Transforming World Language Teaching and Teacher Education for Equity and Justice: Pushing Boundaries in US Contexts(103 New Perspectives on Language and Education)

This edited book expands the current scholarship on teaching world languages for social justice and equity in K-12 and postsecondary contexts in the US. Over the past decade, demand has been growing for a more critical approach to teaching languages and cultures: in response, this volume brings together a group of scholars whose work bridges the fields of world language education and critical approaches to education. Within the current US context, the chapters address the following key questions: (1) How are pre-service or in-service world language teachers/professors embedding issues, understandings, or content related to social justice, human rights, access, critical pedagogy and equity into their teaching and curriculum? (2) How are teacher educators preparing language teachers to teach for social justice, human rights, access and equity?

Table of Contents:
Contributors Acknowledgments            Editors’ Note Chapter 1. Cassandra Glynn and Beth Wassell: Rethinking our Introduction: Calling out Ourselves and Calling in Our Field             Part 1: Disrupting Teaching Stance and Practice in the Classroom          Chapter 2. Hannah Baggett: What Tension?  Exploring a Pedagogy of Possibility in World Language Classrooms Chapter 3. Dorie Conlon Perugini and Manuela Wagner: Enacting Social Justice in World Language Education through Intercultural Citizenship Chapter 4. Joan Clifford: Building Critical Consciousness through Community-based Language Learning and Global Health Chapter 5. Krishauna Hines-Gaither, Nina Simone Perez, and Liz Torres Melendez: Voces Invisibles: Disrupting the Master Narrative with Afro Latina Counterstories Chapter 6. Johanna Ennser-Kananen and Leisa M. Quiñones-Oramas: 'Sí, yo soy de Puerto Rico': A Teacher’s Story of Teaching Spanish through and beyond her Latina Identity Part 2: Resisting and Reworking Traditional World Language Teacher Preparation Chapter 7. Terry Osborn: 'The World' Language Education: New Frontiers for Critical Reflection Chapter 8. Anke al-Bataineh, Kayane Yoghoutjian, and Samuel Chakmakjian: Can Western Armenian Pedagogy be Decolonial? Training Heritage Language Teachers in Social Justice-Based Language Pedagogy Chapter 9. Mary Curran: Learning from, with and in the Community: Community-Engaged World Language Teacher Education at Rutgers Graduate School of Education Urban Social Justice Program Chapter 10. Jennifer Wooten, L. J. Randolph Jr., and Stacey Margarita Johnson: Enacting Social Justice in Teacher Education: Modeling, Reflection and Critical Engagement in the Methods Course Index  

About the Author :
Beth Wassell is Professor in the Department of Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Education, Rowan University, USA. Her research interests include language teaching and learning, teacher education, critical and social justice approaches, and qualitative research. Cassandra Glynn is Associate Professor in the Department of Education, Concordia College, USA. She is the author (with Pamela Wesely and Beth Wassell) of Words and Actions: Teaching World Languages Through a Lens of Social Justice (2018, ACTFL).

Review :
This book is a must-read for world language teachers, administrators, teacher educators, and researchers. Each chapter is a powerhouse doing invaluable work calling out the need for critical reflection and urgent change in our field while also calling in collaborators to be agents of purposeful, positive impact and showing them concrete steps to take meaningful action for equity and social justice within their immediate spheres of influence and beyond. The struggle to transform our world for a more just and equitable future requires imagination and expertise. World language teachers can play an important role in ensuring that our future stays multilingual. This book offers the tools and concrete examples that are needed for preparing and sustaining world and heritage language teachers for this challenge. This is a challenging book. It challenges teachers and teacher educators to re-think their traditions and their assumptions about their purposes and identities as ‘language teachers’. It helps us all not just to ‘think again’ but also to move forward in reflection and practice. It is a book anchored in world language teaching in the USA, but has a much wider relevance for readers in other continents and countries. Timely and relevant, [this book] will make a significant contribution to the ongoing conversation on reshaping world language education for the twenty-first century. Its unique perspective and approach, pragmatic teaching examples, and compelling insights with regards to today’s and tomorrow’s teaching standards will be of benefit to scholars in higher education, teachers at the secondary and postsecondary levels, students interested in world language education at all levels, scholars in related disciplines and fields currently engaging similar questions of anti-racism, social justice, and equity, and program chairs and administrators.