Linguistic Capital and Global Citizenship: How English Proficiency Shapes Pakistani Students’ Civic Identity Construction
Keywords:
Linguistic Capital, Global Citizenship Education, Civic Identity Construction, English Proficiency, Straussian Grounded Theory, PakistanAbstract
The current study is a Straussian grounded theory exploring the role of English language skills, in terms of linguistic capital, in the process of civic identity construction of Pakistani university students in the global context of citizenship education. This study asks questions regarding the interplay between language ability, position in society, and citizenship construction in Pakistan’s highly differentiated educational system through an analysis of field notes from six months of observation and in-depth interviews with 24 students. Using an open, axial, and selective approach to coding from Corbin and Strauss’s (2015) grounded theory, the study shows that the positioning of multiple identities (national, and cosmopolitan citizen) is a negotiated process flowing through the mechanism of the ability to speak English. The results show that language capital is an important factor in students’ experience of civic agency, the presence of the notion of global citizenship, and their placement in learning and career spaces. The emergent core category “linguistic mediation of civic becoming” illustrates the ways in which English competence forms different routes to citizenship while simultaneously providing for cosmopolitan citizenship and regenerating inequalities in education. This study adds to the knowledge of how social, economic, and political power and the citizenship identity of the people are linked to language in a postcolonial society where English is hegemonic.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Rumana Anjum, Ammara Chaudhry, Dr. Sadia Rauf, Dr. Yaar Muhammad (Author)
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