What It Takes to Succeed: The Importance of Social Support for Academically Successful Middle School English Learners

Social Support for Youth

Social support can be broadly understood as the “provision of both psychological and material resources with the intention of helping the recipients to cope with stress” (Cohen, 2004, p. 676). A 2010 meta-analysis of 246 studies on support for children and adolescents found a positive association between social support and outcomes of well-being, including academic achievement (Chu, Saucier, & Hafner, 2010). Wills and Shinar (2000) argue for a functional perspective of social support, theorizing five supportive functions that social relationships can provide: (a) emotional, sympathetic listening to and caring about concerns and feelings; (b) instrumental, tangible, practical support including material aid; (c) informational, advice about how to solve problems; (d) companionship, availability to support individuals in social gatherings; and (e) validation, information about social norms and belonging. The relative importance of each function depends on the personality of the individual and the kinds of stressors present (Wills & Shinar).

These types of support can be given through different sources. For children and adolescents, Cauce and Srebnik (1990) identified three potential sources of support: family, friends, and school personnel. The relative importance of each source is inconclusive. Some research suggest that children perceive parents as more important than friends, but that peer support becomes increasingly important for adolescents as they mature (e.g., Furman & Buhrmester, 1992; Helsen, Vollerbergh, & Meeus, 2000). In a meta-analysis of 246 studies on social support for youth, Chu et al. (2010) found that teachers and school personnel support was associated with well-being more strongly than other sources, and that the effect of this support increased with students’ age.

Borkhorst, Sumter, and Westenberg (2009) explored how sources of support varied for youth by age. They surveyed over 650 children and adolescents between the ages of 9 to 18 and found that while adolescents found friend support more important than parents, this trend was only evident for participants in the 16- to 18-year-old group. The authors suggest that the support friends offer may grow gradually, coinciding with a growth in psychological maturity and ability to provide emotional support. In addition, Borkhorst et al. found that perceived support from teachers declined as students aged, perhaps because students had multiple teachers in secondary school who could not provide the personal relationship that a single teacher in primary school could.

Much of the work on social support has been quantitative using survey methods. While the importance of social support for adolescents’ well-being is clear, the mechanisms under which adolescents activate this support and the ways in which support operates to lead to positive outcomes is less understood. The present study provides detailed insight into the ways successful ELs understand and experience social support, suggesting potential avenues of further study for how social support works for this subgroup of students.

Social Support for Linguistically Diverse Students

Linguistically diverse students are from households where a language other than English is spoken and include former ELs. These students benefit from social support just as other adolescents, but the kinds of support and the ways in which the support is given may vary depending on students’ cultural and linguistic background (H. S. Kim, Sherman, & Taylor, 2008). For instance, Kim et al. found that youth from Asian cultures responded positively to implicit social support in which they did not divulge their problems to support agents but instead simply enjoyed the company of others. However, youth from individualistic cultures like the United States reported benefit from explicit social support in which they shared specific problems with others.

Research on linguistically diverse students in the United States has often focused on students from Spanish-speaking backgrounds, which is relevant to the present study given the high proportion of ELs who come from Spanish-speaking families (NCELA, 2011). Underlying much of this literature is a critical perspective drawn from Pierre Bourdieu’s (1986) theory of social capital, which describes the resources individuals accrue from connections with groups of people. For example, Stanton-Salazar (2011) theorizes a network-analytic social capital framework based on ethnographic studies of over 200 Latino/a high school students. The framework proposes the importance of institutional agents, or individuals who “directly transmit, or negotiate the transmission of, highly valued resources” (p. 1067) for the upward mobility of racial minority youth from economically disenfranchised communities. Stanton-Salazar’s conceptualization of social support can be aligned with Wills and Shinar’s (2000) instrumental and informational functions, as institutional agents can provide both practical support and advice on navigating school.

