Linguistic minority students go to college : preparation, access, and persistence

281 Pages·2012·3.576 MB·English

by  Yasuko Kanno, Linda Harklau

LINGUISTIC MINORITY STUDENTS
GO TO COLLEGE
“This book addresses the complexities of immigrant education through impor-
tant, timely research studies. It is a text whose time has come.”
Robin Murie, University of Minnesota. ESL Programs Duluth Campus
Currently, linguistic minority students—students who speak a language other
than English at home—represent 21% of the entire K–12 student population
and 11% of the college student population. Bringing together emerging
scholarship on the growing number of college-bound linguistic minority
students in the K–12 pipeline, this ground-breaking volume showcases new
research on these students’ preparation for, access to, and persistence in college.
Other than studies of their linguistic challenges and writing and academic
literacy skills in college, little is known about the broader issues of linguistic
minority students’ access to and success in college. Examining a variety of
factors and circumstances that infl uence the process and outcome, the scope
of this book goes beyond students’ language profi ciency and its impact on
college education, to look at issues such as race/ethnicity, gender, SES, and
parental education and expectations. It also addresses structural factors in
schooling including tracking, segregation of English learners from English-

fl uent peers, availability and support of institutional personnel, and collegiate
student identity and campus climate.
Presenting state-of-the-art knowledge and mapping out a future research
agenda in an extremely important and yet understudied area of inquiry,
this book advances knowledge in ways that will have a real impact on
policy regarding linguistic minority immigrant students’ higher education
opportunities.
Yasuko Kanno is Associate Professor of TESOL in the College of Education,
Temple University.
Linda Harklau is Professor of the Teaching Additional Languages program
and the Linguistics program at the University of Georgia.

LINGUISTIC MINORITY
STUDENTS GO TO
COLLEGE
Preparation, Access, and
Persistence
Edited by
Yasuko Kanno
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY
Linda Harklau
UNIVERSITY OF GEO RGIA
First published 2012
by Routledge
711 Th ird Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2012 Taylor & Francis
Th e right of Yasuko Kanno and Linda Harklau to be identifi ed as the authors of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereaft er invented,
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without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Linguistic minority students go to college : preparation, access, and persistence / [edited by]
Yasuko Kanno, Linda Harklau.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Linguistic minorities—Education (Higher)—United States. I. Kanno, Yasuko, 1965–
II. Harklau, Linda.
LC3727.L56 2012
378.1’982900973—dc23
2011037628
ISBN: 978-0-415-89061-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-89062-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-82938-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo and Stone Sans

by EvS Communication Networx, Inc
Printed and bound in the United States of America on acid-free paper
by IBT Global
CONTENTS
Preface vii
1 Linguistic Minority Students Go to College: Introduction 1
Yasuko Kanno and Linda Harklau
PART I
College Preparation in High School 17
2 High School ESL Placement: Practice, Policy, and Eff ects on
Achievement 19
Rebecca M. Callahan and Dara R. Shifrer
3 Linguistic Minority Students’ Opportunities to Learn High School
Mathematics 38
Eduardo Mosqueda
4 Paving the Way to College: An Analysis of an International
Baccalaureate Diploma Program Serving Immigrant Students in
California 55
Anysia P. Mayer
5 How Paola Mad e It to College: A Linguistic Minority Student’s
Unlikely Success Story 74
Linda Harklau and Shelly McClanahan
vi Contents
PART II
Access to College 91
6 Top 10% Linguistically Diverse Students’ Access and Success at
Texas Public Universities 93
Cristóbal Rodríguez
7 Who are Linguistic Minority Students in Higher Education?: An
Analysis of the Beginning Postsecondary Students Study 2004 110
Anne-Marie Nuñez and P. Johnelle Sparks
8 Immigrant English Learners’ Transitions to University: Student
Challenges and Institutional Policies 130
Yasuko Kanno and Sarah Arva Grosik
9 A Linguistic Minority Student’s Discursive Framing of Agency and
Structure 148
Manka M. Varghese
PART III
College Experiences and Persistence 163
10 Navigating “Open Access” Community Colleges: Matriculation
Policies and Practices for U.S.-Educated Linguistic Minority Students 165
George C. Bunch and Ann K. Endris
11 Retention of English Learner Students at a Community College 184
Cate Almon
12 Contextualizing the Path to Academic Success: Culturally and
Linguistically Diverse Students Gaining Voice and Agency in
Higher Educati on 201
Melissa Holmes, Cristina Fanning, Amanda Morales, Pedro Espinoza,
and Socorro Herrera
13 Benefi ts and Costs of Exercising Agency: A Case Study of an
English Learner Navigating a Four-Year University 220
Ronald Fuentes
14 Citizens vs. Aliens: How Institutional Policies Construct Linguistic
Minority Students 238
Shawna Shapiro
About the Contributors 255
Index 261
PREFACE
Linguistic minority students, students who speak a language other than English
at home, are the fastest growing subgroup of the entire K–12 public school pop-
ulation in the United States. Already over 20% of the school-age population are
linguistic minorities; about half of them are learning English as an additional
language and need institutional linguistic support. Given the sheer number and
growth of linguistic minority students in the K–12 pipeline, we would hope
that this population is a rapidly growing presence in higher education as well.
Yet there is a curious void in our knowledge about linguistic minority students’
placement and participation in college. To date, work on linguistic minority
students’ educational achievement has focused primarily on high school gradu-
ation. In stark contrast to the voluminous body of research on college-going
in other underrepresented students such as ethnic minorities and low-income
students, there has been no tradition of counting or analyzing linguistic minor-
ity students’ transition s to and success in higher education.
In this edited volume, we intend to start such a tradition. These 14 chapters
represent state-of-the-art knowledge on an emerging fi eld of inquiry: linguis-
tic minority students’ college-going. As these chapters indicate, many ques-
tions need to be answered: What chances do linguistic minority students in
the United States stand of accessing and completing a college education? What
factors inhibit or foster their college-going aspirations? How do they navigate
the system? What services and programs are available for linguistic minority
students who want to go to college? And, in what ways are their experiences
similar to and diff erent from those of monolingual English-speaking students?
By bringing together this scholarship, our goals are to identify what we know
so far and to articulate a research agenda that will advance knowledge and
viii Preface
have a real impact on policy on linguistic minority students’ higher education
opportunities.
The focus of this volume is on college access and persistence for linguistic
minority students cast broadly. While these studies consider the well-explored
issue of students’ language profi ciency and its impact on college education,
they also explore a variety of factors that are increasingly the focus of research
and policy on college-going in other underrepresented groups. This volume
therefore takes on race/ethnicity, gender, age, socioeconomic status, paren-
tal education and expectations. It also addresses structural factors in schooling
including tracking, segregation of English learners from English-fl uent peers,
availability and support of institutional personnel, collegiate student identity
and campus climate.
Some of the studies featured in this volume report statistical analyses of
large-scale data. These are important because it is hard numbers that drive
policy decisions; yet as these studies make clear, we currently lack adequate
national- and state-level information on linguistic minority students’ college
access, performance, and graduation. Other chapters in the volume feature in-
depth qualitative studies that zoom in on a small number of linguistic minority
students in their specifi c settings. These studies are equally important since
they illuminate complex interactions between structural factors and individual
linguistic minority students’ agency, and highlight the dynamics of college-
going as a process. In addition, four chapters (Kanno & Grosik; Varghese;
Fuentes; Shapiro) focus on one major public university that we call Northern
Green University. By gathering in one place several papers that examine one
university’s policy and practice with linguistic minority students and the stu-
dents’ experiences within the institution, this volume off ers an in-depth look
at one institution’s way of “dealing with” linguistic diversity, which we feel is
rather typical of many four-year institutions in the United States.
This volume consists of three parts: (1) college preparation in high school,
(2) access to college, and (3) college experiences and persistence. After an intro-
ductory chapter outlining the rationale and goals for this volume, Part 1, College

