“The Biggest Problem”: School Leaders’ Covert Construction of Latino ELL Families—Institutional Racism in a Neoliberal Schooling Context

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This critical discourse analysis focuses upon the discursive construction of Latino English language learners (ELL) identity within a Texas neoliberal schooling context. Qualitative content analysis was used to examine the construction of Latino ELL identities in the discourses of Texas school leaders practicing under the aegis of neoliberal schooling. Important to this construction was the context of the discourse. School leaders’ discourse was colorblind and largely silent about both ELL status and ethnicity/race. Instead the dominant Discourse constructed economically disadvantaged families as deficit. However, in the discursive context Latino ELL families were disproportionately economically disadvantaged; thus, they were covertly constructed as deficient. The covert nature of the deficit construction makes it difficult to identify and thus resist. Given the other negative effects of neoliberal policies and practices, the implication of these findings is that neoliberal school policies are a manifestation of institutional racism, as they induce multiple forms of covert oppression for Latino ELLs. Yet the data also revealed a counter-Discourse that contested and resisted deficit low-income families, and therefore deficit Latino ELL identities, by drawing from a subordinated discourse of systemic inequities and social justice.