Adult immigrant language education
in California:
policy, politics
&
the role of practitioner research,
a case in point
Anne Whiteside
City College of San Francisco
(San Francisco State University)
awhitesi@ccsf.edu
Kings’ College
November 2, 2011
Grassroots language planning
“Language Planning from the Bottom up”
Nancy Hornberger
(1996)“Indigenous Literacies in the Americas:Language Planning from the Bottom up”
Contributions to the Sociology of Language, 75. Mouton de Gruyter
•
Educating policymakers: representing practice issues at the policy
level, advocacy
•
Educating/empowering practitioners
Outline
1. General US context for immigration
• Socio-economic changes & globalization
2. California: the Sociolinguistic context
•
•
Immigration to California: some demographics
Reception of immigrants at 3 levels: policy, politics, communities
3. Practitioner Research: the CCSF ESL Study
• Study rationale, design, data collection findings
• What we learned in the process
• Future directions
4. General discussion: advocacy/pragmatic issues
Part 1. US context
Socio-economic change and globalization
• Post-industrial economy: loss of
manufacturing jobs
• Growth of professional, business
sector/ low skilled labor/service
sector
• Increased income disparity
Foreign-born in US at historic high
40,000,000 FB
12.9% of US population
Growth in immigration:
1990-2000= +57.45%
2000-2010= +28.4%
Highest growth states:
S. Carolina (88.4%)
Tennessee (81.8%)
Arkansas (78.7%)
Kentucky (75.1%)
Source: 2010 American Community Survey (ACS)
Globalization &
the informal economy:
To stay competitive internationally
• cheap labor
• reliance on undocumented immigrants
Undocumented/unauthorized immigrant
pop.
Pew Hispanic Center estimates
US: (in millions)
• 2000: 8.4
• 2007: 12
• 2009: 11.1
• (28% of foreign born)
US: major events & immigration policy
NAFTA 1993
– Increased regional interdependence btw Mexico,
US, Canada,
– flow of Information/human & economic capital
Sept. 11, 2001
– Emphasis on security and control
INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service)
becomes
ICE (Immigration Control Enforcement)
Under the Department of Homeland Security
Whole US:
National origins of immigrants
2009
Part 2. California
National origins of immigrants in California:
2009
Immigration to CA
Increase despite tighter controls
Year # of Foreign born % of
population
1990
6,458,825
2000
8,864,255
26.20%
2010
10,150,429
27.20%
Source: MPI fact sheet
21.70%
California:
Foreign-born &
legal status
• btw 2.5-2.7 million
undocumented
• 9.3% of labor force
2007 to 2009: declined by 8%
Foreign-born in California
& schooling
2008 Immigrants accounted for:
• 30.1 % of college-educated workers age 25+
• 78.8% of civilian employed workers with no
high school degree
•
Source MPI fact sheet
California is multilingual!
California Foreign-born & language:
Foreign born 1990
Speak only
English
Speak L2
Speak English
VW
Speak Eng.
>VW
2000
2009
12.4
10.9
9.3
87.6
89.1
90.7
31.2
31.1
32
56.4
57.9
58.7
Source MPI American Community Survey 2009, 1990,2000 census
Linguistic assimilation:
Alba 2005
• Bilingualism more common than
in the past
• most children of immigrants
speak L1 at home, particularly
children of Latin American
immigrants (L1 Spanish)
How immigrants are received/perceived?
Concepts from Alejandro Portes (1995)
• “assimilation”/”acculturation”
vs
“modes of incorporation”= processes
that structure integration
3 levels of incorporation:
– Policy
– Mainstream society (political discourse)
– Local community
• economic embeddedness, nested
economies
Federal level: immigration policy
• Homeland Security & ICE: control, increase
in deportation, particularly criminals
• Federal comprehensive reform continues
to fail
– Republicans divided: business vs “nativists”
– Democrats divided: labor vs rights
Federal level: Language policy
• no explicit, formalized language policy at the
federal level
• attempts to pass “English-only” federal laws
have failed
• default policy: linguistic status quo
– English as a symbolic “imagined community”
– Monolingualism the norm
– American =Monolingual speaker of English
Federal funding for ESOL
1998: Federal Adult Education & Family Literacy Act,
Title II Workforce Investment Act (WIA)
WIA funds
• Adult Basic Education (ABE)
• English as a Second Language (ESL)
• Adult Secondary Education (ASE)
Goal
“to enable adults to become more employable,
productive, and responsible citizens through literacy”
Language of WIA
• “increase the basic reading, writing, speaking,
and math skills necessary for adults to obtain
employment and self-sufficiency and to
successfully advance in the workforce”
• “assist immigrants who are not proficient in
English in improving their reading, writing,
speaking, and math skills and acquiring an
understanding of the American free enterprise
system, individual freedom, and the
responsibilities of citizenship.”