The theme of social capital has also arisen in research that examines language minority adults’ retrospective attributes of their school achievement. Gándara (1995) interviewed 50 Chicanos who earned post-graduate degrees and found that many of her participants attributed their success to supportive family members or teachers who provided access to social capital. In a retrospective interview study of five Dominican college students, Morales (2000) highlighted the role social resources played in his participants’ school success but emphasized the importance of student motivation in utilizing the social structures.

In addition to social capital frameworks, Nel Noddings’s (1992) seminal construct of caring in the classroom, “a way of being in relations, not a specific set of behaviors,” is prevalent in the literature on schooling experiences of linguistically diverse students (p. 17). Resembling Wills and Shinar’s (2000) conceptualization of emotional support, Noddings’s caring involves sympathizing with students’ feelings, potentially enhancing student self-worth. In an ethnographic exploration of Mexican American high school youth, Valenzuela (1999) drew on Noddings’s notion of caring to differentiate between the ways students and teachers conceptualize caring. She found that students in her study valued “an authentic caring that emphasizes relations of reciprocity between student and teacher” (p. 61), whereas teachers valued an aesthetic sense of caring that implied an abstract commitment to certain values in education. For linguistically diverse adolescents, Valenzuela suggests that perceived emotional support contributes to school achievement.

Sample Selection

A purposive sample (Creswell, 2007) was recruited of five eighth-grade former ELs in advanced coursework with a minimum grade-point average (GPA) of 3.0. All participants attended a public middle school outside a major metropolitan city. The school represented a diverse population in terms of ethnicity, race, and socioeconomic status (SES). The sample was limited to eighth-grade students because the school offered few advanced courses prior to eighth grade. Twelve potential participants were identified who represented various native languages, genders, and ages of arrival to the United States. Eight of these participants expressed interest in participating, but only five completed assent and parental consent forms. Table 1 illustrates demographic characteristics of each participant. At the time of data collection, all but Tamara were achieving in their classes.

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Table 1.

Demographic Profile of Participants.

	Andrés	Jonathan	Juan	Tamara	Rahat
Gender	Male	Male	Male	Female	Female
EL level or status a	Not EL; exited fifth grade	Not EL; exited fifth grade	Level 6; exited sixth grade	Not EL; exited third grade	Not EL; exited fifth grade
Native language/language spoken by parents b	Spanish/Spanish only	Amharic/Amharic and limited English	Spanish/Spanish and English	Spanish/Spanish only	Punjabi/Punjabi and English
Age of arrival to the United States	Born in the United States	8 years old	Born in the United States	1 year old	Born in the United States
Parents’ highest education level (country) b	Both parents completed at least some secondary school in El Salvador	Father graduated vocational school in Ethiopia; mother graduated high school in Ethiopia	Both parents graduated college in Chile	Both parents graduated high school in Bolivia; mother had some post-secondary schooling in Bolivia	Father graduated college in India; mother graduated college in the United States

a

Students took and passed the statewide English language proficiency (ELP) test during latter part of exit grade level. For at least 2 years subsequent to exit, students are in “monitor” status and labeled with a Level 6. After demonstrating English proficiency for these 2 years, ELP levels are removed.

b

As reported by students.

Data Collection

Four data sources were collected for each participant: (a) one-on-one life history interviews, (b) school observations, (c) post-observation interviews, and (d) one-on-one interviews with two of each participant’s teachers.

Following Seidman’s (2012) recommended three-interview structure for qualitative studies, I first interviewed participants about their schooling history using a semi-structured interview protocol with open-ended questions. Because the purpose of the protocol was to elicit conversation and points of interest to the participants, all the interviews departed from the protocol questions. These interviews lasted between 35 and 80 minutes.

I then observed participants for one to two full school days that participants selected as representative of their typical day. Because the focus of the study was on students’ perspectives, observation data served as a secondary source to inform student interviews and triangulate results. During these observations, I took open-ended “jottings” (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995) to record participants’ actions and dialogue, documenting the school day from their perspectives as unobtrusively as possible. I followed participants to their classes, accompanied them in the hallways during breaks, and ate lunch with them in the cafeteria. I also attended afterschool activities sponsored by the school for two of the five participants.

