Multilingual Learners’ College Access: Students, Counselors, and Institutional Doxa and Hysteresis

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Exploring College Access Programs and Supports for Minoritized and Marginalized Students (Table 25)

Abstract

Despite the substantive scholarship on language education with multilingual learners (MLs) and growing body of work on MLs’ post-secondary access, few studies have examined the influence of educators other than classroom teachers on MLs’ academic outcomes. We report on a qualitative study comparing and contrasting college access beliefs and experiences of MLs with those of school counselors in one diverse school district in the southeastern U.S. Data come from mentoring sessions with students; interviews with school counselors; school documents; student record data; and student observations. Guided by the Bourdieusian notions of doxa and hysteresis, we find that despite counselors’ best efforts, MLs faced significant challenges to college access. Implications are offered for how educational stakeholders can advocate for college-bound MLs.

Authors

• Lei Jiang, University of Kansas

• Linda Harklau, University of Georgia