Intersection of Language, Class, Ethnicity, and Policy: Toward Disrupting Inequality for English Language Learners

Abstract

This chapter proposes a conceptual framework that merges intersectionality and policy analysis as an analytical tool to understand the nuanced, multilayered, compounded educational inequality encountered specifically by low-income, Latino Spanish-speaking students in Arizona K–12 public schools as a function of intersecting educational policies. In addition, it provides a conceptual framework that counters and provides an alternative to the Arizona model that strives toward interrupting inequality. The conceptual framework is grounded in culture, language, and learning that provides a pathway to interrupt inequality by acknowledging the intersectional social constructs of an English language learner (ELL).