This collaborative case study examines the development of critical reflexivity (Gay & Kirkland, 2003) of pre-service EL (English Learner) teachers’ identities as a basis for anti-oppression pedagogy in TESOL. Our conceptual framework draws from anti-oppressive education (Kumashiro, 2000, 2002, 2015) and intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991) as we examine how language teachers might best be prepared to engage with the social implications of their own identities in the language classroom, and to counter hegemony more broadly through anti-oppressive language pedagogy.
Many language minoritized students classified as English Learners (ELs) in US schools also identify along socially marginalized lines of race, class, gender, and economic difference. In addition, the identities and experiences of pre and inservice language teachers tend to differ greatly from those of their students. This collaborative case study explores how language teacher education might best prepare teachers to engage with their own identities and these power differentials through anti-oppressive pedagogy in language teaching through a project utilizing identity texts (Cummins, et al. 2015). Our conceptual framework draws from anti-oppressive education (Kumashiro, 2000, 2002, 2015) and intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991). These theoretical approaches work together to create a framework for unpacking the complexities surrounding identity work in language teacher education. Research was conducted in two pre-service language teacher education classrooms in Iowa and North Carolina. The collaborative design, where both researchers and students interacted throughout the semester-long study, allowed for increased researcher reflexivity and critical community building across sites. We utilized an iterative qualitative analysis (Creswell, 2013) to identify themes in the data. We found that this intersectional approach to identity work in pre-service teacher education produced various benefits for training language teachers to counter linguistic and cultural hegemony in the language classroom. First, it opened up doors for our students to recognize intersections between their own complex identities and those of their students and to identify the ways those identities are shaped in relation to social institutions such as schools. Students’ reflections reported that they saw this practice as highly valuable for their future teaching in K12 education. These findings suggest that this intersectional identity work in language teacher training shows promise as a means of fostering teachers equipped to exercise critical care (Rolón-Dow, 2005) through anti-oppressive pedagogy for TESOL education.
