Discursive Flows: Ecologies of Schooling for English Learners in Non-Gateway Communities

• In Event: Community and School Narratives, Policies, and Practices for New Immigrant Populations

Abstract

It is well documented that immigrant and refugee newcomers in the US, particularly those living in poverty, do not have equal access to educational opportunities and ultimately experience high rates of school failure (Garcia et al., 2010). The Midwest is prototypical of a current national phenomenon: newcomers are now settling in small towns and rural areas that have not historically had non-English speaking populations, and the majority of recent newcomers have low proficiency in English, limited educational backgrounds, and live in poverty (Levinson et al., 2007). In this study I explore ‘ecologies of schooling’ in such communities for immigrant and refugee students.

While there has now been a plethora of research on schooling for English learners, it tends to be narrowly focused. There is, for example, research on classroom language, interactions, and assessment (Hawkins 2004; Menken 2008); one also finds other bodies of research connecting in- and out-of-school lives of youth, including relationships between families and schools (Gonzalez, Moll & Amanti 2005; Valdes 2001). What is missing is a comprehensive heuristic for understanding relationships between and among the multitude of factors that together constitute the ecology of schooling for English-learning youth.

This research speaks to that need through a study that utilized mixed methods. In the first phase, we surveyed roughly 300 school districts in Wisconsin to ascertain district statistics regarding populations, programs and staffing. We then conducted qualitative case studies of 10 districts, chosen along trajectories of difference vis-à-vis immigration patterns, program design, staffing and geography. Targeted districts historically served monolingual, local European-American populations, lacked experience in working with diverse populations, and experienced a significant increase in their ELL population within the last 10 years. We visited these districts, observing school life and conducting semi-structured interviews with all staff in positions dedicated to serving English learners. We also gathered documentation regarding community response to newcomers, community settlement patterns, and services offered.

We identified salient discourses in schools and communities about:
• perceptions of immigrants, including ethnicities, languages and cultures
• school climate, including opportunities, affordances and barriers for newcomers
• ‘best practices’ for programs and pedagogies
• schools and families
• policies, assessment and implementation.
Our focus was ascertaining not only what decisions districts made about schooling for English learners, but also on what basis they were made. Thus we identified flows of resources and information. We uncovered more- and less-formal networks of communication within schools, but also identified flows from universities, state agencies, non-state agencies that provide assessment tools and standards, and across districts. We then conducted interviews with ESL ‘experts’ at these state and non-state agencies to determine their beliefs, and the intent of their policies and practices.

What emerged was a complex view of how discourses get constructed, transmitted, taken up, translated, and applied -- by people, institutions, political bodies, cultures -- especially when multiple discourses circulate simultaneously in the same spaces and collide. Understanding this is crucial in knowing how to move forward to ensure appropriate school climates and educational processes for newcomers.

Author

• Margaret R. Hawkins, University of Wisconsin - Madison