Inclusive education in the (new) era of anti-immigration policy: enacting equity for disabled English language learners

Abstract

The authors present a qualitative study which investigates the intersections between English Language Learner (ELL) status, disability, and special education in a mid-sized urban school district in Upstate New York. They explore how teachers conceptualize and implement New York State Education Department policies which affect the inclusive education of ELL students. The authors discuss how the discourse used in these policies, along with teachers’ limited access to guidance and support, could lead to the exacerbation of educational inequities and exclusion of ELLs, despite the promise to support inclusion and success for all students. The Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) framework is used as an intersectional tool to help re-frame existing inclusive policies and practices.

Keywords:

• English language learners
• inclusion
• special education
• policy
• teachers’ practices

Acknowledgement

Both authors would like to acknowledge the teachers who participated in this study, and that opened their classroom doors during a short school visit in the Fall 2017. I (first author) would like to thank the Fulbright Schuman Grant Program which sponsored the study presented in this paper, during the academic year 2017–2018.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In line with postmodern disability studies perspective and Judith Butler’s notion of the performative, as expressed in Bodies that Matter, we use the term ‘bodies’ to refer to the sites of construction of what is ‘normal’, through the gaze of heteronormative subjects.

2 We use the term ‘English Language Learners’ as well as its acronym (ELLs) and ‘ELL students’ interchangeably throughout this article, rather than terms such as ‘migrant’ or ‘emergent bilingual.’ This is because ‘ELL’ is the student classification used in the New York State policy context within which this study was conducted. We worked directly with New York State policy documents and teachers who used variations of the term ‘ELL’ and use this term to facilitate continuity across data, findings, and discussion sections. In the New York State education context, English as a New Language (ENL) is used to refer not to the children who are classified as ELLs, but to the specific kind of instruction such students must receive under Commissioner’s Regulations Part-154. In other words, ELL is considered a student classification, whereas ENL is considered a student service or learning context. Further, roughly 66% of students who are classified as ELLs in New York State are born as U.S. citizens (Sugarman & Geary, 2018). As such, terms such as ‘refugee’ or ‘(im)migrant’ do not encompass all students within this educational classification.

3 We borrow the concept of ‘manufacturing disability’ from Sally Tomlison (2017). She argues that within a contemporary global digital economy, school systems are more inclined to demonstrate the likely inherited incapacities of marginalized groups of students, via a new eugenics and notions of fixed ability, ‘low IQ’, ‘deprived brains’, and several other attempts to produce inability.

4 As Benhabib (2000) and Rumbaut (1991) highlight, there are several motives for migration. These motives determine whether a subject is called a migrant (or forced migrant), because he/she is fleeing by fear of persecution (political motives), or immigrant because he/she is traveling motivated by the aspiration of better material opportunities. In this paper we intentionally use ‘migratory status’ as the general term indicating all different reasons determining migration. We believe that all the different classifications between migrant/immigrant/refugees do not do justice to the history and pathway of a subject. In addition, we think that the Geneva Convention, establishing the status of refugees, has significant limitations when currently defining who is and who is not a refugee, as compared to an immigrant, and certainly does not take into consideration colonial and post-colonial factors. However, we recognize that the state-imposed definitions of refugee or immigrant (and conversely illegal or undocumented immigrant) has a social, economical, educational impact on the life of people.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Valentina Migliarini

Valentina Migliarini is a Lecturer in Education and Sociology in the School of Education and Sociology at the University of Portsmouth. Her work sits at the crossroads of inclusive education, bilingual special education, justice and equity studies, culturally sustaining and trauma-informed pedagogies for disabled, migrant and refugee children, and teacher education.

Chelsea Stinson

Chelsea Stinson is a PhD candidate in Special Education at Syracuse University. A former English language teacher in US public schools, her work is focused on the social, political, and instructional contexts of multilingual students and their communities in the field of inclusive (special) education.