Within three days of the observation, I conducted a post-observation interview with each participant to confirm, question, and explore the school day that we both witnessed. For three of the five participants, this interview occurred directly after the school day; for the other two, the interviews took place within four days after the observation. As with the initial interview, an open-ended protocol guided the conversation. I recalled each part of the day and asked participants why they said or did particular things and what they were thinking during certain instances. I also followed up with each participant for a third interview focused on “reflection on the meaning” (Seidman, 2012). These interviews occurred after preliminary analysis of the data and enabled me to probe further into questions or inconsistencies.

After interviewing and observing participants, I conducted one-on-one semi-structured interviews of two of each participant’s teachers: the advanced algebra teacher and a teacher of each student’s choosing. The purpose of these interviews was to confirm or question findings from student data, and an open-ended protocol that requested teachers to “tell me about [student]” guided the interviews. For all but one of the teachers, these interviews occurred between the first and third participant interview so that I was acquainted with participants but still had an opportunity to introduce topics mentioned by their teachers in subsequent student interviews.

Data Analysis

Data reduction and analysis was an iterative process, with transcription and initial coding occurring during and after data collection (Creswell, 2007). I transcribed interviews as soon as possible after the interview and first read the transcript for a holistic understanding of the interview, making marginal notes of overall impressions. I then read the transcripts line-by-line and identified both in vivo codes (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) that used participants’ words verbatim and theoretical codes that reflected existing themes in the literature, such as authentic caring and peer support. To prioritize student voice, I did not search the transcripts for particular themes but coded themes as they arose. I analyzed observation field notes subsequent to each student’s initial interview transcript and used the same process of a holistic analysis followed by line-by-line coding. Because the observations served as secondary data sources that informed the interviews, I used the same codes from the interview analysis but occasionally added new codes when unique ideas arose. Likewise, I analyzed the teacher interviews as secondary data sources, examining the transcripts for convergences and divergences with student interview data. From individual codes, I created superordinate codes with definitions and then larger themes (Creswell, 2007). I then developed an integrative narrative for each student reflecting all sources of data to examine how themes were present within each student. I explored the ways themes compare and contrast across participants by creating a cross-case matrix and identifying the salience of themes across participants.

Academic Content

To succeed in rigorous coursework, students need to know how to find assistance when completing challenging assignments. Support in academic content resembles Wills and Shinar’s (2000) instrumental support: It is specific to tasks or concepts and requires technical information beyond the capacity of the student. Four of the five participants reported receiving assistance with schoolwork using a variety of sources, including both people and virtual tools. The importance of academic content was also revealed through one participant’s lack of utilizing this support.

Family members served as a source of academic content support for two of the participants. An example is Rahat practicing Spanish vocabulary with her older brother, who was taking a more advanced Spanish class than her. Rahat also described how her mother routinely reviews geometry proofs with her in preparation for tests, a practice that her teacher emphasized as crucial to preventing Rahat from falling behind her peers. Juan likewise said he turned to his parents or his older sister when facing challenging homework. He explained how his sister knew tactics to approach some of the work because she had taken his classes in the past, and he said his parents easily assisted with Spanish homework because Spanish is their first language. Juan and Rahat were the only two participants who gave explicit examples of ways their parents or older siblings helped them with school tasks. Perhaps not coincidentally, these were also the only two participants whose parents attended 4-year colleges and were reportedly proficient in English.

Another source of academic support came from students’ peers. All five participants reported that completing homework or class work with peers helped them understand the content. Rahat described how she liked using the Smart Boards in World History because they offered opportunities for students to teach each other. She said, “I learn better like that because I tend to listen to my friends.” Jonathan spent many of his homeroom periods in a conference room working on algebra problems with a few friends. When asked why he chose to work on math during this time, Jonathan explained, “It’s good when we do it together because if he, like, gets stuck, he can ask me, and I can do the same.”

