Migration and English Language Learning in the United Kingdom: Towards a Feminist Theorising

English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) has been nationalised as a profession in the United Kingdom since 2001 and has no established research base. Despite pedagogical links with linguistics and second language acquisition, its main policy drivers are immigration control, improved community cohesion, and economic growth, drivers that particularly impact on women from certain ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. Through feminist critical discourse analysis, located within an intersectional framework, this article argues that a theoretical understanding of how gendered relations of power are produced and reproduced contributes not only to the development of knowledge, but also to political and pedagogical strategies of creativity and resistance. The article suggests that ESOL offers an opportunity to examine how an understanding of contemporary feminism can productively engage with policy analysis and a renewal of strategic challenge.