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The Economics of Language Education

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Encyclopedia of Language and Education

Introduction

Because the economics of language education, as a field of investigation, differs somewhat from most of the scholarly work on language and education presented in this volume, this entry does not offer a descriptive or historical account of research, but instead emphasises the presentation of analytical concepts along with their meaning, their function and the relationships between them.

The following section “Definitions and Scope” provides a general framework that explains the position of the economics of language education with respect to three closely related areas, namely education economics, language economics and policy evaluation, before introducing key concepts and analytical distinctions. The section on “Major Contributions” presents the application of human capital theory to foreign language (FL) skills, which makes up the bulk of the literature on the economics of language education. The section on “Problems and Difficulties” turns to important issues of...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Translation and Interpretation (ETI), University of Geneva, Geneve 4, Suisse—Switzerland

    François Grin

Authors
  1. François Grin
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, 19104-6216, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Nancy H. Hornberger

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Grin, F. (2008). The Economics of Language Education. In: Hornberger, N.H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30424-3_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30424-3_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-387-32875-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-387-30424-3

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