Geopolitical Configuration of Identities and Learning: Othering through the Institutionalized Categorization of “English Language Learners”

Abstract This study critically examines how the geopolitical configuration of identities, through the medium of the institutionalized label of “English language learners,” can shape and constrain localized experiences for learners. An ethnographic video study was conducted in the context of a mathematics unit (“the transforming recess unit”) wherein learners conducted surveys, summarized data, and voiced the changes they hoped to see in the elementary school playground. Findings demonstrate both empowering and disempowering ways of mobilizing data and graphs, which are intertwined with multi-layered identities. Interactions in the classroom were nested in macro-level geopolitical configuration of identities that influenced labeled learners’ access to becoming “agents of change” who could voice their desired changes in school practices. Categorical and binary frameworks inscribed in mathematics curriculum served as a context for inheritance and reproduction of existing categories through student surveys and graphs. Implications are discussed toward disrupting and transforming taken-for-granted labeling and rigid institutionalized practices through which colonial representation of the Other can be co-constructed.