Peer academic support was perhaps most evident in Andrés who stated that he “almost always” does homework with friends. When asked what he did when he encountered a difficult homework problem, Andrés’s first response was to ask his friend. Andrés’s algebra teacher also emphasized the importance of peers in helping Andrés succeed in math. She said,

He works extremely hard, but gets a lot of peer help, though . . .. So I’m not quite sure how that works, cuz I’ll say “how did you get it?” and he’ll say “well, Jose explained it to me, and I understood it when he did, but now I’m not sure.” But he still translates it, he gets it.

Observations of Andrés in math class revealed how talking with friends about content pushed him to engage in deep thinking. In one instance, Andrés was whispering to another student about a problem that appeared elusive for the whole class. Andrés’s friend announced that he “got it!” The teacher heard him and said, “Good. Now, I want you to explain it to Andrés.” Andrés answered that “I got the same answer, I just did it in a different way” and then explained to his friend how he solved the problem. His friend nodded, saying, “oh, yeah I see,” and then called out to the teacher, “yeah, he’s got the same answer.” This incident reveals that Andrés’s learning does not occur solely through friends telling him how to solve the problems, as his teacher might assume. Instead, Andrés and his friend negotiated about the answer, and each justified to one another how he solved the problem. In this case, working with a friend facilitated the use of higher-order thinking skills for Andrés.

Support in academic content was virtual for Jonathan. He turned to Blogs and YouTube on the Internet to help him solve difficult problems in math, describing his laptop as his “source of information everywhere.” Jonathan said, “I can do anything on the computer. It’s the one place where nothing’s hard and I’m always learning new things.” While using the computer for academic support may appear as an individual activity, Jonathan leveraged social support from peers and experts in the content area through message boards and Blogs.

Another example of a seemingly individual activity was Jonathan’s use of textbooks. He spent the summer reading a math textbook he bought on EBay to prepare for advanced algebra. As with using the Internet to solve math problems, reading textbooks involved a social element for Jonathan. He said that the idea to study math on his own stemmed from his dad’s insistence that he and his sister read over the summer, and explained that he was currently talking with the school’s math coach about a textbook to study during the summer to prepare for geometry.

For Tamara, the only participant struggling in her classes, the importance of support in academic content was exemplified by the absence of support. Unlike Rahat, Tamara explained that her parents could not help her on her math homework “cuz they say in Bolivia they teach it different . . . and it’s not like I can go ask my parents because they don’t really remember.” Tamara also did not live with any older siblings or cousins who could offer help with homework. However, just because Tamara did not access academic support did not mean that the potential for help did not exist. Her algebra teacher stayed after school Monday through Thursday to help students complete test corrections, and students could meet with teachers or peer tutors during the homeroom block. Whereas Jonathan and Juan both stayed after school for math, and Jonathan spent his homeroom block working with peer tutors, Tamara did not take advantage of opportunities based on observations and her teacher’s report. Tamara also expressed significant family problems, including an uncle who was in jail and her father’s unstable employment due to medical concerns, which may explain why she did not engage in tutoring. Thus, for Tamara, simply offering academic help is not enough.

Course Selection

Support in course selection played an informational function (Wills & Shinar, 2000) because it involved giving advice about future plans. The ability to navigate course selection processes—or access to others who can do this—appears to be an essential element to success in school for these students. Regarding both academic and elective course selection, all five students reported social influences including family members and school personnel.

Rahat and Juan described how their parents acted on their behalf to place them in a higher level math course than recommended by their teachers. Rahat explained that because her older brother had taken pre-algebra in sixth grade, her parents reasoned that she could succeed as he did. Rahat and her teacher admitted that the advanced math level was difficult, but they both attributed much of her current success to her mother’s support with test preparation. After his lackluster performance in sixth-grade advanced math, Juan’s father enrolled him in summer school, which enabled him to advance to the advanced section in seventh grade. More recently, Juan’s mother used her navigational skills to act on his behalf during registration for ninth grade classes. According to Juan, his mother was “mad” that he was not recommended for many advanced classes and contacted the guidance counselor so that Juan could be placed in these courses. As with support in academic content, the only participants who described how their parents advocated for course placement were the two participants with college-educated parents.

