Raciolinguistic Perspectives on English Learner Classification and Reclassification

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This panel adopts a raciolinguistic perspective to issues of English Learner (EL) classification and reclassification that frames this process as shaped by white hegemonic modes of perception that frame the language practices of racialized communities as inherently deficient and in need of remediation. The first paper offers an historical overview of EL classification and reclassification. The second paper examines the intersection of classification and reclassification with special education. The third paper analyzes retrospective interviews of adults' experiences with EL (re)classification. The final paper will examine Black immigrant speakers of World Englishes. Together they examine the ways that processes of EL classification and reclassification that are intended to provide more support to students often inadvertently serve to reify raciolinguistic ideologies.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 3: Languages, Literacies, and Representations

Chair

• Huseyin Uysal, Knox College

Papers

• Accountable to Semilingualism - Nelson Flores, University of Pennsylvania

• Critical Counternarratives: Material Impacts of Re/classification With Special Education on Students - Ivan Rosales Montes, Alder Graduate School of Education

• "How (Not) to Sell a Lie": Beyond (Mis)Classification of (Black Immigrant) Speakers of Englishes - Patriann Smith, University of South Florida

• I Don't Belong Here: An Examination of English Learner Students' Help-Seeking Behaviors - Maneka Deanna Brooks, Texas State University

Discussant

• Ilana Marice Umansky, University of Oregon