Immigrant Mothers Redefine Access to ESL classes: Contradiction and Ambivalence

Studies examining the accessibility of ESL classes for adults have tended to look at factors such as time, resource, economic, or geographic constraints, thereby conflating access with availability. This article argues that access is a much more complex notion, one perhaps more personal, and less amenable to solution, than previously assumed. Access needs to be understood within and against the socially constructed identities and roles of the learners. Through five individual stories, examples drawn from life-history interviews with nineteen non-English-speaking immigrant mothers of schoolchildren, I explore how a variety of themes related to ambivalence and contradiction have complicated their access to English-language classes, following which I suggest some tentative implications for education and research.