Challenging Deficit Discourses with Counterstories of Cultural Wealth: Multilingual Learners’ Pursuit of Career and Technical Education

Background: In U.S. secondary schools, multilingual learners of English (MLs) endure persistent deficit narratives grounded in deficit discourses, which limit their opportunity to attain college and career readiness. As such, some researchers have considered career and technical education (CTE) as an alternative for MLs, despite little investigation. However, recent research has shown that MLs have limited access to CTE and experience deficit narratives in CTE as well, including around the CTE enrollment process. Focus of the Study: The purpose of this study is to challenge deficit narratives about MLs through counterstories of enrolling in CTE programs. In doing so, I first examine how teachers and administrators at a large regional CTE center talk about MLs’ enrollment and placement into CTE programs. Then, drawing on community cultural wealth (CCW), develop counterstories based on how MLs talk about CTE programs and participation. Research Design: Data for this paper were drawn from a 1.5-year-long ethnographic study of a large career and technical center in the northeastern United States. Fieldnotes and interviews with teachers, school leaders, counselors, and MLs were the primary data sources. Data were analyzed using inductive coding and theorized through writing analytic memos. Conclusions: Findings show that CTE administrators and teachers reproduced deficit discourses through stock narratives about MLs as agentless, lacking familial investment in education, and negatively influenced by peers. In contrast, MLs shared rich counterstories describing their reasons for pursuing CTE, which include their aspirations for future careers, familial engagement in their educational decision making, and the need to navigate a complex array of influences, school systems, and structures. These findings undermine deficit discourses about MLs’ enrollment in CTE and demonstrate the need for CTE leaders and teachers to challenge the narratives that reproduce these discourses. Theoretical implications for CCW are also discussed for MLs navigating the neoliberal context of CTE programs.