Preparation in High School, features four chapters on college preparation in high
school. These chapters examine the kinds of academic and social preparation
that need to be in place in high school and barriers that prevent linguistic
minority students, especially English learners, from accessing such preparation.
Part 2, Access to College, illuminates students’ process of making transitions to
college. The four chapters in this section address issues such as the profi le of
linguistic minority students who have access to two-year and four-year col-
leges, and to selective and less selective four-year institutions; how students
themselves negotiate the high school to college transition process; and what
their initial experiences are like once they are admitted. Part 3, College Experi-
ences and Persistence, consisting of fi ve chapters, investigates what it takes, on
the part of both the institution and the student, for linguistic minority students
Preface ix
to stay in college and earn their degrees. Of particular note in this section are
examinations of policies in postsecondary institutions that prevent linguistic
minority students from accessing key information and from accruing necessary
cultural capital. Equally important are explorations of how individual students,
despite such challenges, exercise agency to navigate the system and ultimately
achieve their goals.
Intended Audiences
Numerous stakeholders at diff erent levels of schooling and in many disciplines
infl uence linguistic minority students’ chances for college education. This vol-
ume is thus necessarily and intentionally interdisciplinary, and we believe it
will be of interest to a broad audience. The research contained here has clear
relevance to K–12 teachers, counselors, administrators, and policy makers who
work with linguistic minority students and who wish to gain greater perspec-
tive on the sorts of academic preparation and coursework in high school neces-
sary to ensure college success and on aspects of college applications with which
linguistic minority students are most likely to need assistance. We also invite
higher education educators, administrators, counselors, policy makers, and
researchers to participate in the research dialog we begin with this book. We
believe that it is paramount for all of us in higher education to realize that lin-
guistic minority students are already in our midst. As such, we strongly believe
that it is everyone’s business in higher education to meet the educational needs
of this population, not simply those who work in the English as a second lan-
guage (ESL) department. On the other hand, because many linguistic minority
students are English learners, we believe it is also important for ESL teachers,
fi rst-year writing program instructors, and applied linguists to understand that
the linguistic support they provide to English learners is framed in a larger con-
text in which a number of factors, and not just language profi ciency, contribute
to linguistic minorities’ overall educational opportunities.

Acknowledgments
First of all, we would like to thank the contributors of this volume for their
enthusiasm and commitment to this project. This area of inquiry is so new
that we were initially worried that we might not fi nd enough contributors
to assemble a volume. We were thus delighted to have found 20 likeminded
researchers who are just as passionate about sending linguistic minority students
to college. Naomi Silverman, our editor at Routledge, trusted our vision of the
book from the beginning (“Of course, we’ll do the book,” she said) and kept us
on track. As one can guess from the number of times her name has appeared in
the acknowledgments of applied linguistics books, Naomi is one of the movers
and shakers of our fi eld, and it is always a privilege to work with her.