What Does It Mean? EL‐Identified Adolescents’ Interpretations of Testing and Course Placement

Abstract

Adultism within English learner (EL) policy in the United States relegates youth to the status of objects whose English proficiency and academic achievement is assessed, monitored, and developed. This study challenges this institutionalized adultism by centering youths’ interpretations of their own schooling experiences. It uses an intersectional anti‐adultism conceptual lens to investigate how 20 high school youths understood the relationship between two routine EL practices—English language proficiency (ELP) testing and EL‐related course placement—and their institutional EL classification. The primary data source for this study is semi‐structured interviews with youth that were contextualized by student records, administrator interviews, policy documents, and analytic memos. The findings indicate that in the absence of mandated direct communication about their EL classification from school‐affiliated adults, most participants did not use ELP testing or EL‐related course placement to recognize their labeling. Although adult‐determined significance of these routine EL practices shaped all youths’ educational trajectories, it did not dominate how most youths interpreted their significance. Youths’ interpretations of meaning were related to how they understood themselves and their experiences of schooling. The findings highlight the necessity to create structures for multidirectional and intergenerational communication between youth and adults that challenge institutionalized adultism within EL policy.

What Does ESL Mean to Her? An Analysis of Women of Color Recounting Their Attempts to Exit EL Instructional Services

“…However, this paper uses anti-adultism to focus on youths participating in educational decision-making related to EL instructional services. This research's conceptual lens affirms the rights of youths to know about and participate in decision-making that impacts their individual educational trajectory (Bertrand et al, 2020;Brooks, 2022). This affirmation of youth's perspectives in teaching and learning is central to Poza's (2021) applied perspective on dignity frames in educational contexts.…”

“…Schooling transitions served as a wake-up call regarding how EL instructional services facilitate marginalization and homogenization. Identifying schooling transition as a life experience that shapes how youth conceptualize EL instructional services contextualizes how some are seemingly unaware of their EL classification and the services they receive (Brooks, 2022: Kim, 2017) and others, like those in this study, are hyperaware.…”

“…It represents a direct challenge to how EL instructional services have been used to restrict youth without their consent (Abril-Gonzales & Shannon, 2021;Cabral, 2022;Kangas & Kanno, 2020). Second, it allows for the possibility-which has been documented in other research (Brooks, 2022;Johnson, 2019;Valdés, 2020)-that seemingly mundane bureaucratic practices in EL education can serve to limit academic opportunity and erase youths' multifaceted identities. Finally, it uses this knowledge as a starting ground for transforming educational systems.…”

“…Existing research has described the exclusion of youth participation in EL identification and decisions emerging from EL identification as institutionalized adultism (Brooks, 2022). Institutionalized adultism names how policies and practices are infused with adultism, which “refers to behaviors and attitudes based on the assumption that adults are better than young people, and entitled to act upon young people without their agreement” (Bell, 2010, p. 540).…”

Individualized Language Plans: Promises and Pitfalls

“…Beyond adjusting the ILP documents themselves, district leaders and policymakers should develop guidance for teachers to consult regarding the inclusion of MLs and their parents in the ILP creation, implementation, and meetings. Through the inclusion of parents and students, ILPs would mirror a fundamental requirement of IEPs-parent involvement-while also responding to calls to foster agency and independence among MLs in their own education (see Brooks, 2022).…”