(Re)negotiating language credits: A critical policy analysis of Oregon’s Access to Linguistic Inclusion law

• In Event: (Re)shaping Multilingual Learners’ Schooling: Educators as Translators of Language Policy

Abstract

In most locations across the United States, high school students are required to earn four credits of English to graduate, which can function as a significant barrier to the goal of attaining a diploma, particularly for multilingual learners designated as English learners (MLEs). Graduation rates for MLEs continue to lag behind those of their English-dominant peers and research points to English courses as a significant gatekeeper (Umansky et al., 2024). A recently passed law in the state of Oregon, however, opens up new possibilities to transform crediting policies. HB 2056, known as Access to Linguistic Inclusion (ALI), replaces the requirement for four years of “English” with four years of “language arts,” defined as “reading, writing and other communications in any language.” However, with no mandate for implementation and substantial room for interpretation, there is wide variation in how ALI is being enacted across the state. Therefore, this study explores the question: How are school-level educators (re)negotiating the awarding of language arts credits to MLEs in a changing policy landscape?
The theoretical framework of critical language policy (Tollefson, 2006) encourages us to critically examine how language policies are embedded within wider systems of inequitable power relations and thus often reinforce injustice, whether intentionally or not. Furthermore, critical analyses of policy processes illuminate the power that school-level educators have in interpreting and enacting policies in ways which may sustain or counter hegemonic norms (e.g. Chang-Bacon, 2022; Stephens & Johnson, 2015). Bringing these concepts to bear, this study analyzes the choices that school-level educators in various contexts make in interpreting and implementing ALI and considers the impact of these decisions on MLEs who have been historically and systematically marginalized.
I use a qualitative multiple case study design (Stake, 2005) to investigate the variety of ways ALI is being implemented in particular education ecologies across Oregon. Specifically, I collected data through semi-structured interviews with a variety of school-level educators, including administrators, counselors, and teachers, at three different high schools which were purposely selected for maximum variation (Patton, 2015). Additionally, district administrators were interviewed in order to deepen my understanding of the ecological systems in which each school was nested. I analyzed this data using multiple cycles of qualitative coding guided by constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2005).
Findings illustrate how discretionary power can be utilized by school-level educators in ways that deconstruct or reinforce linguistic hierarchies manifested in high school crediting policies. For example, while one high school teacher of newcomer MLEs restructured their school’s program in order to allow students to earn required language arts credits in English Language Development courses, at another school, students with a similar profile can still only earn these credits through mainstream English courses. Meanwhile, another school is using the results of multiple assessments in MLEs’ home languages to grant students both world language and language arts credit. These different models of implementation indicate the discretionary power educators exert as they interpret and enact ALI, which in turn has far-reaching implications for the MLEs they serve.

Author

• Jaclyn B. Bovee, Oregon State University