Educational Progress-Time and the Proliferation of Dual Enrollment

In this commentary, we use the occasion of the proliferation of dual enrollment to examine the discursive construction of difference between high school and college literacies, and its effects on teachers and students. This discursive divide has real, material consequences. It informs (and constrains) literacy practices and pedagogies, becomes a barrier to access (particularly when operationalized in testing procedures), contributes to dropout and attrition, exacerbates unequal power and resources in communities, and justifies hierarchical relations between high school and college faculty and staff. By deconstructing the definitions of high school and college and the metaphors of containment they rely on, we hope to shift the conversation about dual enrollment and related “bridge” programs away from one of transference or articulation between the high school and college to a more dynamic sense of emergence and negotiation as practiced in our programs and classrooms.