Problematizing Human Capital Development in English Language Education in Bangladesh

TY - JOUR

T1 - Problematizing Human Capital Development in English Language Education in Bangladesh

AU - Ali, MD Maksud

AU - Hamid, M. Obaidul

AU - Hardy, Ian

AU - Khan, Adil

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2023, University of Chicago Press. All rights reserved.

PY - 2023/5

Y1 - 2023/5

N2 - This article draws on a framework based on Bernstein’s three-message systems of schooling and Ball’s notion of policy cycle to examine how the human capital development goal incorporated into the Bangladesh secondary English curriculum has been translated into pedagogy and assessment practices. Data were collected from classroom observations and teacher and principal interviews and document analysis. Findings indicate that while the curriculum has emphasized human capital development as an important English language education policy goal, pedagogy and assessment appear to be pursuing divergent goals and are mediated by local structures shaped by the colonial past and the current political economic context. The article highlights how human capital development is inadequate for substantive pedagogical and assessment practices and contributes to comparative education policy enactment studies by revealing how neoliberally oriented global education policy trends of human capital development unfold locally in schooling contexts in developing societies, namely, Bangladesh.

AB - This article draws on a framework based on Bernstein’s three-message systems of schooling and Ball’s notion of policy cycle to examine how the human capital development goal incorporated into the Bangladesh secondary English curriculum has been translated into pedagogy and assessment practices. Data were collected from classroom observations and teacher and principal interviews and document analysis. Findings indicate that while the curriculum has emphasized human capital development as an important English language education policy goal, pedagogy and assessment appear to be pursuing divergent goals and are mediated by local structures shaped by the colonial past and the current political economic context. The article highlights how human capital development is inadequate for substantive pedagogical and assessment practices and contributes to comparative education policy enactment studies by revealing how neoliberally oriented global education policy trends of human capital development unfold locally in schooling contexts in developing societies, namely, Bangladesh.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85161941316

U2 - 10.1086/724029

DO - 10.1086/724029

M3 - Article

SN - 0010-4086

VL - 67

SP - 420

EP - 442

JO - Comparative Education Review

JF - Comparative Education Review

IS - 2

ER -