Neoliberalism views the free market and global capitalist expansion as sacrosanct, a position that is undergirded by a positivistic epistemology privileging individual autonomy and free will. This type of rationalist thought also underlines institutional discourses that define the ideal and “normal” learner as autonomous, perpetuates a status quo of transmission instruction characterized by decontextualized, unidirectional knowledge transfer, and reinforces traditional notions of language as value-free, static systems—ideas that ultimately reinscribe ineffective and oppressive teaching approaches for English learners (ELs). Moreover, although current sociocultural/sociolinguistic research views learning as a fundamentally relational process occurring through participation in contextualized, social interaction, these principles tend to be overshadowed by neoliberal discourses to which teachers have been conditioned. In this essay, we argue to appropriate a pedagogy grounded in sociocultural/sociolinguistic perspectives, teachers of ELs must first experience a fundamental shift in teaching perspective—a decentering of the neoliberal subject. We employ sociocultural and Deleuzo-Guattarian concepts to “decenter” teachers as autonomous actors who transmit language to ELs toward conceptualizing teachers as enmeshed in multiple sociocultural/linguistic networks. By considering the decentering of teachers, ELs, and the teaching of ELs, we contend a decentering of the teacher-subject embraces a pedagogy of “coming into composition” with students and views language as always “becoming,” constantly changing with time and space.More than a decade into the 21st century, educators, activists and scholars continue to advocate for school policies and teaching practices that will foster social justice and eradicate entrenched inequalities crossing economic, racial, gender, and linguistic lines. While the volume of research calling for, and documenting, social justice and critically focused approaches continues to expand, educational policies undergirded by a neoliberal ideology and agenda have also proliferated (Gabbard Henderson Hursh, 2001). Neoliberalism, an economic philosophy that positions the free market and global capitalist expansion as sacrosanct (Harvey, 2005), influences diverse facets of U.S. public schooling, including teacher evaluation, teaching practices, and school funding. Neoliberal forces are predicating on undermining goals of educational and societal equity while proclaiming to advance them (Davies Sleeter, 2008). Although all students may be impacted by current neoliberal policies and the market-driven logic that accompanies them, we argue that ELs, an already marginalized and underserved group within U.S. public schools, are among the groups that suffer the most.While researchers have recently begun to address the harmful consequences of neoliberalism with respect to the larger educational policy sphere (e.g., Hursh, 2007; Sleeter, 2008; Zeichner, 2010) and its relationship to pedagogy, scholars have failed to examine its impact on the educational experiences offered to ELs. Neoliberalism is informed by a positivistic epistemology that positions individual autonomy and objectivity as givens. while disregarding power inequalities and the overt and tacit effects of prejudice, discrimination and racism (Russom, 2012). In this view, ELs’ histories, resources, challenges and struggles are inconsequential in relation to the structure of schooling and the assumed meritocracy of the educative experience (Valdes, 2001). These thought patterns underlie institutional discourses that define the ideal and “normal” learner as autonomous (Allan, 2011). They perpetuate a status quo of transmission instruction characterized by decontextualized, unidirectional knowledge transfer. Such rationalist thought also shapes traditional notions of language as a value-free, static system, which, in turn, informs dominant second language teaching approaches, such as emphasizing grammar and vocabulary with the aim of “correctness” (Valdes, Kibler, Gee, 2014b; Lantolf Vygotsky, 1978). According to these researchers, because language is constantly evolving and inherently attached to context (Gee, 1988; van Lier, 2004), language learning should focus on collective communicative action with attention to holistic meaning-making. While sociocultural principles are ostensibly taught to many teacher candidates during their preservice learning, their are overshadowed by the neoliberal which teachers are to have Walqui, 2012). many teacher have transmission views to of pedagogy grounded in social van Lier, These scholars argue that language its a process of learning, and as the by and who have in (e.g., teachers are to in a pedagogy of into to foster and language a decentering of the dominant discourses ELs is views of the language learner as a who is English with the of a must be in of ELs as multiple and linguistic within that multiple influences and Such a shift attention to the multiple and of individual ELs, also to the of that impact their in schools, as as the of and decentering the dominant of ELs language learning as a of and that toward the linguistic of the than as a a teacher and autonomous that a of English also language is an that be is an in which multiple to a communicative of Lantolf Walqui, that the that language as a of to in as researchers have (e.g., van Lier, 2004), these for ELs and their teachers have within the of While and are a knowledge We must to these to the of teachers and in the research of a knowledge for teaching ELs that linguistic research and the process as of be a toward this of teachers, researchers, teacher and scholars is in a to a pedagogy of into to ELs and all students in a with students and who with them on an to experiences which to of a with the that school in and in first which as a in learning that and students as as to the of English as their to a of and in language to Although and to to in that an who and that a experience challenges in in the multiple that to the by students knowledge of the and have their and and the with them as and as of the first a a time to that and students to their to a and their a in to While of to the to in the English language who linguistic as the students their first language as in the learning of their to a of to and all because for their the the because students a larger students their of them to larger of equity and the and that of social to to be that the in of which to in the to the of in the and the a that students to the to the of to the and that be to to the as students for the a second time with a that while of the language in be by the of equity and knowledge of the context of the and the of be of the an in the of influences on teaching and is that the of neoliberalism will in the is that the of and the logic of dominant of pedagogy and their will be by concepts such as and for ELs and their teachers, a pedagogy of into an educative that dominant of their and This decentering language and teachers and students Although this is into second language learning, teachers and students we that a pedagogy of into of these as that as a to the neoliberal in the of ELs attention to the interaction of these and a than considering them in the the of knowledge which we have and that may of teachers and students in a neoliberal as of a a larger pedagogy of into the of sociocultural and in to into ELs’ the neoliberal logic of educative and researchers, teacher educators, teachers, students and school their as in a by into approaches to teaching and learning for ELs be and the tacit neoliberal logic to collective of all these have to educative experiences that are and for teachers and ELs.
Martin et al. (Mon,) studied this question.