously decreases. There is little emphasis on further developing

children’s home languages whilst children are learning English (Piccioli 1996). Thisinevitably results in subtractive bilingual experiences (Corson 1993; Jones Dıaz

2007). Transitional approaches often sustain discourses of monolingualism in their

approach to abandoning the first language when the second language is attained. The

primary focus is the acquisition of English, not the development of the home

language.

In Australia, research conducted in 50 preschools and long day care services in

NSW regarding practitioners’ attitudes, practices and policy implementation towards

diversity and difference revealed that, in many of these settings, integration occurredat the expense of the home language (Robinson and Jones Dıaz 2000). While

practitioners were aware of bilingual children’s cultural and language needs, major

concerns for the children’s ability to integrate and communicate in English at the

setting tended to override practitioners’ awareness of broader sociological issues

connected to language rights, bilingualism and linguistic diversity.

In contrast to transitional approaches towards languages support, enrichment

approaches such as home language support programmes (as in the case of prior-to-

school settings) and community language programmes for primary school-agestudents offered through schools or by ethnic communities are aimed at maintaining

and extending children’s home languages. In prior-to-school settings, this can be

achieved through the provision of bilingual practitioners who speak the same language

as the children attending the setting. However, these programmes do not receive

additional funding from state or federal governments to extend children’s languages.

In primary settings, languages education, including Indigenous languages, are

funded by the state departments of education and form part of the mainstream

schools’ curriculum area or in after-hours community languages schools for aminimum of two hours per week (MCEETYA 2005). After-hours community

International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 275

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languages schools referred to as Community Languages Schools are managed and

administered voluntarily by various language and cultural communities.

Finally, full bilingual approaches place central importance on the development of

the home language and the second language with the aim of producing an additive

bilingualism. In early childhood and primary education both at the prior-to-school

and school level, adequate provision of bilingual and home language support

programmes is notable in their absence. In the prior-to-school sector, the relatively

few programmes that do operate do so as ad hoc and temporary and are subjected toshifting community profiles and staff turnover. The absence of this model effectively

leads to subtractive bilingual experiences for many young Australian bilingual

children (Jones Dıaz 2007). Yet, despite substantive research (see, for example,

Bialystok 1991, 2007; Cummins 1993; Fillmore 2000; Skutnabb-Kangas 1988) that

documents the social, cultural, intellectual, linguistic, economic and familial benefits

of bilingualism in early childhood, one could assume that the rates of language

attrition and the processes of bilingual subtraction in early childhood and primary

would be of concern to educators and researchers.

Theoretical framework

Bourdieu’s theory of social practice illuminates processes of transfer and conversion of

cultural, linguistic, social and economic capital that operate in various cultural fields in

which the use of language is assigned different levels of validity and legitimacy

depending on the individual’s location in any given social field. Bourdieu’s notion of

legitimacy, transfer and conversion is articulated in his emphasis on the relationshipbetween language and power. For Bourdieu all sociocultural groups possess cultural

capital, but it is not the same forms of capital that is recognised and valued in education

(Corson 2000). Education is a key site for the legitimisation of specific language

practices, and distribution and control over linguistic resources (Stroud 2003).

Young bilingual children move across various social and cultural fields, such as

day care, playgroup and school, places of worship and extended family networks

rendering some forms of cultural and linguistic capital valid, while other forms of

capital remain invalid. In this process they accrue different types of capital. However,some of these fields, such as day care, preschool and school, do not give currency to

the cultural capital accumulated from children’s home languages, resulting in an

exchange for other forms of linguistic capital in fields where English is assigned

greater value and legitimacy than other languages. This conversion process can often

take place at the expense of the home language.

Grenfell (1998) argues that, for Bourdieu, words are never just words, and

language is never just a vehicle to express ideas. Language is thus value-laden and

culturally expressed in accordance with the standards of legitimacy of its use.Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) claim that language is never acquired and used in

isolation. In every communication, the linguistic practices incorporate power

relations that are embedded in socially specific authority and legitimacy. Because

of this, he argues that language needs to be examined in relation to its social and

cultural production and power relations through which it is used.

Therefore, Bourdieu’s work enables a conceptual framework for early childhood

and primary educators in understanding how language and sociocultural power

construct dominant cultural and language practices that impact on languagesretention and languages learning in young bilingual children (Jones Diaz 2011). For

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children who have proficiency in their home language, their potential for generating

differentiated forms of social and cultural capital depends on how the linguistic

market accommodates and validates the required linguistic habitus. Through the

uptake of an English-speaking habitus, the linguistic habitus required for speaking

the home language can be underutilised. Therefore, in early childhood and primary

education that construct linguistic markets and networks that privilege English at the

expense of the children’s home languages, only serve to contribute to children’s

disinterest in accumulating additional forms of social and cultural capital producedin their home language (Jones Diaz 2007).

