System 73 (2018) 1e3

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System
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/system

Introduction: Social class/socioeconomic status and young

learners of English as a global language

The recent rapid expansion of English instruction for young learners in many countries across the globe has been, in large
part, an educational response to changing demands in the job market. Increasingly, English skills are associated with social
and economic opportunities and a modern self-image, and families are often willing to marshal significant resources to make
sure their children have access to learn English. In East Asia, for example, the “shadow education” system heavily emphasizes
English and places an economic burden on families who feel compelled to provide for cram school, tutors, and study abroad
for their children (Butler, 2015). In many so-called developing countries, the inclusion of English in the public primary cur-
riculum is seen as a way of “leveling the playing field” in terms of students’ access to English instruction and opportunities for
learning (Sayer, 2015).
While substantial research has been conducted on the role of socioeconomic status (SES) in educational research, sur-
prisingly, social class or socioeconomic stratification as a construct has received scant attention in second language (L2)/
foreign language (FL) development research (Block, 2014). This special issue presents eight studies that examine the inter-
section between the burgeoning importance of English programs for young learners, and the increased interest and
awareness in applied linguistics of the role that social class/SES plays in affecting the students' access to and outcomes in
these programs. We insist that the role of social class/SES in early English learning is particularly important in that it may have
a long-lasting impact on children's lives and that children are vulnerable to decisions that are often imposed by their parents
and teachers.
The response we received to the Call for Abstracts for this issue bore out the sense we had that social class/SES is timely
topic that scholars are now recognizing must be accounted for in research that seeks to understand the pedagogical and
curricular processes of English programs for young learners. In the end, there were many excellent studies that we were not
able to include, but the result is a collection of articles that represents both a variety of geographical contexts as well as
different methodological and conceptual approaches to social class/SES. We point the reader to Murphy's (this issue) dis-
cussion article to look for how the themes and findings across the articles can be tied together; however, in conceptualizing
the issue, we struggled with two main questions: how to define a “young learner” of English, and whether to use the term
social class or socioeconomic status (SES).

1. How are “young L2 learners” defined?

The nature of the relationship of age and additional language learning has long been recognized as an important, if hotly
debated topic (Huang, 2016; Mun ~ oz & Singleton, 2011). We recognize then that defining a young learner with reference to a
critical period of L2 learning can be problematic. Moreover, as editors we were cognizant of not imposing a particular
definition of young learners, but wanted each author to be able to define it in her own way. So instead we opted to include
children up to 15 years old under the moniker “young learners”, recognizing that from early childhood to adolescence there
will be significant differences in terms of cognitive, emotional, and social maturation. Also, we found that this unfortunately
excluded some studies, such as with upper grade secondary (high school) students; although arguably many of these students
had studied English since they were “young learners” and were, by the end of their secondary education, the products of an
early start L2 program. However, the range up to 15 years is more inclusive that the AILA Research Network in Early Language
Learning (http://www.ell-ren.org/), which focuses on ages 3e12. Likewise, Shin and Crandall (2014) define young learners as
primary school level, ages 5e12. So, the trend in the field seems to be moving towards setting the term from the start of formal
schooling, preschool or kindergarten about 3e5 (presumably children who start earlier are learning in a home environment

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.02.007
0346-251X/© 2018 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
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as simultaneous bilinguals, not additional language learners), up to the end of primary school and the start of puberty, about
age 12.

2. Is it “social class” or “SES”?

During our discussions as editors to generate the call for the special issue, we found it difficult to settle on what the right
term for the theme should be. Is “social class” somehow more general than “SES”? Would researchers who use SES feel
excluded if used the term “social class,” and vice versa? Did the two terms really refer to the same concept, or not? We
eventually agreed to disagree, and leave it open as “social class/SES”. We came to the conclusion that a large part of the
explanation of why social class/SES has been neglected in research on language learning and teaching is because applied
linguists do not have a coherent theory of class; it is often included unproblematically as a variable within quantitative
research, or mentioned in passing in qualitative work (e.g. study carried out in a “working class school”). However, as an
interdisciplinary field, applied linguists can and do borrow conceptualizations of class liberally from education, sociology,
psychology, and to some extent, economics. And just as SLA researchers have split across cognitive/psycholinguistic and
sociocultural lines, their understanding of social class/SES tend to reflect their disciplinary training. What the reader will note
in the articles in this issue is that the authors’ choice of either social class or SES is likely telling of their epistemological
approach to the topic, and it was precisely this variety of approaches that we were hoping to be able to include.
As a well-established methodology in sociology and psychology, positivist-oriented researchers often view SES as a
category that represents an individual's or a group's relative economic resources. This category can be quantified and
operationalized as a variable by carefully accounting for the social features that correlate with one's resources, such as income,
education attainment, and type of employment. In turn, this enables researchers to look at how SES relates to other di-
mensions of learning, such as an educational outcome, and make inferences about the relationship between SES and learning.
The term social class, on the other hand, is often used by constructivist/interpretivist-oriented scholars who wish to
critique some aspect of the way the relationship of individuals with institutions (such as schools) and other social structures
are influenced by economics (cf. Sayer, 2017). In this sense, social class references a set social practices, and questions of access
and agency are foregrounded. In this anti-essentialist approach to social class, maintains Vandrick (2014), issues of privilege
and power are central. Block (2014) argues for this type of scholarship in applied linguistics research, and connects it with a
Marxist view of class analysis, current concerns about neoliberalism and globalization in language education, as well as post-
structural notions of identity, i.e. that one's social class is an important component of one's identity(ies). While such epis-
temological traditions may apply in a very general sense in the previous literature, as it is clear from the studies in this
volume, the authors' choices of using the terms SES or social class are much more complicated that this traditional episte-
mological dichotomy. And it was precisely this variety of approaches that we were hoping to be able to address in this volume.

