Interrelationships between cultural capital and private language teaching: results of a quantitative pilot study

During the globalization of the 21st century, the significance of language knowledge has become more essential than ever. In order to enhance their children's learning opportunities, more and more families take advantage of the different forms of private language lessons. Private tuition offers students with a higher socio-economic status the opportunity to expand their knowledge, while at the same time, students with a lower status participate in other nonformal courses for remedial purposes (Imre 2020). The aim of our pilot study is to reveal what value students attributed to language knowledge, as well as to explore correlations between students' socio-economic status (SES), school performance and motivation to participate in private tuition (Hegedűs 2021). In the present quantitative study (N=70) research questions are analyzed regarding the nature of private tuition students took part in and correlations between SES and language learning goals in private language tuition are examined. Our results show that there is an interrelationship between the rate of attendance in private language tutoring and cultural capital as the mother's academic qualification determined the value families attributed to language learning. In addition, students participating in private tuition intended to enhance their career aspirations in a larger proportion than students who did not attend private tuition. Our results emphasize the role of cultural capital in language learning as a value and confirm the literary findings (Diaz 2019). Albeit the limitations of the present study, our research can form the basis for further research in exploring the characteristics of private language tuition.