‘I hate being an ENL student’: A critical ethnography of double marginalization in deficit-oriented English language education

Abstract

While critiques of “teaching to the test” in U.S. public education are common, less attention has been paid to how the Next Generation Learning Standards have framed English as a New Language (ENL) literacy for emergent bilinguals. Grounded in Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (CSP) and critical multicultural education, this critical ethnographic study explores the prevalence of deficit discourses in eighth-grade ENL instruction. Conducted in a New York State public middle school, it analyzes curricular and institutional dynamics across stand-alone and integrated classrooms through sustained observations and analytical memos. Two research questions guide the inquiry: (1) How does the eighth-grade ENL curriculum define and enact language instruction? (2) How does the school culture govern these pedagogical practices? Four themes emerged: (1) limitations of Language Experience Approach; (2) ideological framing of the integrated curriculum; (3) structural inequities and resource allocation; and (4) institutionalization of difference and discourses of othering. Findings reveal how deeply curriculum and institutional discourse constrain emergent bilinguals’ multiple repertoires, underscoring the need for curricular models that center student voice and lived experience while reconceptualizing literacy as a socially mediated, identity-affirming practice that cultivates agency and critical consciousness.

Keywords

References

1. Althusser, L. (2014). On the reproduction of capitalism: Ideology and ideological state apparatuses (G. M. Goshgarian, Trans.). Verso.
2. Alvarez, J. “I, Too, Sing, America.” Writers on America. U.S. Department of State. https://usinfo.org/zhtw/DOCS/writers/alvarez.htm
3. Alvarez, S., & Alvarez, S. P. (2016). “La biblioteca es importante”: A case study of an emergent bilingual public library in the Nuevo U.S. South. Equity & Excellence in Education, 49(4), 403–413. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2016.1226092 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2016.1226092
4. Apple, M. W. (2018). Ideology and curriculum. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429400384 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429400384
5. Ascenzi-Moreno, L. (2018). Translanguaging and responsive assessment adaptations: Emergent bilingual readers through the lens of possibility. Language Arts, 95(6), 355–369. https://doi.org/10.58680/la201829683 DOI: https://doi.org/10.58680/la201829683
6. Austin, J. L. (1975). How to do things with words. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198245537.001.0001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198245537.001.0001
7. Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays. University of Texas Press.
8. Banks, J. A. (2006). Race, culture, and education: The selected works of James A. Banks. Routledge.
9. Blommaert, J. (2005). Discourse: A critical introduction. Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511610295
10. Bogdan, R., & Biklen, S. K. (2003). Qualitative research for education: An introduction to theory and methods. Allyn and Bacon.
11. Bourdieu, P. (1973). Cultural reproduction and social reproduction. In R. Brown (Ed.), Knowledge, education and cultural change: Papers in the sociology of education (pp. 71–112). Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351018142-3
12. Campano, G., Ghiso, M. P., & Sánchez, L. (2013a). “Nobody knows the … amount of a person”: Elementary students critiquing dehumanization through organic critical literacies. Research in the Teaching of English, 48(1), 98–125. https://doi.org/10.58680/rte201324161 DOI: https://doi.org/10.58680/rte201324161
13. Campano, G., Ghiso, M. P., Yee, M., & Pantoja, A. (2013b). Toward community research and coalitional literacy practices for educational justice. Language Arts, 90(5), 314–326. https://doi.org/10.58680/la201323569 DOI: https://doi.org/10.58680/la201323569
14. Creswell, J. W., & Miller, D. L. (2000). Determining validity in qualitative inquiry. Theory Into Practice, 39(3), 124–130. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15430421tip3903_ DOI: https://doi.org/10.1207/s15430421tip3903_2
15. Flores, N., Kleyn, T., & Menken, K. (2015). Looking holistically in a climate of partiality: Identities of students labeled long-term English language learners. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 14(2), 113–132. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2015.1019787 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15348458.2015.1019787
16. Flores, N., & Lewis, M. C. (2022). “False positives, reentry programs, and long-term English learners”: Undoing dichotomous frames in U.S. language education policy. Equity & Excellence in Education, 55(3), 257–269. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2022.2047408 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2022.2047408
17. Foley, D. E. (2002). Critical ethnography: The reflexive turn. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 15(4), 469–490. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518390210145534 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09518390210145534
18. García, O. (2009). Emergent bilinguals and TESOL: What’s in a name? TESOL Quarterly, 43(2), 322–326. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1545-7249.2009.tb00172.x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1545-7249.2009.tb00172.x
19. García, S., & Ortiz, A. (2008). A framework for culturally and linguistically responsive design of response-to-intervention models. Multiple Voices for Ethnically Diverse Exceptional Learners, 11(1), 24–41. https://doi.org/10.56829/muvo.11.1.gu04327p723217t0 DOI: https://doi.org/10.56829/muvo.11.1.gu04327p723217t0
20. García, O., & Kleifgen, J. A. (2020). Translanguaging and literacies. Reading Research Quarterly, 55(4), 553–571. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.286 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.286
21. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. Basic Books.
22. Ghiso, M. P. (2016). The laundromat as the transnational local: Young children’s literacies of interdependence. Teachers College Record, 118(1), 1–46. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811611800108 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811611800108
23. Gillborn, D. (2010). Reform, racism and the centrality of whiteness: Assessment, ability and the “new eugenics.” Irish Educational Studies, 29(3), 231–252. https://doi.org/10.1080/03323315.2010.498280 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03323315.2010.498280
24. Gonzalez, N., Moll, L. C., & Amanti, C. (2005). Funds of knowledge: Theorizing practices in households, communities, and classrooms. Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781410613462
