Abstract

Despite increases in the high school graduation rate in the United States, large disparities persist for English learners (ELs). These disparities are particularly important given that ELs are the fastest growing segment of the United States public school population. EL youth, though, are not a homogeneous population. Instead, EL youth speak many languages in their homes, have varying levels of English proficiency, and come from a variety of immigration circumstances and socioeconomic statuses. Previous research on EL students has primarily used variable-centered analytic approaches, which are not designed to examine how a constellation of factors function within an individual and differ from each other. Thus, the current study uses latent class analysis (LCA) to provide an example of how a patterned-centered analytic approach can provide insights into differences within the population of EL youth that a variable-centered approach would miss. Using student-level data from the state of Massachusetts that includes a set of academic and demographic variables, we find that ELs vary in their high school graduation rates by identified latent class. We find that there are groups of EL youth graduating at rates above the state average, but that there are also EL groups who are lagging substantially behind their peers. These classes of youth are unevenly distributed across school districts and therefore could provide insights for more targeted interventions. Policy and practice implications are discussed.

摘要

尽管美国的高中毕业率有所提高，但英语学习者（EL）仍然存在巨大差异。鉴于EL是美国公立学校人口中增长最快的部分，这些差距尤其重要。但是，EL青年并非同质人口。取而代之的是，EL青年在家里说多种语言，英语水平也各不相同，并且来自各种移民环境和社会经济地位。先前关于EL学生的研究主要使用以变量为中心的分析方法，这些方法并非旨在检查因素群在个人内部的功能以及彼此之间的差异。从而，当前的研究使用潜在类别分析（LCA）来提供一个示例，说明以模式为中心的分析方法如何提供洞​​察力可变的方法可能会错过的EL青年人群中差异的见解。使用马萨诸塞州的学生水平数据（包括一组学术和人口统计学变量），我们发现，ELs的高中毕业率因所确定的潜在班级而异。我们发现，有些EL青年群体的毕业率高于州平均水平，但也有EL青年群体远远落后于同龄人。这些青年班在学区中分布不均，因此可以为更有针对性的干预提供见识。讨论了政策和实践的含义。