Anti-Oppressive Pedagogies and Language Teacher Identities

Across the globe, education systems often fail to acknowledge the complex, fluid nature of languaging practices, identities, and cultural epistemologies of language-minoritized communities. As such, many language-minoritized individuals are subject to various forms of systemic and sociopolitical oppressive forces both inside and outside of school contexts. In this chapter, we discuss the needs and challenges in critically engaging with the complexity and fluidity of what’s been called “identities” as a way of moving towards anti-oppressive pedagogies in language teacher education. Weaving together theories of (white settler) colonialism, intersectionality, and critical posthumanism, we provide insights on understandings of language teacher identities that open up new possibilities in teaching practices that address these oppressive forces. To illustrate the affordances of these justice-oriented pedagogical tools from these three perspectives, we draw from international scholarship focused on language-minoritized communities in education and data collected in empirical studies in the Southeastern U.S. These anti-oppressive pedagogical perspectives highlight approaches to research and practice that gesture towards what is yet to (be)come for language teacher identities.