Kangas Awarded Spencer Foundation Grant

Dr. Sara Kangas, assistant professor in Lehigh's Special Education program, is the recipient of a Small Research Grant from the Spencer Foundation. The project is funded ($40,766) for one year and focuses on the barriers English learners with disabilities experience on their journey to reclassification. The title of the funded project is "When English Learners with Disabilities Become Long-Term English Learners."

More about the Research

In the United States K-12 school system, English learner (EL) is supposed to be a temporary designation, an institutional label that disappears once students become English-proficient.  Yet, in recent years, research has found that some ELs, particularly those with disabilities, never get reclassified as English-proficient students and thus, often become long-term ELs (LTELs).  This multi-sited ethnography will investigate the structural inequalities that prevent ELs with disabilities from being reclassified as English-proficient.  This study will examine the interplay of macro policy- and school-level factors inhibiting the reclassification of 25 ELs with disabilities in three different districts.  Applying an intersectionality lens, this study seeks to shed light on a critical equity issue, as LTEL status is accompanied by restricted opportunities to learn.