Selling and resisting English-medium schooling on Milwaukee’s multilingual Near South Side - A typology of choice schools’ marketing strategies

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by acoobca

Extant research emphasizes the role of information for families navigating school choice structures for English learner–identified children, while raising concerns about what marketing makes available. Amid growing tensions around school choice and expanding bilingual education, the study documents language-minoritized parents’ experiential knowledge to address choice-based exclusion. Using theories of racial capitalism, language ideologies, and language policy, it analyzes charter and voucher school websites and interview data from a nine-month critical bifocal ethnography in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, identifying six marketing strategies and a working-class Mexican father’s narrative of resistance.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages30

Reading Time1 h 16 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Keywords

Findings and implications

| education policy analysis archives
A peer-reviewed, independent, open access, multilingual journal |
Arizona State University | | --- | --- | | Volume 30 Number 28 March 8 , 2022 ISSN 1068-2341 | | Selling and Resisting English-Medium Schooling on Milwaukee’s Multilingual Near South Side: A Typology of Choice Schools’ Marketing Strategies Andrew H. Hurie Carroll University United States & Deborah K. Palmer University of Colorado-Boulder United States Citation: Hurie, A. H., & Palmer, D. K. (2022) . Selling and resisting English-medium schooling on Milwaukee’s multilingual Near South Side: A typology of choice schools’ marketing strategies. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 30(28). [https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.30.6359](https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.30.6359) [Abstract:](Abstract: Extant research has emphasized the importance of information to help families)[ Extant research has emphasized the importance of information to help families](Abstract: Extant research has emphasized the importance of information to help families)[ ](Abstract: Extant research has emphasized the importance of information to help families)[of English learner-identified children to navigate school choice structures](of English learner-identified children to navigate school choice structures), and raised critical questions about the information that is made available through school marketing. At a time of increasing tension around school choice and the rapid expansion of certain forms of bilingual education, we argue for the importance of documenting language minoritized parents’ experiential knowledge as one means of combating choice-based exclusion. Drawing from theories of racial capitalism, language ideologies, and language policy, we analyze charter and voucher school websites and interview data from a ninemonth critical bifocal ethnography on the intersections and tensions between bilingual education and school choice policy in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Our findings identify six marketing strategies that choice schools employed on Milwaukee’s Near South Side, a place with high concentrations of Spanish-speaking, low-income Latinx families. We also present one working-class Mexican father’s narrative of choosing a school for his child asan example of the ways in which parents actively resist the racializing logics embedded within choice-based, marketized school systems. The article provides policy agents with a typology to help generate additional, place-specific analyses of the marketization of language education in multilingual communities. Keywords: bilingual education; racial capitalism; school choice; marketization Vender y resistir la escolarización en inglés en el Near South Side multilingüe de Milwaukee: Una tipología de la estrategia de marketing de las escuelas de elección Resumen: La investigación existente enfatizó la importancia de la información para ayudar a las familias de niños identificados como aprendices de inglés a navegar las estructuras de elección escolar y planteó preguntas críticas sobre la información que sepone a disposición a través del marketing escolar. En un momento de creciente tensión en torno a la elección de escuela y la rápida expansión de ciertas formas de educaciónbilingüe, defendemos la importancia de documentar el conocimiento experiencial de los padres como un medio para combatir la exclusión basada en la elección. A partir de lasteorías del capitalismo racial, las ideologías lingüísticas y la política lingüística, analizamos los sitios web de las escuelas chárter y de vales y entrevistamos los datos de una etnografíabifocal crítica de nueve meses sobre las intersecciones y tensiones entre la educaciónbilingüe y la política de elección escolar en Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Nuestros hallazgosidentifican seis estrategias de marketing que las escuelas de elección emplearon en el Near South Side de Milwaukee, un lugar con altas concentraciones de familias latinas de bajos ingresos que

FAQs

What does the article argue about school marketing information?

It argues that choice-based exclusion is shaped by the information provided through school marketing, so documenting parents’ experiential knowledge is necessary to combat that exclusion.

How did the authors conduct the study?

They analyze charter and voucher school websites and interview data from a nine-month critical bifocal ethnography focused on bilingual education and school choice policy in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

What do the study’s findings contribute?

They identify six marketing strategies used by choice schools on Milwaukee’s Near South Side and present one working-class Mexican father’s narrative showing active resistance to racializing logics in marketized school systems.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by acoobca