<![CDATA[Community-based development positions language as a strategic resource; however, within Islamic higher education, Arabic language proficiency is still primarily viewed as a communicative competence rather than as linguistic capital that contributes to students' social mobility. This study aims to analyze the role of linguistic capital in the social mobility of students in the Arabic Language Education study program. Employing a mixed-methods approach with a sequential explanatory design, the researchers distributed Google Form questionnaires to 17 students in their fourth to sixth semesters and conducted in-depth interviews with five students. Descriptive results show that overall linguistic capital was categorized as high (M = 3.41, SD = 1.03), with self-confidence in using Arabic recording the highest mean (M = 4.06, SD = 0.83), whereas the frequency of Arabic use on campus was the lowest (M = 3.00, SD = 1.06). Qualitative findings indicate that linguistic capital does not directly generate social mobility, but gains value through recognition and legitimation within the higher education field, enabling its conversion into symbolic capital and subsequently into social and economic capital. These conversions are associated with academic achievement, academic identity, networking, further-study opportunities, and career prospects, although their effects vary across social arenas. The study proposes an empirically grounded conceptual model in which habitus formation facilitates linguistic capital accumulation, legitimation as symbolic capital, and subsequent conversion into social and economic capital, thereby providing a contextual sociolinguistic explanation of students’ social mobility in Islamic higher education.]]>