Mainstream society: Political frames
Liberal:
“equity”
“level playing field”
“rights & responsibilities”
Conservative:
“freedom (from government interference)”
“accountability”
“security”
Attitudes related to economic changes
2000-2005 economic boom
• low-wage immigrant workers, in particular
Mexican/Central American, contribute to
construction and service sectors
immigrants=good
2007-2011 bust
• high unemployment rates immigrant
competition
immigrants=bad
Mainstream discourses of immigration:
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe
free”
Worthy:
hardworking
“up by your own bootstraps”
American Dream
Unworthy:
“illegal aliens”
don’t pay taxes
freeloaders
Education policy
Bush-era legacies
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) 2001 Title III
Goal= “equity”
• Funds limited-English proficient (LEP) Student Program
• “ensure that all …attain English proficiency, develop high levels of
academic attainment in English, and meet the same challenging
state academic standards as all other students”
Title III =“accountability”
• Move through the sequence one year per level.
General
• Emphasis on empirical research to justify spending
– “Science-based”, “evidence-based” i.e. quantitative
U.S. Department of Education
Office of Vocational and Adult Education
(OVAE)
Accountability:
National Reporting System
Definition of “success”
Outcome measures
• Gain/Enter /Retain Employment
• Obtain a Secondary Credential or GED
• Enter Postsecondary Education
Stae level: California language policy:
1986
Constitutional amendment:
English the Official language of the government
Ballot initiatives:
1994
Proposition 187 SOS
prohibits undocumented immigrants from using health,
education and other social services
won but found unconstitutional in federal court
1998
Proposition 227 “English for the Children”
requires all public schools to conduct instruction in
English, that ELLs be taught “overwhelmingly in English”
California Dream Act
(Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors)
Passed Oct. 2011
California students who are
undocumented immigrants will qualify
for state-funded financial aid for college
“equity”
California: Funding for Adult education
Adult ed (Title 5)
• based on average daily attendance (a.d.a.)
ESOL
• State formula driven by # of LEP adults with
less than HS education
• 47% of LEP adults had HS or more
Underweighted for those who need basic skills
California initiatives:
Career & Technical education (CTE)
Liberal agenda: the EDGE campaign
“California’s Future Workforce—Who Will Staff Our Economy”
• “Increasingly global markets and international competition,
rapid technological advancement and an aging workforce
confront this state with a critical challenge. If we do not meet
it…theconsequences will be borne by all of the state’s
residents”—
• “CTE including a focus on adults is a critical
part of the response to globalization”
Local level: “ethnic enclave” communities
spaces where immigrants may have little economic
capital but lots of social capital
“Embeddedness”
• Social capital:
– Networks provide jobs, housing, protection
– layered, embedded identities
– “co-ethnic” ties between immigrants (Smith
2006)
• Symbolic capital: L1
– ethnic businesses
Data from my dissertation:
Whiteside (2006)
“We are the Explorers: Yucatec Maya-speaking
transnational migrants negotiating multilingual
California”
Increase in workplace/community
multilingualism:
Site A: Mongolian, Czech, Chinese, Tagalog, Spanish, Maya
Site B: Greek, British English, Spanish,
Site C: Chinese, Malay, Singlish (Singaporean English) Spanish
Maya
Site D: Italian, Arabic, Spanish, Maya
Site E: Wolof, French, Spanish, Maya
• use of lingua franca English
• linguistic “crossing”: Don Francisco & the Vietnamese merchant
Translocal speech communities
• phone cards, skype, extended Maya-Spanish
daily communication with home,
participation at parties
• watch home videos, apartments with 18
people
• read Diario de Yucatan online to find out
about Yucatecans in North Bay Area
Time-scales & immigrant jobs
JS: changed restaurant jobs
6 times in 2 years
Cuisine
Owner
Staff
Mexican chain
Anglo
Latino/Maya
Japanese/French
Mexican
Turkish
Arabic
Arabic/ Latino
Middle Eastern
?
Czech, UK, Arabic, Japanese,
Maya
Middle Eastern
?
Italian/Greek
Greek
Russian, Greek, UK, Maya
In practice…
Normalized: hiring domestic, day labor, agricultural, janitorial, construction, and
contractors
Two-tiered civil rights: Documented vs undocumented immigrants
•
Right to own, but not drive cars
•
Right to protection of police, tenant/labor laws, but afraid to report abuse
•
Right to assemble, but worry about arrest and deportation
Linguistic effects of embeddedness
•
value of L1
•
linguistic and cultural “crossing” , genres, styles
•
competence in lingua franca varieties
•
truncated repertoires, checkered competencies”
(Blommaert 2010)
Where does Standard English fit
in this picture?
