Resource Disparities and English Learners' Experiences: Educator Perspectives from Chicago Public Elementary Schools

This study examines how differences in ESL resources across elementary schools within Chicago Public Schools (CPS) shape English learners’ (ELs’) classroom experiences, as perceived by their teachers. While existing research emphasizes the importance of bilingual programming, teacher preparation, and access to linguistically responsive instruction in supporting ELs, fewer studies have comparatively examined how these elements operate together across different school contexts in the same urban district. In this study, I conceptualize these combined resources as Institutional Bilingual Education Capacity (IBEC) and explore how variation in IBEC shapes ELs’ access to instruction and sense of belonging. Using semi-structured interviews with thirteen educators across Dual Language Education (DLE), Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE), and low bilingual-capacity schools, I find that ELs’ experiences varied systematically across these contexts. In higher-capacity settings, teachers described consistent access to bilingual support, collaboration between peers, and culturally affirming environments that facilitated both academic engagement and social integration. In contrast, in lower-capacity schools, ELs were more likely to rely on translation tools, assistance from peers, and individual effort to navigate instruction, as they often encountered fragmented and inconsistent support. Across all contexts, teacher initiative played a critical but uneven role in shaping students’ access to learning, which highlights both the importance and the limits of relying on individual educators. Additionally, findings show that linguistically dense peer environments can function as an asset rather than a barrier, which challenges deficit-oriented assumptions about high EL concentration. Together, these findings suggest that bilingual capacity is not determined solely by the type of programs schools offer, but by how institutional, instructional, and social resources align in practice. They offer a more integrated framework for understanding variation in support for ELs and point to the need for policies that strengthen systemic, rather than solely individual, capacity to serve multilingual learners.