Linguistic Minority Students in Higher Education: Using, Resisting, and Negotiating Multiple Labels

Abstract

Linguistic minority students have been both under-researched and underserved in the context of research on minority students’ access to and retention in higher education. The labels ascribed to them have typically failed to capture the complexity of their identities. Additionally, much of the literature in higher education on minority students’ access and retention has focused on structural barriers rather than on how students negotiate these barriers. By bringing linguistic minority students into the forefront of this conversation, we show how four linguistic minority female students draw on their community cultural wealth and different forms of capital (Yosso, 2005) to access and navigate college while experiencing differing advantages and disadvantages based on institutional labeling. By employing critical race theory and its conceptualization of capital, we illustrate how students use, resist, and negotiate labels in attempts to access resources and services at a four-year institution. We conclude by calling for more research on this population as well as additive university practices and policies that reflect the richness of linguistic minority student identities.

We acknowledge and thank Sarah Grosik for her careful copyediting of this article.

Maria Veronica Oropeza is a doctoral candidate in Language, Literacy, and Culture in the College of Education at the University of Washington and an assistant dean of Intercultural Programs at Marquette University. She is a scholar practitioner who examines the intersectionality of race/ethnicity and gender in higher education.

Manka M. Varghese is an assistant professor in Language, Literacy, and Culture in the College of Education at the University of Washington. Her research and teaching focus on language teacher education, language teacher identity, and language minority students’ pathways to postsecondary education.

Yasuko Kanno is associate professor of TESOL in the College of Education, Temple University. She conducts both qualitative and quantitative studies on language minority students’ access to and success in higher education.

Notes

1. All names of institutions and individuals in this study are pseudonyms. Students chose their own pseudonyms.