Critical language awareness in teacher education: an experiment at the intersection of language, identity, and ideologies

The recent push to ban the teaching of critical perspectives in K-12 schools in the US has highlighted the need to equip future teachers with views that emphasise the inseparable connections among identity, language, and equity and the roles they have in supporting an inclusive and just society. This study explores possible effects of a critical language awareness (CLA) experiment on preservice teachers’ perceptions about seven measures, including their language and identity, their own language use, supporting students’ first language at home, using students’ ethnic identities in the classroom, their language ideologies, using students’ first language(s) in the classroom, and advocating for diverse students in the school. Survey data were collected from 97 preservice teachers (control = 51, experimental = 46). Findings suggest that the CLA experiment had a significant impact on four of the seven language and identity measures (e.g. supporting students’ first language(s) use in the classroom, advocating for diverse students in the school. Some of the demographic (e.g. language status) and background factors (e.g. exposure to cultural/racial diversity in life) appeared to have moderated some effects on participants’ perceptions. This study shows that critical content infused into the coursework through well-structured experiments can make a difference in preservice teachers’ perceptions.