Texts and countertexts: dismantling dominating discourses through decolonizing and antiracist pedagogies

In the context of resurgent nativism and political backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion, this special issue of Language Awareness examines how language educators across global contexts are enacting decolonizing and antiracist pedagogies to dismantle dominating discourses that continue to structure classroom life. Drawing on a range of critical theories, contributors explore how colonial and racist ideologies are reproduced through curriculum, assessment, policy, and interaction, and how these logics can be challenged through critical engagement with texts and countertexts. The special issue foregrounds decolonizing and antiracist literacies as critical practices and dispositions that refuse deficit framings of racialised learners, legitimize subaltern knowledges, and cultivate language awareness grounded in social justice. Contributors document how teachers and learners mobilize countertexts to reframe epistemic authority, contest Eurocentric norms, and reimagine classrooms as sites of resistance and solidarity. While acknowledging institutional and ideological constraints, the special issue affirms that language education can serve as a space for transformative pedagogical practice. Together, these articles offer frameworks and empirical illustrations for how language teachers and learners might critically read, write, and reauthor the word and the world.