Multilingual Learners' Access to College: Students, School Counselors, and Institutional Doxa and Hysteresis

Abstract

AbstractDespite the substantive scholarship on secondary language education with multilingual learners (MLs) and growing body of work on MLs' postsecondary access, relatively few studies have examined the influence of educators other than classroom teachers such as high school counselors on MLs' academic outcomes. We report on a qualitative study comparing and contrasting college access beliefs and experiences of MLs with those of school counselors in one diverse school district in the southeastern U.S. Data come from mentoring sessions with students; interviews with school counselors; school documents; student record data; and student observations. ML and educator perceptions and behavior are interpreted through a Bourdieusian practice theory lens that sees college access as shaped by the interaction of student resources and dispositions with school social structures. In particular, we tap Bourdieusian notions of the role of institutional belief systems (or doxa) about college access to show how students negotiate discontinuities (or hysteresis) between their assumptions and beliefs and the new educational system they encounter. We find that despite counselors' best efforts, MLs faced significant challenges to college access. Implications are offered for how educational stakeholders can advocate for college‐bound MLs.