Abstract

Students from linguistic minority backgrounds with immigrant trajectories remain under researched, under considered, and underserved, both by higher education institutions and within research addressing access to and inclusion in postsecondary education. Often viewed through a lens centered on challenges and structural barriers, they are also frequently described as resilient, capable of adapting despite inequalities. This article is situated within a tension between individual resilience and institutional inertia and explores the forms of student engagement adopted by plurilingual students in Quebec’s college system. Drawing on Yosso’s (2005) reconceptualization of cultural capital, the study adopts a critical perspective to analyze how different forms of cultural capital are mobilized to support persistence throughout educational pathways. Analysis of interviews conducted across 13 colleges reveals marked forms of engagement, particularly behavioral and agentic, while affective engagement linked to a sense of belonging remains limited. These forms of engagement rely on a strong activation of navigational and resistant capital, deployed to cope with linguistic demands, implicit institutional norms, and dynamics of exclusion. From practical, theoretical, and epistemological perspectives, the findings call for greater recognition and valuing of the often invisible cultural resources mobilized by plurilingual students.