An Analytical Frame to Study Intersecting Ability and Language Differences: Notes for an Interdisciplinary Proleptic Vision

Multilingual learners (MLLs) have been underserved in U.S. schools due to siloed infrastructures, fragmented policies, and enduring deficit ideologies. Educational systems continue to frame MLLs’ learning difficulties in binary terms—language acquisition or disability—ignoring the complex sociocultural, historical, and institutional contexts that shape these learners’ experiences. We highlight the fractured coordination between IDEA and ESSA and the consequences for MLLs’ educational trajectories. We propose an interdisciplinary, proleptic analytical frame to inspire future research at the intersections of language and ability differences. The framework invites the research community to reimagine the boundaries and intersections of language and ability in worlds of difference. Grounded in cultural historical theory, learning sciences, raciolinguistics, and an interdisciplinary critical perspective on disability, our framework centers students’ lived experiences, fluid identities, and future aspirations. The analytical framework outlines four guiding commitments for researchers: (1) reconceptualizing language and language use; (2) documenting the heterogeneity and fluidity of MLL identities; (3) historicizing intersections of language, disability, and race; and (4) designing equity-driven infrastructures to challenge deficit paradigms. Our framework invites scholars to co-design studies with school teams, MLLs, and their families in ways that affirm cultural knowledge, honor linguistic repertoires, and build more just educational futures.