Suddenly Long-Term English Learners: Adolescents Navigating the English Learner Bureaucracy

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session Four
  In Roundtable Session: Toward Understanding the Extended Stay in English Learner Status Through an Equity Lens (Table 2)

Abstract

Purpose
The bureaucratic system through which a youth is labeled an English learner (EL) has errors and inefficiencies. Research has investigated the role of bureaucratic error in the lives of ELs (Harklau, 2016). Youth can become or remain English learners because of bureaucratic error (Okhremtchouk, 2014). However, the role of error in the educational pathways of who are long-term English learners (LTELs) is understudied. Studies of specific LTELs’ educational experiences have highlighted the function of error in initial identification or in missed opportunities for reclassification (Author, 2019; Thompson, 2015). Little is known about how LTELs navigate bureaucratic error. As a result, this study investigates: What life and schooling events preceded participants’ return to EL services? How did participants respond to their newfound LTEL classification?

Theoretical Framework and Methods
To investigate these research questions, I used a conceptual framework that was centered in anti-adultism to analyze the in-depth retrospective interviews of five adults using descriptive codes and analytic memos (Saldaña, 2021). Anti-adultism recognizes the importance of youth agency in multiple contexts. Research from multiple perspectives highlights the importance of agentive youth in creating equitable schools and societies (Dumas & Nelson, 2016; Karam et al., 2021; Yoon & Templeton, 2019). Anti-adultism informed the research questions, the way the data were analyzed, and how the findings are represented. The five focal adults were selected because in secondary school (in California, Washington, Oregon), they were returned to EL services after years of success in mainstream classrooms. This unforeseen move resulted in them becoming LTELs.

Results
Two participants were pulled back into EL services because their previous school only unofficially removed them from EL services. When they transferred to a new school, the EL label followed and overrode other criteria that influenced course placement. The school records of the other three participants never arrived at their new schools. As a result, it was their bilingualism that targeted them for immediate placement in EL services. Initially, each adolescent attempted to talk to school officials independently to remove themselves from the EL label and/or EL services. However, they were ignored. Three youth turned to their parents for assistance. Parental assistance was central to getting those participants out of EL services. The remaining two youth were able to eventually remove themselves from EL services through repeated confrontations with school officials around their course placement.

Significance
The results are relevant to research and practice because they raise questions about the utility of LTEL as an analytic frame. Simple life events that are common to the educational experience of many youths who are identified as ELs resulted in the five participants becoming suddenly LTELs. Each of these participants was able to rely on their family or their own extraordinary efforts to remove themselves from EL services that were associated with the LTEL label. However, it means that the topic of bureaucratic error for those who remain as LTELs in EL services must be addressed in a straightforward manner. Error impacts the academic opportunities that students are offered.

Author

• Maneka Deanna Brooks, Texas State University
  Presenting Author