Older siblings also served as navigational supports for Rahat and Juan indirectly by acting as comparative models for their parents. That is, both Rahat and Juan stated that their parents recommended them for high-level classes because their siblings took these classes in the past, and thus their parents knew a more advanced track was a possibility. Siblings provided direct navigational advice as well. Rahat’s older brother counseled her on how to complete the application for admission into the rigorous International Baccalaureate program. Ironically, Juan’s older sister’s advice may have curtailed his potential achievement. His sister warned him to avoid the high school teacher of the heritage Spanish class, so Juan said he purposely “messed up” the diagnostic Spanish test in middle school so that he would be placed in the regular Spanish track rather than the more rigorous heritage track.

Andrés did not receive much navigational support from his parents, both of whom spoke little English and did not finish secondary school in El Salvador. However, his older brother encouraged him to take Tech Ed as an elective, a class that Andrés said he especially enjoyed and wanted to pursue in high school and career. Although Tech Ed is not a gatekeeper course associated with high achievement, the course piqued Andrés’s interest and helped him connect concepts in physical science to his interest in automobiles.

Tamara’s source of navigational support came through individual teachers. Tamara was struggling in algebra and faced family difficulties, but she thrived in her heritage Spanish II class. She viewed her teacher as a mentor, explaining how her teacher “pushed” her to take the Spanish III diagnostic test at the beginning of ninth grade so that she could skip the class and advance to Advanced Placement (AP) Spanish. Tamara’s relationship with her Spanish teacher is an example of how the areas of support overlap and interact with each other, as her teacher not only gave advice for course selection but also provided emotional support as discussed subsequently.

As with Tamara and Andrés, Jonathan’s parents did not intervene in his course selection. Instead, he found support through a school-based group called Scholars, described by him as a program for “minority kids to help us get good grades and, uh, be leaders in our school.” Jonathan’s enthusiasm for the Scholars program was palpable, as it emerged frequently during our conversations. Among other activities, he met with the Scholars group every Wednesday during lunch and visited local colleges on field trips. Jonathan’s involvement with Scholars is another example of the overlapping nature of the support areas: While the program provided instrumental and informational support through college preparation activities, it also served as a source of emotional support.

Motivation

Emotional support that motivated persistence in the face of challenges was evident across all five participants. While only three of the five participants were explicit about the ways in which their family members or teachers provided this kind of support, emotional support emerged implicitly through data collection of all participants. Family members or school personnel played a motivational role for at least four of the participants. As with supports in other areas, support in motivation was unique to each student and reflected his or her background and personality.

Parents gave encouragement by serving as role models and by expressing high aspirations for their children. With the exception of Juan, all participants referred to their parents when discussing reasons that they tried hard in school. Tamara, for instance, discussed her parents as a source of aspiration. She was proud of her father’s profession as a chef at a hotel, describing how he started off as a dishwasher and worked hard to attain his current position. She said about her dad,

He’s had a hard life, just as my mom, so I mean, I guess it makes me proud that they’ve been able to—I don’t know—go beyond that, especially my dad because my dad has had like a lot of stuff go on and even now, he likes to learn new things.

In a subsequent interview, Tamara said she tried hard in school “to make my parents proud cuz from their side of the family I would technically be the first one to graduate.” Thus, while Tamara admires her parents’ work ethic, she is also acutely aware of their struggles and aspires to make a more comfortable future for herself.

Rahat also expressed wanting to do well in school for her parents. She explained how her parents,

want us to be more successful than they are at like- because, like, they know, they started from the very bottom, because they came and they didn’t really have stuff or anything.

As with Tamara, Rahat acknowledged her parents’ work ethic as an admirable quality. However, Rahat understood her family as setting a high bar, as both parents graduated college, have professional jobs, and are well-respected in the community. When asked why she made such an effort to do well in school, Rahat enumerated the accomplishments of her mother, father, and brother and then said, “I sorta have to do good because like everyone is doing good . . . like my brother, he kinda gives me a push.”

