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When Is A Student An English Learner?: An Ethnographic Account Of When Students And Educators Invoke The Institutional Identity "English Language Learner", Leena Her
Leena N. Her
This article complicates the articulation of the achievement gap between native English speakers and English learners (ELs) as a problem rooted in English language proficiency. I challenge the institutional and popular imagination that 5.1 million ELs in the United States are "limited in English proficiency" and whose performance in school can be attributed to limited English proficiency. This argument is drawn from eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in a northern California High School where students identified as ELs were not a homogeneous-ability group with similar language needs. Yet there were occasions when educators echoed the concerns of education reformers and …