The Role of Linguistic Course Concentration in Secondary English Learners’ Attainment: Intersections of School Context and Student Characteristics

Résumé fourni par la source

Course-level concentration of English learners (ELs), or the clustering of ELs into courses away from non-ELs, is an underexamined component of curricular tracking at the secondary level. Using data from three ninth grade cohorts (2013–2015) in the New York City Public Schools (NYCPS), as well as data from the American Community Survey and National Student Clearinghouse, this study examines the relationship between course concentration of high school ELs—as measured by the percent of ELs in content courses—and four key outcomes: four- and six-year high school graduation, and immediate and extended enrollment in college. Guided by an ecological framework, we distinguished between schools’ general tendency to concentrate ELs into separate courses and the individual students’ experiences of relative concentration within their schools. We estimated the role of both components of course concentration in two different types of high schools: comprehensive schools and newcomer-serving schools. We found that both components had significant negative associations with high school graduation and college enrollment, though with some notable differences by subgroup and school type. Our findings challenge the common practice of grouping ELs together for instruction but also point to important variations in how course concentration might differentially shape attainment outcomes in different high school contexts.

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