Andrés said his motivation to achieve was related to “making my dad and mom proud.” As with Tamara, Andrés’s parents did not attend college. In addition, his older brother was not performing well in high school because, according to Andrés, “I don’t think he has like a reason to try . . . he doesn’t have a big enough thing to make him strive for his grades.” In contrast, Andrés said the “big thing” that made him strive for his grades was, “I just make my dad and mom proud and I just feel good about myself.” By earning good grades, Andrés may be carving a unique identity for himself within his family as a scholar. It is possible that Andrés perceives his good grades as a source of happiness in an otherwise unhappy, discouraging situation, or that he knows at a subconscious level that his good grades can lead to a more comfortable life than the one he is currently living.

Jonathan was not as explicit as Rahat, Tamara, and Andrés in describing the role his parents play in his education, but his father continually popped up in our conversations. When asked why his family moved to the United States, Jonathan said, “My dad wanted us to have great education here, so he brought us here.” Later, Jonathan said he likes to play soccer outside on the weekends, but qualified that “my dad expects me to study.” He also said, “Every year, my dad, like since first grade through like fifth or fourth grade, he just like buys us books.”

Tamara extensively highlighted the role that school personnel played in her schooling. In describing her relationship with the assistant principal, she said, “When I slack off sometimes, he knows that I can do better, so he likes to encourage me, cuz he says that’s what I usually need is encouragement.” Tamara stated that her Spanish teacher was perhaps her favorite teacher this year “because he can kinda interact with us because we’re all Hispanic.” While Tamara avoided challenging math homework, she proudly displayed long reading passages for Spanish homework, suggesting the positive impact of an emotional connection with her teacher. Tamara’s Spanish teacher provided both emotional and informational support, as he advised her to take the AP Spanish classes in high school.

School observations underscored Tamara’s friendly rapport with selected school personnel. Throughout the day, she initiated impromptu interactions with teachers and staff. She volunteered to stay after gym class to help the teacher gather hand towels in a bin to prepare for the laundry, teasing him about his “seriousness” at a recent game. She explained later that helping with the laundry was her weekly task on which the gym teacher depended. In another instance, Tamara went out of her way to compliment the assistant principal who was acting as a hall monitor. She referred to his colorful tie and said “looking good, Mr. [last name].” Despite Tamara’s academic struggles in math, her algebra teacher demonstrated emotional support for Tamara, taking Tamara aside at the beginning of the day to ask about her father’s health. Interestingly, though, Tamara did not engage in the same light-hearted friendly teasing with her algebra teacher that she did with many other school personnel. This discrepency may be related to Tamara’s struggles in math, possibly indicating the complex interaction between teacher-student relationships and academic achievement.

An explanation for why personal relationships with teachers seemed more salient for Tamara than for other participants may lie in the ways that Tamara differs from the others: She does not have an older sibling or a college-educated parent who can advise about high school, her grades and work habits in eighth grade are declining, and she expressed serious family stressors. Although Tamara perceives her parents as loving and caring for her, they may not provide her with the attention she craves due to stresses about work, finances, and extended family. Tamara’s situation thus suggests the heightened importance of caring teachers for students with unstable family backgrounds, which include many immigrant students (Suárez-Orozco, Suárez-Orozco, & Todorova, 2010).

Organized school groups also provided emotional encouragement for students. The indirect impact of school groups on academic behavior was evident in Juan, who excelled on multiple soccer teams. Juan explained that he needed to stay on the A/B honor roll “because of soccer,” indicating that his parents would not allow him to play if his grades dropped. Furthermore, although Juan said he disliked being busy with soccer practices after school, his teacher stated that he was “more serious” about homework during soccer season, possibly due to the structured schedule that soccer practices gave his afternoons.

