Late‐Arriving Multilingual Learners' Transition from K–16 Education to the Workforce: Cultural Capital and Habitus Adaptation across Fields

Abstract

English learners (ELs) in US K–12 schools face systemic barriers that constrain their college and career readiness. Although research has richly documented ELs' limited opportunities to learn in high school and barriers to postsecondary education, much less is known about how late‐arriving ELs move from high school to community college (CC) and then into the workforce. This longitudinal qualitative multiple‐case study follows four late‐arriving multilingual learners (MLs), all of whom were classified as ELs in high school, over 6 years, as they moved from high school through CC and into the workforce. Drawing on the concepts of cultural capital , field , habitus , and symbolic violence , as well as habitus adaptation , we examine how their cultural capital was recognized across educational and labor‐market fields and how those changing conditions of recognition shaped their understandings of their linguistic repertoire, cultural knowledge, and educational qualifications. We found that in high school and CC, the MLs' cultural capital was often devalued or unrecognized. Later, however, it became conditionally recognizable in work settings. Sustained recognition in these later fields did more than improve immediate job fit; it reshaped how the MLs understood multilingual and multicultural assets, what futures they considered attainable, and how strategically they could mobilize their cultural capital. We argue that K–16 institutions should recognize and cultivate MLs' cultural capital earlier rather than delaying this transformative process until workforce entry.