Pushing Back Against Push‐In: ESOL Teacher Resistance and the Complexities of Coteaching

Abstract

As U.S. school districts struggle to address persistent achievement gaps between increasing numbers of English language learners (ELLs) and their native‐English‐speaking counterparts, many districts are moving away from segregative models like pull‐out to implement more collaborative approaches such as coteaching, or push‐in. In contrast to pull‐out, coteaching has been lauded for its good intentions of creating an inclusive educational environment by coordinating the expertise of grade‐level teachers and teachers of English to speakers of other languages into single coteaching settings. Using ethnographic and arts‐based approaches to research, this study adopts a critical perspective that challenges this unproblematic presentation of coteaching as a panacea for educating ELLs. Additionally, the study examines the potential for performance‐based focus groups (Boal, 1979) to cultivate dialogue and coalition building among coteachers of ELLs. Data from the study suggest that coteaching is a complex social act influenced by hierarchical relations of power and status in the school setting. Performance‐based focus groups reveal that language, race, and ethnicity also are implicated as important social factors in the coteaching enterprise. In the context of these demographic and instructional trends, this study offers timely insight into the challenges, complexities, and possibilities of coteaching, with clear implications for pedagogy and professional development.