Linguistic markets

Within social fields there are linguistic markets that exist when ‘someone produces an

utterance for receivers capable of assessing it, evaluating it and setting a price on it’

(Bourdieu 1993, 79). This price is the value of the linguistic performance and

interactions, which depend on the laws that are determined by the market operating

in various social fields. Bourdieu (1991) uses a market analogy to draw attention to

ways in which linguistic ‘products’ have value in social fields in similar ways to how

market products have value. The valorisation of English at the expense of other

languages in Australian education reinforces this process whereby the linguistic‘products’ are derived from the forces within the linguistic market of daily

interactions producing linguistic norms and social power. Hence, social fields

produce linguistic markets and speakers who yield relative power through the use

of linguistic norms and performance.

Extending this connection between linguistic markets and legitimate language,

Heller and Martin-Jones (2001) draw attention to the ways in which language is

ideological. They argue that certain kinds of language practices are valued and

considered normal and appropriate and ideology congruent with the social, politicaland economic agendas within a society. To this end, they argue that linguistic

resources are central to the production, distribution and management of other kinds

of resources. This also includes who gets to decide what counts as legitimate

language. Hence, Heller and Martin- Jones argue that, in multilingual settings

(including transitional, enrichment and full bilingual programmes), it is possible to

go beyond a singular analysis of language practices to examine ways in which

education is a site for broader social and cultural production and reproduction. Ways

in which this occurs is often through the organisation and construction of socialdifference and inequality based on legitimate language.

In order to challenge the reproduction of linguistic inequality in education, Heller

and Martin-Jones (2001) point out that by analysing and revealing the complexity of

such inequality, and the conditions which either construct or contest legitimate

language practices, there is a potential for change and critique. This work has much

to offer in the examination of ways in which languages are used in linguistic markets

within social fields of transitional, enrichment and full bilingual languages

programmes as well as mainstream education in Australia.

The study

The data reported in this article are drawn from a broader study that investigated theconnections between language retention and identity construction among young

International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 277

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bilingual Spanish-/English-speaking children from Latin American backgrounds

living in the urban communities in Sydney, Australia. Specifically, this article

examines the data that came from the investigation of the following research

questions:

(1) What levels of institutional and programme support are available for home

language retention and bilingualism in early childhood and primaryeducation.

(2) To what extent are Spanish and other languages valorised or not valorised by

practitioners and children in early childhood and primary school settings.

(3) What levels of awareness do practitioners’ have in children’s understanding of

the minority status of their home languages.

The research methodology involved in the broader study incorporated quasi-

ethnographic, case study and interpretative approaches using questionnaires,

informal interviews, participant observations, field notes, children’s work and the

collection of documentation. The participants included 25 children and 29 family

members, and 34 caregivers and teachers working with children from Latin American

Spanish-speaking backgrounds in prior-to-school and school settings including

settings that adopted transitional approaches to home language retention and home

language support programmes (in the case of the prior-to-school services) and

enrichment approaches (as in the case of the primary settings that incorporated

community language programmes and schools). An important aspect of the broader

study was a case study of after-school Spanish Community Language School, La

Escuelita.3

Critical qualitative researchers acknowledge that in any process of inquiry the

relationship between the researcher and the researched is a key factor in shaping and

influencing the research findings (Denzin and Lincoln 2003). Accordingly, as a

researcher in this study I was cognisant of the relationships between myself and the

participants that are mediated by subjectivity, power and identity, particularly in

terms of the aims of the broader study which encompass the heterogeneity of social

and language experiences that give meaning to peoples’ lives (Denzin and Lincoln

2003).I was also aware of the complexity in the negotiation of more than one language

and cultural identity in an increasingly globalising and homogenising world. Further

to this aspect of reflexivity, this study acknowledges the importance of ‘voice’ and the

need to present participants as active subjects. In language-based studies, these issues

also emerge when recognising the multiple and contradictory voices of participants.

Given the power relations that exist between the researcher and the researched, it is

important for researchers to represent the personal narratives and lived experiences

of the participants in equitable and ethical ways. For example, in the data presented

in this article, the participants ‘speak for themselves’, and it was my role to ensure

that the voices were heard without exploitation and distortion.