Jonathan’s Scholars group offered rewards for school performance, such as laptops as rewards for good grades, but it is not clear that these tangible incentives were necessary for Jonathan’s motivation. However, Jonathan’s frequent references to the group suggest that Scholars provides him with a sense of belongingness that may serve as a source of motivation to persist in school. As with his description of the textbooks and Internet, Jonathan spoke of his involvement in Scholars with a sense of agency, emphasizing how even though the school sent him an invitation letter to join the group, he made the decision to “sign up and actually do it.” In discussing how Scholars prepares students for college, Jonathan also shared lofty goals to attend Harvard on a scholarship and become an engineer, goals he described as individual endeavors using the metaphor of an athletic competition, saying he was “going for the gold.” However, Jonathan’s ownership of his success comes along with a supportive father and active involvement with a school support group. These social support sources appear to enable Jonathan to perceive Harvard as an attainable goal and to persist in the face of challenges. Thus, persistence and individual grit (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007) may need to accompany social support for maximum benefit.

Limitations

Interview data were limited by their self-report nature, and observation data may represent altered behavior because an observer was in the room. Another limitation is the subjectivity of qualitative data analysis and interpretation, but trustworthiness of the findings was increased through triangulation of multiple data sources, member checks, and writing frequent memos documenting the research process (Denzin & Lincoln, 1994). Generalizability is limited due to a small convenience sample that is unrepresentative of the former EL population. The in-depth qualitative nature of data collection made a large random sample difficult, but the purpose of the study was to particularize ELs’ experiences rather than to generalize. Future quantitative research might utilize larger sample sizes of ELs to explore how student perceptions of social support vary by EL characteristics.

Implications

While the findings are not generalizable to the national EL population, they provide implications for educators and researchers working with ELs. First, the study makes clear the importance of social support through parents, school personnel, or peers. The source of support appeared less important than the nature of the support, suggesting that it does not matter who provides the support as much as the kind of support that is provided. Specifically, instrumental support regarding academic content, informational support regarding course selection, and emotional support regarding achievement motivation all emerged as beneficial to ELs’ achievement, regardless of the source of support. Future research might utilize larger sample sizes of ELs to investigate the extent to which the source of support affects EL achievement, if at all. Longitudinal research designs might also examine how, if at all, sources of support change in quantity and quality for ELs as they age.

A second implication is to acknowledge the heterogeneity within ELs and former ELs. Because ELs are defined by their English language proficiency status, linking ELs’ achievement and learning needs with their language level is common. This study cautions against understanding ELs based solely on language proficiency level. As demonstrated by the five former EL participants, sources of support available and the ability of students to utilize these supports depended on factors beyond language proficiency, including family background, SES, and personality. Instead of making lists of best practices for ELs in general, educators might move toward creating prototypes of ELs possessing different background characteristics and then determining successful practices that might be associated with ELs who have particular characteristics.

A final implication is to follow former ELs continually until graduation and post-secondary opportunities. Taking an advanced course in eighth grade is not a certain predictor of success in high school, college, and beyond for students. Rather than applying a “one-size-fits-all” approach in helping ELs, educators need to provide intentional, targeted support that considers ELs’ schooling backgrounds, family’s education level, personality, and peer relationships. As evidenced by Tamara’s disparate experiences in algebra and Spanish, the type of support students need may vary within individuals by content area. Individualizing support is no easy task for schools, especially at the secondary level where teachers often serve hundreds of students in one day. To encourage this kind of attention, certain school counselors might be assigned to work with ELs, following them over their schooling career, beyond exit from language services. Such a focus would enable the dedicated staff not only to develop a deep understanding of ELs’ lives in and out of school, but also to advise and coordinate with teachers in supporting the particular needs of each student.

Middle school students are in the process of writing their academic careers, and their story has yet to be completed. Not unlike the high-achieving Latino students that Gándara (2005) followed, multiple challenges lie ahead for the participants in this study that might “derail” their academic careers. Enrolling in advanced coursework in middle school may provide students with the means to continue taking high-level classes that prepare them for college, but the path to college enrollment and completion is not assured. At the same time, though, this post-secondary achievement is possible for all participants, especially given the potential influence of social support. Individuals in regular contact with ELs, whether they are parents, peers, or teachers, hold power in steering ELs to academic success. Future research and practice might continue to explore how these supports can be leveraged for ELs of all different backgrounds.