25. Gutiérrez, K. D., & Orellana, M. F. (2006). At last: The “problem” of English learners: Constructing genres of difference. Research in the Teaching of English, 40(4), 502–507. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40171712 DOI: https://doi.org/10.58680/rte20065110
26. hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3366/para.1994.17.3.270
27. Hymes, D. (1974). Foundations in sociolinguistics: An ethnographic approach. University of Pennsylvania Press.
28. Ibarra, B. N., & Bailón, R. O. F. (2025). Conceptualizing the nomadic habitus: A Mexican-American educator’s journey towards the construction of a narrative curriculum. Curriculum Perspectives, 45(2), 79–90. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41297-024-00266-7 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41297-024-00266-7
29. Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). From the achievement gap to the education debt: Understanding achievement in U.S. schools. Educational Researcher, 35(7), 3–12. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X035007003 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X035007003
30. Ladson-Billings, G. (2021). Culturally relevant pedagogy: Asking a different question. Teachers College Press.
31. Lather, P. (1998). Critical pedagogy and its complicities: A praxis of stuck places. Educational Theory, 48(4), 487–497. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-5446.1998.00487.x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-5446.1998.00487.x
32. Marcus, G. E., & Fischer, M. M. J. (1999). Anthropology as cultural critique: An experimental moment in the human sciences. University of Chicago Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226229539.001.0001
33. McCarty, T. L., Collins, J., & Hopson, R. K. (2011). Dell Hymes and the new language policy studies: Update from an underdeveloped country. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 42(4), 335–363. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1492.2011.01143.x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1492.2011.01143.x
34. Miles, M. B., Huberman, A. M., & Saldaña, J. (2014). Qualitative data analysis: A methods sourcebook. Sage.
35. New York State Education Department. (2016). Commissioner’s regulations Part 154 (CR Part 154). http://www.nysed.gov/bilingual-ed/regulations-concerning-english-language-learnersmultilingual-learners
36. New York State Education Department. (2022). Program options for English language learners/multilingual learners. http://www.nysed.gov/bilingual-ed/program-options-english-language-learnersmultilingual-learners
37. Nieto, S. (2009). Multicultural education in the United States: Historical realities, ongoing challenges, and transformative possibilities. In J. A. Banks (Ed.), The Routledge international companion to multicultural education (pp. 79–95). Routledge.
38. Noguera, P. (2003). City schools and the American dream: Reclaiming the promise of public education. Teachers College Press.
39. Noguerón-Liu, S. (2020). Expanding the knowledge base in literacy instruction and assessment: Biliteracy and translanguaging perspectives from families, communities, and classrooms. Reading Research Quarterly, 55(S1), S307–S318. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.354 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.354
40. Orosco, M. J., & Klingner, J. (2010). One school’s implementation of RTI with English language learners: “Referring into RTI.” Journal of Learning Disabilities, 43(3), 269–288. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219409355474 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219409355474
41. Palys, T. (2008). Purposive sampling. In L. M. Given (Ed.), The Sage encyclopedia of qualitative research methods (Vol. 2, pp. 697–698). Sage.
42. Paris, D. (2012). Culturally sustaining pedagogy: A needed change in stance, terminology, and practice. Educational Researcher, 41(3), 93–97. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X12441244 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X12441244
43. Paris, D., & Alim, H. S. (2017). Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice in a changing world. Teachers College Press.
44. Rosa, J. D. (2016). Standardization, racialization, languagelessness: Raciolinguistic ideologies across communicative contexts. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 26(2), 162–183. https://doi.org/10.1111/jola.12116 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jola.12116
45. Ruiz Soto, A. G., Hooker, S., & Batalova, J. (2015). States and districts with the highest number and share of English language learners. Migration Policy Institute. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/states-and-districts-highest-number-and-share-english-language-learners
46. Simon, R., Campano, G., Broderick, D., & Pantoja, A. (2012). Practitioner research and literacy studies: Toward more dialogic methodologies. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 11(2), 5–24. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ973937.pdf
47. SoulPancake. (2017, October 12). The ultimatum game/The science of empathy [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_q7CqElaSk
48. Souto-Manning, M. (2007). Immigrant families and children (re)develop identities in a new context. Early Childhood Education Journal, 34(6), 399–405. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-006-0146-3 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-006-0146-3
49. Spring, J. (2019). American education. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429274138 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429274138
50. Street, B. V. (1984). Literacy in theory and practice. Cambridge University Press.
51. Street, B. V. (1993). Cross-cultural approaches to literacy. Cambridge University Press.
52. Street, B. V. (1995). Social literacies: Critical approaches to literacy in development, ethnography and education. Routledge.
53. Wassell, B. A., Fernández Hawrylak, M., & LaVan, S.-K. (2010). Examining the structures that impact English language learners’ agency in urban high schools: Resources and roadblocks in the classroom. Education and Urban Society, 42(5), 599–619. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124510375598 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124510375598
54. Wissman, K. K. (2021). Bringing a culturally sustaining lens to reading intervention. Journal of Literacy Research, 53(4), 563–587. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X211051668 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X211051668
55. Whitman, W. (1996). I hear America singing. In Poetry and prose (p. 174). Library of America. (Original work published 1860).

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Ünal Deniz