Engagement From the Periphery: Reconceptualizing Adult English Language Learners' Resistance in Developmental Literacy. (November 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Suh, Emily K.
• Is Part Of: Literacy research. Volume 69(2020:Nov.)
• Page Start: 154
• Page End: 173
• Publication Date: 2020-11
• Subjects: English language learners -- Generation 1 learners -- adult literacy -- resistance -- engagement; Reading -- Periodicals; Reading -- Congresses; Literacy -- Periodicals; Literacy -- Congresses; Reading -- Remedial teaching -- Congresses; Reading -- Remedial teaching -- Periodicals; 302.2244
• DOI: 10.1177/2381336920937276
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2381-3369

Abstract

English language learners' nonparticipation and reticence in adult literacy classes are often presented problematically from a deficit lens of student resistance and disengagement . This article draws from an ethnographic case study of Generation 1 learners, who are defined as adult-arrival immigrant learners, transitioning from an adult English as a Second Language class to a developmental literacy class. By examining learners' resistance through a framework of agency enactment, the study bridges the fields of adult literacy and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, both of which support adult-arrival immigrants entering the U.S. education system. The resulting analysis illustrates how Generation 1 learners' acts of resistance can be complex presentations of their literacy identities and their engagement in classroom literacy practices.