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The Economics of Language Education

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Language Policy and Political Issues in Education

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Language and Education ((ELE))

Abstract

This chapter presents the economic approach to language, with a focus on applications to second/foreign language education. This leads to a joint emphasis on efficiency (“are scarce resources used wisely?”) and fairness (“does the resulting distribution of material and symbolic resources meet socially accepted standards of fairness?”) A distinction is made between internal and external evaluation. Internal evaluation focuses on the relationship between various inputs on the one hand (e.g., expenditure per pupil) and the desired output on the other hand (e.g., the skills imparted in a given school subject). External evaluation examines the level of material and symbolic benefits associated with the skills acquired. In both cases, a key question is that of the resulting distributions of skills (internal) or other benefits (external) among groups, which may variously be defined in terms of socioeconomic status, L1, region of residence, stream in an education system, etc. In practice, much of the economics of language education is devoted to the estimation of the private rates of return, for individuals, of investing in second or foreign language skills. These returns are reflected in earnings differentials. When data on language learning expenditure are available, social rates of return can also be computed. They estimate the value, for society as a whole, of investing in foreign or second language teaching. Further empirical research is needed in particular on the long-term evolution of rates of return and on the relative value of different languages and different perspectives on language education, including bilingual education and intercomprehensive approaches.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Translation and Interpreting (FTI), University of Geneva, Geneve, Switzerland

    François Grin

Authors
  1. François Grin
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Correspondence to François Grin .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Teresa L. McCarty

  2. Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Stephen May

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Grin, F. (2017). The Economics of Language Education. In: McCarty, T., May, S. (eds) Language Policy and Political Issues in Education. Encyclopedia of Language and Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02344-1_9

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