An introductory look at the academic trajectories of ESL students

Within a theoretical perspective informed by Ogbu and Cummins, this paper uses BC Ministry of Education data to examine the academic trajectories of different ethno-cultural and English proficient subsets of ESL students from the BC grade eight cohort of 997(n= 5 36). [...] We interpret this to mean to the extent any minority group, voluntary or involuntary, suffers the discrimination and social conditions (coercion) similar to those of Ogbu’s involuntary minorities, the dominant pattern of achieve- 8 MBC: Academic Trajectories of ESL Students ment of that group will be diminished educational trajectories. [...] These are referred to hereafter as ‘ethno-cultural groups.’ To address the second and third research questions, ESL students who needed two or more years of ESL classes in high school, and three or more years of ESL classes in high school, were extracted from the sample as proxies for students with low levels of English language proficiency upon entry to high school. [...] Figure , below, represents a cross-tabulation of the five and six year graduation rates of the native English speakers (NES), all ESL students, and ESL students subdivided MBC: Academic Trajectories of ESL Students. [...] Figures 2 and 3 below show the five and six-year graduation rates for students who required two or more years of ESL service at the high school level and three or more years of service at the high school level; these ‘years of ESL service’ variables proxy decreasing levels of English language proficiency.