Multilingual learners’ literacy identities: ideology and local enactment of a language-restrictive alternative instructional program

Abstract

This article reports a case study of the local enactment of a supportive mainstream language program in two elementary classrooms in a school district with an increasing number of linguistically and culturally diverse students. The study explores how teachers and multilingual learners (MLs) in this context navigate the school’s supportive mainstream language program, a type of alternative instructional program, that pulls MLs out of their mainstream classrooms for English language development instruction. Most US language education policies currently outline alternative instructional language programs, such as supportive mainstream and sheltered instruction programs, as options for districts and schools. To understand MLs’ literacy development opportunities in such programs, the study examines literacy identity construction through the interaction of participants’ language ideologies and literacy practices as they enact the language program. Drawing on the theory of heteroglossia and works on literacy communities, the article unpacks the nuances of language-restrictive programs that position MLs in deficit light. The findings highlight the dissonance between participants’ ideologies and literacy practices used negotiate their subjectivities, and constructed deficit identities within the school’s dominant hegemonic literacy community. The findings are discussed considering their implications for building authentic literacy communities and incorporating an equity perspective into language policies.