As Barnard (1990) argues, genuine reflexivity is achieved by subjecting the

observer to the same critical analysis as that of the observed. Indeed, in this study,

the struggles to locate myself as a researcher in a small urbanised Latin American�Australian community are mediated through my personal biography, immersed in a

marginalised, culturally and linguistically different family and community. This

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location is lived in daily narratives constituted through identities of ‘race’, ethnicity,

language and class.

Participants and types of languages programmes

The data reported in this article draw from Escuelita, prior-to-school settings and

schools that implemented enrichment programmes. In the prior-to-school settings the

data are drawn from programmes where children’s home languages are supportedthrough the provision of bilingual staff where languages are incorporated throughout

the curriculum on a daily basis. In the school settings, the data were collected in

schools that offered one or more community languages for at least two hours per week.

Of the 34 caregivers and teachers from the broader study, this article reports on

data from selected childcare workers, a teacher’s assistant, a primary classroom

teacher, English as a second language (ESL) teachers, teaching directors, community

language teachers and directors working in prior-to-school, school and community

language school settings. The selection of data from these participants representedthe diversity of professionals working in home language support and community

language programmes across the early childhood and primary settings included in

the broader study.

Data gathering

In the discussion that follows, the findings draw on Bourdieu’s theory of social

practice with particular relevance to his concepts of legitimacy and linguisticmarkets. Data examined draw on information from questionnaires from practitioners

working in early childhood, primary, community language programmes and one

community language school � La Escuelita. The questionnaires were effective data

generation strategies (Fontana and Frey 2000), as they provided useful demographic

information about participants’ age, gender, class, geographical location, occupation

and ethnicity. In particular, they explored issues pertaining to the provision of

languages education in their setting as well as their levels of awareness about their

children’s proficiency, use of and attitude towards learning and using the homelanguage/s.

Data analysis

The study is grounded in the accounts of the participants, and from this perspective

the analysis was evidence driven and theoretically informed (Patton 2002). Data from

the questionnaires and interviews were analysed using thematic discourse analysis

through which potential themes were identified and linked to major categories andissues. Discourses apparent within the varying themes were extracted. The informa-

tion gathered was revealed empirically through the connection of themes and issues

in a network or pattern as described by Reason (1981, 185�6). For example, major

themes identified from the practitioners’ questionnaires were the types of policies,

programmes and pedagogies pertinent to their settings in their work with bilingual

children in general and Spanish-speaking children from Latin American back-

grounds in particular. Discourses evident within these themes centred on the

legitimacy of English at the expense of other languages and English monolingualism,which reinforced children’s desire to ‘cash’ in their home language for English.

International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 279

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Findings and discussion

Within discourses of the legitimacy of English at the expense of other languages, two

pertinent issues were identified. The first relates to the unequal distribution oflinguistic resources and the second highlights the differentiated languages support in

the prior-to-school settings and primary schools.

English at the expense of other languages: unequal distribution of linguistic resources

In this study, institutional power relations between English and other languages were

apparent in the findings from the practitioner questionnaires and La Escuelita. These

findings indicated how the lack of resources, availability of languages and

infrastructural support negatively impacted on the provision of languages education

and on children’s interest in maintaining their home language.Despite the reasonable representation of bilingual practitioners in the settings,

the level of support provided for languages appeared to be minimal. This lack of

support for languages that is evident in these findings suggests unequal power

relations between English and other languages, thus reinforcing the legitimacy of

English at the expense of other languages. Such power relations are constituted in

structural relations that subordinated minority languages and speakers of those

languages to the dominant language and culture within the Australian society. Below,

the data exemplify practitioners’ awareness of children’s understanding of theminority status of their home languages:

I believe that children are aware that their home language may be a minority languageand to some extent feel threatened by that. (teacher’s assistant, La Escuelita)

Children often display embarrassment about using their native tongue in the classroom.It clearly makes them feel exposed to teasing or ridicule. (ESL teacher, primary school)

The practitioners’ comments above exemplify Skutnabb-Kangas’ (1988) claim that:

[d]ifferent languages have different political rights, not depending on any inherentlinguistic characteristics, but on the power relationships between the speakers of theselanguages. (41)

Further to this, Bourdieu (1991) draws attention to the recognition of legitimacy of

official language, which he claims has nothing to do with revocable belief or

acceptance of the language. Rather, it is inscribed in a practical sense throughdispositions which are inculcated through language learning and acquisition. In the

extracts above, the practitioners’ comments of the children’s awareness of the

minority status of their home language, feeling threatened and exposed to ridicule for

speaking their home language, exemplify Bourdieu’s notion of the legitimate

language (Bourdieu 1982), which in this case is English.