Modes of incorporation: Summary
Policy themes: punitive/control & equity
•
•
•
“English only” as a security, policing linguistic boundaries
“equity” ignores the starting point
“accountability” but measures based on what?
Macro, mainstream social themes: ambivalent
•
•
changes with economic outlook
benefits of cheap labor/threat of competition
Local themes: security/ social obligations tied to L1
•
•
•
nested economic ties
value of L1 and Culture1
nested affiliations/ crossings
Part 3. Practitioner research
the California Community College context
• 110 Colleges
• 2.9 million Ss
– “providing workforce training, basic skills education and
preparing students for transfer to 4-year institutions”
Incoming Ss and basic skills
– 75% unprepared for college English
– 90% unprepared for college math
Source: CDE ESL Basic Skills report 2010
Practitioner research
the 2010 CCSF ESL Study
Context: City College of San Francisco
– 110,000 Ss
ESL department
– 23,000 Ss
• credit division: tuition
– 3,000 Ss
• non-credit division: open enrollment, free
• levels literacy, 1-9
– 20,000 Ss
Political context for ESL study
Issue: equity
• Ss taking “too long” to get through basic skills
classes, low completion rates
CCSF Board member
• Pressure to get more ESL Ss into CTE
CBOs
• document needs of ESL Ss
>Funding from CCSF Chancellor’s Office for ESL study
Context for CCSF ESL Study
The problem : Accountability
1. ARC = Accountability Reporting for the California Community Colleges
• AB 1417 Focus on Results
Career Development and College Preparation (CDCP) Progress and
Achievement rate=
• # of CDPC Ss who
– transitioned to credit
– transferred to a 4-year institution
– received a noncredit certificate of completion or competency.
CDCP rate CCSF
• 6.3% of the 2004-05 cohort
• 7.1% in 2006-07.
Prior CCSF study/report
1998-2007 Spurling, Seymour & Chisman 2008
Findings
• 80% of non-credit ESL students started at levels 14, more than 50% in Level 1 or Literacy
• only 9% of these advanced to “Intermediate” levels
or above (5-9)
Conclusion
• lack of advancement to higher levels represents a
failure of the ESL program to provide students with
“means to succeed”
The elephant in the room
Undocumented Ss
• needed for ADA
• “Don’t ask don’t tell” about legal status
BUT
• must pay prohibitive out-of-state tuition for credit classes
($108 vs $669 per 3 unit class)
• Obstacles for taking CTE classes: ESL level,
out of state status
ESL Study: Purpose
• Document Ss characteristics associated with
movement through ESL sequence
• Understand why so few students continue
beyond beginning level classes (1-4) to
intermediate and advanced levels (5-9)
Study design
Research questions:
• Do non-credit ESL levels 5-9 have proportionately
more students with secondary education prior to
coming to the US than levels 1-4?
• Which other factors might affect whether students
with less formal schooling participate in intermediate
and advanced classes?
• What are some reasons ESL students give for dropping
out after level 4, and what motivated them to return?
Quantitative piece
Capture Ss characteristics, one “day in the life”
• Survey, 13 questions
• Classes randomly sampled (day only for sampling reasons)
• 16 classes, 2 per level (1,3,5,8)
• Four campuses, 2 to reflect distribution of linguistic diversity
of whole college, 2 to represent 2 dominant language
groups
• Surveys translated into 7 languages for levels 1 and 3.
• 650 respondents
Findings: education in L1
• Increasing proportion of students
with secondary & post-secondary
schooling with each level
• level 1, a majority of students
students > 3 years HS
• level 8, few Ss > 3 yrs HS
Chart 1. Survey data
(N=650 days students only)
Educational Attainment by ESL Level: Survey
60
50
40
P
e
r
c 30
e
n
t 20
Primary
Some Secondary
Secondary
Undergrad
Postgrad
10
0
Level 1
Level 3
Level 5
Level 8
CASAS* Test data: more dramatic
N=1630 day + eve Ss
Level 1
• 33% of Ss only primary schooling
• 60+% less than 10th grade
level 5
• 70% 10th grade and above
Level 8
• 80% secondary+
• almost 50% post-secondary
*(Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment Systems)
Chart 2. CASAS data
(N=1,630 day and evening students)
Educational Attainment by ESL Level: CASAS
60
Primary
50
P
e 40
r
c 30
e
n 20
t
Some Secondary
Secondary
Undergrad
10
Postgrad
0
Level 1
Level 3
Level 5
Level 8
ESL Study Findings: education in L1
Having more years of schooling prior to arrival in the US
appears to have a significant impact on reaching level 8,
but not level 5.
• multivariate regression analysis shows a significant
correlation between prior schooling and being in
level 8.
• strong correlation with years in the U.S. and English
education prior to arrival.
