Exploring College Experiences: Intersectional Identities of First-Generation Students, Faculty, and Language Learners

Community college experiences and transfer process of U.S.-educated English learner (EL) students is an understudied area. To fill this research gap, this study aims to explore the transfer journeys from English as a second language (ESL) courses to transfer application of 9 U.S.-educated ELs at a community college in Massachusetts who intend to transfer to a four-year college and ultimately earn a bachelor’s degree. The researcher found that although all the students did make concrete steps to move toward their transfer goals, their progression was largely constrained by many factors, especially by their institutional policies and practices.

This ethnographic study examines ESL teaching and learning within a newly implemented Career and College Readiness class in the Chinatown/Lower East Side Literacy Zone in New York City. The content of the course is driven in part by the nation-wide Career and College Readiness (CCR) standards and funding from the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), and states and individual organizations can individually interpret the standards. This combination of new course development and local interpretation of national standards provides a rich opportunity to understand the ways in which educational policies are interpreted locally and shape language and literacy instruction.