English at the expense of other languages: differentiated languages support in the prior-to-school settings and primary schools

In this study, there were differences between the amount of bilingual and home

language support offered in the prior-to-school settings and the primary settings.The latter appeared to offer more formalised support in the form of community

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language programmes and policies. The prior-to-school settings offered ad hoc

informal support depending upon the availability of bilingual support, as the

comments below illustrate:

This programme is not as such (community language teaching or bilingual support) butmostly as continuous support offered by this service wherever possible. (CCCs, prior-to-school setting)

As there are a wide variety of languages at the centre, it is hard to keep the staff with thesame languages as sometimes we can have up to 17 different languages at any one time.(director, prior-to-school setting)

Other children feel left out and ask for their language. Children who speak Spanishusually rely only on me and if I am not there they cry or are upset especially at thebeginning of the year. (teacher, prior-to-school setting)

In the absence of a mandated policy for languages in early childhood education, in

many prior-to-school settings bilingual support rarely goes beyond the use of the

occasional nursery rhyme or greeting (Jones Dıaz 2003). As in the above data, the ad

hoc and add-on approaches to home language support were highly dependent upon

the availability of staff who matched the languages of the children spoken at the

setting. Hornberger (1998) argues that a serious commitment to the provision of

minority languages education for bilingual children needs to go beyond add-on

programmes with minimal systemic support. Such lack of mandated policy initiatives

for young children further contributes to the linguistic death of many Australian

languages including Indigenous languages. This adds weight to Skutnabb-Kangas’s

(2000) claim that historically educational policies have committed linguistic genocide

for many minority and Indigenous languages throughout the world.

Further, if languages are to be taught effectively they must be integrated into the

curriculum rather than seen as an afterthought, or add-on to the setting or school’s

programmes. The data below summed up the peripheral approach taken towards

languages education in schools:

Unfortunately the pressure on classroom teachers to cover such an enormous amount ofmaterial in the ‘core’ curriculum means that often the support offered by bilingual staffis often regarded as ‘peripheral’ and an ‘extra’. It is difficult to find time to includeeverything that is . . . important to a child’s well-rounded education in the normal schoolday/week/year. (ESL teacher, primary school)

Nevertheless, in the primary settings that did offer community language pro-

grammes,4 the institutional power relations between English and other languages

were also highlighted by the participants’ perceived limitations and frustrations in

their work. Furthermore, because of the diversity of language proficiency and

retention rates in many bilingual communities, such community language school will

often have a wide range of language levels, across Kindergarten�Year 6 in the one

classroom. For example, in La Escuelita, the language proficiency levels ranged from

beginner to advanced levels of proficiency. Hence, teachers in these classrooms

encounter many difficulties and limitations in providing effective languages learning

experiences given the resource limitations, and diversity of language levels as

evidence in the data below:

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Teaching the language after school, children are too tired [and] [h]aving mixed ages (6�12). (community language teacher, community language school)

This was particularly the case for practitioners teaching in community language

schools, which offer community languages after school hours by various ethnic

communities. These programmes often receive limited support from the state and

federal levels of government and local councils. Therefore, the day-to-day manage-

ment and administration operate through the voluntary sponsorship of different

ethnic communities. In order for them to provide a teacher to teach the language,

these programmes often rely on parent fees and volunteer management committees

(and often volunteer teaching staff) to remain viable and meet the demands of the

programmes. The data below highlight some of the participants’ frustrations:

Tu sabes lo que paga el, el governmenten grants por las escuelas, muy poco.¿No es cierto? A pesar de todo estotambien esta un poco un asunto de,polıtica porque ası el, el government sedesentiende. (community language tea-cher, La Escuelita)

You know that the government paysvery little in grants to the schools. True?In spite of this, this is also a politicalmatter because the government doesn’twant to know about it. (communitylanguage teacher, La Escuelita)

Hence, teachers in these classrooms encounter many difficulties and limitations in

their work given the resource limitations and diversity of language levels.

Monolingualism and cashing in the home language

In Australia, educational settings produce different linguistic markets regulated

through curriculum, policy and practice in which an English-speaking habitus is

promoted securing the domination of English at the expense of other languages.