• no significant difference between patterns of daily
use of English of low-educated and high educated Ss
Educational attainment in L1 and placement in
advanced English
Table 1: Logit regression for likelihood of being in ESL 8
Variables
Female
Age
Years of schooling
Multilingualism
Years in U.S.
Years of English
prior to emigration
N
Coefficient (std. error)
P>z
-.14 (.17)
0.42
-.009 (.006)
0.14
.06 (.02)
0.01**
.34 (.18)
0.06
.04(.01)
0.00***
.11 (.02)
0.00***
291
* significant at the .05 level ** significant at the .01 level *** significant at the .001 level
.
Findings summary
• Ss with more years formal schooling more
likely to have formal language instruction
• Ss at advanced levels had a median of 4-6
years of prior language study
Prior language instruction
Years of 2nd language instruction in home country
7
6
6
5
4
4.4
3.8
3.4
3
2
1
0
Level 1
Level 3
Level 5
Level 8
Informal exposure to English
• students with less formal education have a higher
median of years in the US than students with three
plus years of secondary school
• informal exposure to English may help build oral
proficiency and compensate for weaker academic
skills
Years since arrival in US
Students with less and more schooling
8- yrs schooling
9+ yrs schooling
Difference:
Level 5
13
Level 8
9.5
5
7
+8 years
+2.5 years
Qualitative data collection
• Interviewed 43 Ss over a week
• 3 of 4 campuses, levels 1,3,5,8
• Subjects identified by teachers as few or
many yrs formal schooling; if unknown, Ss
either struggling or thriving
• in English Spanish or Cantonese
Qualitative study findings
1.“Years of schooling” not equivalent:
• 4 - 11 hour days, rural and urban, etc.
Qualitative findings
Reasons for dropping out:
• Interference from work, marriage, birth of a child, illness
– “I didn’t study consecutively, I had to leave for work, back and forth, it never ends. For
about 8 semesters I have come, but it was always interrupted.”
• Other priorities
– “They feel that they speak English now. But they don’t want to continue, and
they say, “Oh I learned my basic English, now I understand basic English and I
can…, they feel “Oh I speak English.”
Reasons for returning
– "because I understand my English is small”
Learning trajectories
S1: 24 year-old Mexican man
(12 years of schooling)
2007
2008
2009
2010
__/\___________/\___________/\________________/\__
arrived
ESL 1
dropped
returned ESL 3
Reason for dropping: had two jobs
Reason for returning: quit second job.
Need for English: “For a better job and to open doors”
Learning trajectories
S2: 49 year-old Vietnamese man
(11 years of schooling)
1987
?
2010
_/\_ _________________/\___________________/\___
arrived, ESL literacy A
ESL 3
ESL 5
Reason for dropping: work
Need for English: “for me to go doctor anywhere. I don’t need my kids
support.”
Learning trajectories
S3: 30 year-old Mexican woman
(6 years of schooling)
1999
2008
2009
2010
__/\______________________/\________/\________/\_____
arrived
ESL 4
dropped
ESL 5
Need for English: uses English and Spanish at work, uses what
she’s learning in her daily life, but rarely speaks at home
Learning trajectories
S4: 50 year-old Salvadorian man
(6 years of schooling)
1981 1984
?
?
?
2010
__/_____/_______/______________/______________/__________/__
arrived ESLs 1-4 dropped out studied for GED in Spanish, passed ESL 8
Reasons for dropping: to study for GED
Need for English: offered a job as a dispatcher and needed more English.
Doesn’t want to take credit classes doesn't want credit, too much
commitment.
ESL Study implications
•
•
midrange of education levels in intermediate and advanced ESL
classes tends to be relatively high,
students with less than 9th grade education may experience
particular difficulties as they progress through the ESL sequence
•
Interrupted learning normal for non-academic reasons
•
extra academic support, curricula for non-academic learners at low
levels
•
flexible programs, insure that students are not penalized for
interrupted study
•
opportunities to review when Ss re-enter.
Study Aftermath
• caught in the middle, local politics
• report dropped
• Interest in another study
recommending ESL be moved from
CCC to adult schools
Future directions
Applied for a grant to develop program to support less
academic Ss that includes
For teachers:
• Curriculum design based on feedback from Ss on challenges
• Workshops for teaching language awareness without
grammar, building L2 literacies
For Ss
• A “language acquisition specialist” counsellor to work on
study skills, motivation to continue
• Tech tutoring
• Mp3s for use at home
Future directions
Open discursive spaces for
• language ecology
• “language as resource” vs “language as system”
• measuring changes in literacy practices vs. changes in
proficiency (Reder LSAL)
• commitment to non-academic learners
• use new science-based research paradigms
Complexity/Dynamic systems theories (Larsen-Freeman et al)