1. Abstract
Understanding the experiences and engagement of children labelled as
having English as an additional language in different school contexts:
The case of primary to secondary school transition
Dimitrina Kaneva, PhD
The University of Manchester, January 2015
This thesis aims to understand the multi-layered experiences of children labelled as
having English as an additional language (EAL) in changing contexts by focusing on
academic and social experiences in their transition from primary to secondary school.
Although from a school perspective EAL is often linked with knowledge and
proficiency in the English language as a means to access learning, this study builds
on the complexity underlying the term that incorporates background, culture, agency
and power in the ways children navigate their schooling. This is achieved through in-
depth longitudinal accounts of children’s experiences and engagement co-
constructed with participants and triangulated through interactive qualitative
methods and theoretical lenses. The main focus is the active role of children in
finding and embracing opportunities for social and academic engagement as part of
their educational trajectories, identifying their agency in processes of change in the
contrast between formal academic contexts and informal research discussions.
In order to learn more about young people’s academic and social experiences, the
study is theoretically informed by two perspectives. The first perspective is
Bourdieu’s field analysis and the concepts of habitus, dispositions and agency. The
analysis emphasises how and where children use their agency to engage with and
manage expectations and options highlighted by institutional discourses and teachers.
Looking at children’s experience and engagement explicitly, the research highlights
overlooked agency of children too easily categorised as EAL in the school field. The
second analytical perspective explores engagement and trajectories in a classroom
context and draws on Bernstein’s constructs of classification and framing with the
aim to explain how children engage and reflect on their experiences across differently
structured classroom contexts. Drawing on theoretical constructs and research in the
area of EAL and diversity more widely, I present six case studies of children’s
experiences. I demonstrate that in the case of children categorised as having EAL the
social and academic aspects of learning highlight invisible agency, misinterpreted
engagement and active negotiation of positioning. Learning English to access
learning was not a central feature of the cases. I argue that in the light of gaps in
teachers’ understandings of children’s experiences, theoretical interpretations,
practical adjustments to classroom processes and communication could provide
better understanding of the wider scope of children’s experiences of schooling. In this
study, children labelled as having EAL are the group whose transition stories are
voiced, and EAL had only a limited role.