EL Policy and Immigrant Politics: State and Federal Policy and Ever-EL Students’ Postsecondary Pathways

Abstract

Although current and former English Learner (EL) or “ever-EL” students comprise one of the fastest-growing K-12 populations, we still know relatively little about the factors that influence their college-going. Using Perna’s seminal college-going model as a launching point, we propose a policy-driven empirical approach to explore how state and federal policy uniquely inform ever-EL students’ academic trajectories. This model considers how EL education policy is largely defined at the federal level but interpreted and implemented by state and local actors (i.e., the Lau and Castañeda cases). In addition, largely of immigrant origin, ever-EL students are directly affected by federal immigration policy as well as state immigrant policies. We suggest that the unique status of EL education in K-12 schools and the framing of immigrant-origin communities in federal and state policies make it necessary to consider both federal and state policy contexts in ever-EL college-going research.

Multilingual Learners' Access to College: Students, School Counselors, and Institutional Doxa and Hysteresis

“…At the school level, MLs' collegegoing outcomes are shaped not only by their experiences in the classroom but also by institutional resources and practices and levels of educator support (Kanno & Cromley, 2013). The combined influence of these factors becomes especially consequential in high school and beyond (Callahan, Jiang, & N uñez, 2023;Su arez-Orozco et al, 2008). Multi-year studies tracing MLs' high school and college access experiences (e.g.…”