Therefore, children entering English-dominated educational linguistic markets learn

that, in order to survive, English must be learnt quickly. This study identified

discourses of monolingualism, which reinforced children’s desire to cash in their

home language. The data below illustrate this point:

Children arrived with little or no English, now speak English at the school and at home.We no longer hear them speak their home language. (director, prior-to-school setting)

At the beginning of the year they would talk a lot more in Spanish/Vietnamese/Cantonese and now they express themselves in English, they avoid their home language.(teacher, prior-to-school setting)

To be able to communicate successfully at school, children often drop their homelanguage. (teaching director, prior-to-school setting)

Bourdieu’s (1993) analogy of the linguistic market provides a useful framework for

understanding ways in which linguistic inequality is produced in early childhood

educational settings in which English is used throughout the day as normalised social

practice. As children become more proficient in English, they become less interested

in trying to express themselves in the home language, even to the extent of avoiding

the use of the home language. In these English-dominated marketplaces, the home

language becomes obsolete because the required utterances and interactions are

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performed in English. The practitioners’ comments below provide evidence of

children’s experiences of this process:

Children understand English/Spanish directions and answering only in English. Parents[are] informing carers that their children are speaking more English than their homelanguage and/or refusing to speak their language. (CCCs5, prior-to-school setting)

Children who understand their home language . . . rarely use it to communicate.(director, prior-to-school setting)

Some children are beginning to reply to parents in English even though they are spokento in the home language. (teacher director, prior-to-school setting)

In order to generate this linguistic habitus, the linguistic capital constituted in the

home language is often converted or ‘cashed in’ for other forms of linguistic habitus,

such as speaking English. Consequently, as the data above illustrate, it is not unusual

for children to stop speaking their home language as they concentrate on this

exchange process of learning English.

Bourdieu (1991) argued that schools have a monopoly on the large-scale production

of a linguistic market, which requires linguistic capital as an exchange for the

linguistic products to have value. Subsequently, as children enter English-dominant

educational settings from infancy, their potential for accumulating forms of cultural

capital constituted in learning their home language can often be constrained and

impeded through the learning of English. This will most likely transform their

linguistic habitus accumulated through the cultural capital represented through an

English-dominant curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and policy as evidenced in the

data below.

Children experience difficulty when they can’t find the right word [in their homelanguage]. (teacher, primary school)

They do not speak Spanish at the centre any more. They have been here two yearsand now speak and understand English at the centre. (director, prior-to-schoolsetting)

In certain ways, children are losing their home language within the setting as they areinteracting with other children. (teaching director, prior-to-school setting)

In understanding how linguistic markets secure their domination of social and

cultural practices and power relations in educational settings, Bourdieu’s (in

Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992) analysis of cultural and social capital can be applied,

particularly in relation to children’s lack of interest in using their home language once

they have learnt English as exemplified below:

They are not fully fluent in their home language. They are embarrassed � it’s not cool.(teacher, primary school)

Children feeling uneasy/shy to speak their home language. (CCCs, prior-to-schoolsetting)

Children {are} not confident to speak [their home language] to teachers at all (evenpreschoolers). (director, prior-to-school setting)

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Bourdieu argues that a linguistic market is ‘a system of relations of force, which

impose themselves as a system of specific sanctions by determining the ‘‘price’’ of

linguistic products’ (Bourdieu &Wacquant 1992, 145). In the above extracts, the

practitioners’ observations of children’s unease, embarrassment, shyness and lack of

confidence to speak their home language is the price they have paid in learning the

legitimate language � English.

Conclusion

This article has demonstrated that the transitional and enrichment programmes in

Australia are constituted and shaped by competing and contested institutional,

material, discursive and economic conditions limiting their capacity to deliver quality

home and community languages programmes. Specifically, the discussion provided

has shown how structural factors such as policies, programmes, the availability of

bilingual staff and the languages offered impacts on the implementation and

provision of languages education in early childhood education.

Key findings highlighted in this article indicate that the settings in which the

practitioners were based established linguistic markets (Bourdieu 1990, 1991) that

secured the legitimacy of English at the expense of other languages. This was

evidenced from the practitioners’ observations of children’s rapid learning of

English, which accompanied a lack of interest in speaking their home language.

The use of English as normalised social practice through curriculum, policy and

programme delivery establishes an English-only marketplace. As a result uptake of

an English-speaking habitus produces an exchange process and the accumulation of

social and cultural capital derived from the home language can be impeded.

Notes

1. In Australia, the prior-to-school sector includes children’s services, such as day care,preschool, formal home-based care and supported playgroups for children aged birth�five.

2. In New South Wales, Australia, secondary students who successfully complete Years 11and 12 of senior high school sit for the credential award known as the Higher SchoolCertificate or HSC.

3. For the purposes of anonymity, the pseudonym La Escuelita is used to refer to the casestudy site which was the community language school that participated in the study. Thisschool operates as a not-for-profit, community-based Spanish school that provides twohours of Spanish per week.

4. La Escuelita is an example of this kind of programme.5. CCC refers to the qualification of a diploma-trained childcare worker.

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