In terms of this study’s design, the interview sample included one head teacher, one language teacher who taught Bangla language in the secondary school, three community leaders, one from each of the three tribal groups (Chakma, Marma, and Tripura), one curriculum planner, and ninth grade students (approximate age: 14-15) from three tribal groups. The area of my research was Khagrachari district, because a large number of indigenous people alongside Bangla speaking people are living there. One secondary co-education school was chosen as the setting for this study. The co-educational school is one out of three schools in Khagrachari region. I choose the co-education school for my research, because it is a leading school in Khagrachari district, having tribal and non-tribal students, and it allowed the study to involve both male and female students from the same school.
I contacted Promi (pseudonym) who is the Head Teacher/ Principal of that school to know her understanding about the significance of tribal languages in the language curriculum. She had an experience of 24 years as a teacher and as an institutional head.
I contacted Shakil (pseudonym), secondary school teacher, who teaches Bangla language in that school, and has experience teaching tribal and non-tribal students so that he could give information about the position of tribal and non-tribal students in educational activities. I also
intended to know the teacher's understanding of including tribal languages in the curriculum as a language of instruction.
Tribal students from three tribal groups were chosen from the school. Grade nine students were chosen because their experience was longer than that of any other tribal student reading at a lower grade. When I went to Bangladesh for data collection, grade ten students were busy preparing themselves for the national standardised examination, which is an additional reason why grade nine students were more suitable. There are usually 20-25 tribal students out of 30-40 students in each class in secondary schools in Khagrachari. For this reason, focus groups were conducted where the students were able to talk about their experiences in school regarding their language, culture and identity.
Three indigenous community leaders from three tribal groups were chosen as participants to identify their insights and expectations about the role of language in extending their children's educational achievement by including indigenous languages in the curriculum. For contacting community leaders, I followed three steps. First, I talked with some of the community leaders who were living in Khagrachari. I found three leaders from the Chakma community, two leaders from the Marma community and three leaders from the Tripura community. I discussed with them at different times in different places regarding the issues of language, language policy, culture, and education. Secondly, I identified three leaders from three tribal communities who could represent their community, culture and identity. To identify three community leaders as participants, I spent 14 days in Khagrachari. Finally, I managed to contact three leaders from three tribal communities who showed their interest about educational issues and who are concerned about their children's learning in their mother languages at school along with Bangla
and English, because they were also relevant to the school. The tribal community leaders were Bodhi (pseudonym) from the Chakma community, Shadhon (pseudonym) from the Tripura community, and Raktim (pseudonym) from the Marma community.
As part of this study, I also went to the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) that was relevant to the school. I contacted the team of people who have been involved with the development of the language curriculum from NCTB. I asked the team for an interview based on their availability and interest, and I saw one team member, Rana (pseudonym), who was willing to do that. Then, I contacted him to know his perception about the importance of mother languages. I knew that it would not be easy for the curriculum planner to share personal opinions and ideas for public knowledge in the beginning of the research process. In order to do that, I took time to develop a friendly relationship with him. According to Taylor and Bogdan (1998), familiarity is an advantage in which participants are more likely to act naturally in front of the questions whether they know or do not know them.
For this research, other participants such as the school inspectors and the District Education Officer might be equally relevant, because they can also give me comprehensive and rich information on this issue. However, I did not contact them, because the time of this research was too short. However, I have the intention to take them as participants in my further research.
I got access to the participants through my professional connections. I sent formal letters to the head teacher, school teacher, tribal students and their parents, curriculum planner, and community people describing the purpose of the study. I also invited them to become participants for this research. They accepted my invitation. Before the interviews were
administered, I explained that the participation in the interview was voluntary and anonymous, and their participation depended on their completing the consent form. Participants had expressed a willingness to take part in interviews.
The settings for this research were the participants' houses, schools, and the NCTB office so that the participants could respond freely to the interview questions.
I chose my participants from the different situations such as NCTB, school and tribal community, because they are related with both the intended and operational levels of curriculum. The curriculum planner is related with the intended curriculum, and teachers, students and tribal community leaders are related with the operational curriculum. The perspectives of these different groups of people help me to answer my research question from the intended and operational levels. As a result, it was easy for me to find out what exists in the intended curriculum and what happens in practice in relation to tribal students learning from the perspectives of my participants.