From a Bourdieuan perspective, the production of knowledge in the form of empirical studies validates the symbolic power of certain groups or areas. It is arguably proposed that the more empirical studies published in the particular groups of people, the more robust the symbolic power of the respective group. This study is set to reveal the degree of academic productivity of East Nusa Tenggara, as demonstrated by empirical studies conducted to investigate educational  issues in the area.  Two research questions were proposed namely, (1) what areas of inquiries did the researchers pursue; and (2) what are their findings? Thirty scholarly articles published in the period of 2016 - 2020 were analyzed using document analysis methods to identify the most up-to-date research themes or topics. The results of the analysis indicated that the material developments of learning is the highest number, namely 15 articles; the linguistics 8 articles; the teaching competencies 4 articles, and the students’ perception of English learning 3 articles. It is concluded that the academic productivity is very low - cross-validating that such a poor symbolic power corresponds to the more tangible components (i.e. high-degree of poverty).

Affiliation: Magister Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Universitas Sanata Dharma, Yogyakarta