3. The articles this issue

The issue includes eight articles that span countries in Europe, East Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and examine distinct
areas of early language teaching through the lens of social class/SES. The topics include learning outcomes, parents' views, and
issues related to curricula, assessment, and pedagogy. The papers are on the parental styles and attitudes by SES and their
influence on long-term L2 learning in China (Butler and Le), SES and CLIL programs in Spain (Fernandez Sanjujo and co-
authors), SES and L2 oral proficiency outcomes in Taiwan (Huang and co-authors), SES and Francophone children's experi-
ences with English-medium education in Cameroon (Kuchah), a comparison of the effects of SES and inductive reasoning on
the learning of English and German in Hungary (Nikolov and Csapo ), teachers' organization of English lessons in Mexico on
the basis of social class (Sayer), the relationship between motivation, L2 learning strategies and SES in Korea (Shin and So) and
Korean children's study abroad as an investment in English learning (Song). The final article (Murphy) is a discussion piece
that brings together these studies.

4. Further directions on social class/SES and young learners

These studies span a broad range of topics and methodological approaches exploring the relationship between social class/
SES and young language learners. What should be evident to the reader, then, is that social class/SES can be a lens onto
understanding language learning and teaching from almost any angle. Beyond what the authors offer us there, we can
envision several further directions for research:

 Work in developing countries, and the link between early L2 program and economic development efforts
 Learning English as a global language among working-class immigrant or migrant children in multilingual settings
 Access to shadow education such as cram schools/after-school programs, study abroad, and English camps
 Social class/SES and early English programs as a social justice issue
 Children's varieties of English by social class/SES in a community
 Y.G. Butler et al. / System 73 (2018) 1e3 3

Finally, we would offer that there is not a “right” way to analyze social class/SES in applied linguistics (and amongst
ourselves as co-editors we still haven't settled on which term to use!). But we would insist that as applied linguists we are
becoming attuned to the importance of thinking more deeply about how we account for social factors in our work. And while
no study can account for the influence all the dimensions of learners' (and teachers') identities e gender, race, sexuality,
national origin, and so forth certainly intersect with social class in every lesson e we do think that selectively highlighting the
aspects that have been understudied can contribute to build towards the big picture: a broader understanding of how the
social, cultural, cognitive, and emotional dimensions in actual contexts of learning and teaching. This issue, then, showcases
some of the conceptual and analytical possibilities that applied linguists have developed to examine the relationship between
young learners of English as an additional language and their socioeconomic background.

References

Block, D. (2014). Social class in applied linguistics. London and New York: Routledge.
Butler, Y. G. (2015). English language education among young learners in East Asia: A review of current research. Language Teaching, 48(3), 303e342.
Huang, B. H. (2016). A synthesis of empirical research on the linguistic outcomes of early foreign language instruction. International Journal of Multilin-
gualism, 13(3), 257e273.
Mun~ oz, C., & Singleton, D. (2011). A critical view of age-related research on L2 ultimate attainment. Language Teaching, 44, 1e35.
Sayer, P. (2015). “More & Earlier”: Neoliberalism and primary English education in Mexican public schools. L2 Journal, 7(3), 40e56.
Sayer, P. (2017). Does English really open doors? Social class and english teaching in public primary schools in Mexico. System, 73, 58e70.
Shin, J. K., & Crandall, J. (2014). Teaching young learners English. Boston, MA: National Geographic Learning & Heinle-Cengage.
Vandrick, S. (2014). The role of social class in English language education. Journal of Language, Identity and Education, 13(2), 85e91.

Yuko Goto Butler*

University of Pennsylvania, United States
Peter Sayer
The Ohio State University, United States
Becky Huang
The University of Texas at San Antonio, United States
 Corresponding author.
E-mail address: ybutler@upenn.edu

Available online 22 February 2018