Session Information
ERG SES H 04, Language and Education
Paper Session
Contribution
Social justice is not alien to the teaching of foreign languages. Nowadays, social justice is commonly viewed from three different perspectives: as a distribution of resources (Rawls, 1971), as the guarantee of opportunities and life choices (Sen, 2009, Nussbaum, 2011) and the recognition of cultural differences as well as the redistribution of socioeconomic resources (Fraser, 1997). Thus, current practices of language teaching are necessarily challenged in economic, sociocultural and political levels, especially when working in disadvantaged environments. In particular, it is my interest to examine the sorts of understandings of social justice that a group of teachers of English in Colombian rural areas have developed in their professional practice focusing on three main aspects: the physical resouces, the social impact and the recognition of the sociocultural local conditions. Physical resources include school locations and facilities, wages, transportation and the like. The social impact involves the teachers’ social roles, their mediation to follow linguistic policies, the types of social responsibilities, the alleged ideas of learning a foreign language as a potential generator of further opportunities for students; the recognition of sociocultural conditions related to specific local cultural needs, interests and issues (e.g.: poverty, sexism, racism) to be/not be addressed in the language classroom.
To examine the connections between the teaching of foreign languages and social justice, the Colombian context offer an interesting case. There is a current national linguistic policy of Spanish-English bilingualism, English is the foreign language that appears in the nationwide curriculum, there is a huge economic and cultural gap between rural and urban areas, there are other 68 indigenous languages that are being discriminated in the policies, in some rural areas English does not represent any interest whatsoever for the population. In this context, rural teachers of English are facing different types of professional challenges at the levels of public policy, local realities, contextual needs, global demands and sociocultural conditions, which in turn are intricately related to aspects of social justice. This presentation attempts to share my doctoral dissertation that is underpinned in the following research questions: What understandings towards social justice do Colombian rural teachers have at the socio-cultural, political and professional level? How do rural language teachers position themselves towards social justice in their professional environments? What are language teachers’ discourses about what they consider socio-culturally just in terms of foreign language teaching in rural areas? How do rural language teachers make sense of linguistic national demands in relation to local issues of social justice?
As indicated, issues of social justice will be examined based on the theoretical proposals of Nussbaum (2011); Rawls (1971); Sen (2009); and Fraser (1997). Similarly, the teaching of foreign languages in connection to social justice demands a critical view of the practice of language teaching that goes beyond the confines of linguistic achievement or proficiency (Kumaravadivelu, 2003, Giroux, 1988). Finally, the discussion of social justice in connection to language teaching will be done by addressing the idea of language as a local practice (Pennycook, 2010).
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
ESIN 2011. Narrative Analysis Approaches. Qualitative Research Methods in Psychology: Combining Core Approaches. New York: Open University Press. FRASER, N. 1997. Justice interruptus : Critical reflections on the "postsocialist" condition, New York, Routledge. GIROUX, H. A. 1988. Teachers as intellectuals : toward a critical pedagogy of learning, Granby, Mass., Bergin & Garvey. JOHNSON, K. E. & GOLOMBEK, P. R. 2002. Teachers' narrative inquiry as professional development, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. KUMARAVADIVELU, B. 2003. Beyond methods : macrostrategies for language teaching, New Haven, Conn. ; London, Yale University Press. NUSSBAUM, M. 2011. Creating Capabilities, USA, Harvard University Press. PENNYCOOK, A. 2010. Language as a local practice, Milton Park, Abingdon ; New York, Routledge. RAWLS, J. 1971. A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. SCOTT, D. & MORRISON, M. 2006. Key Ideas in Educational Research, New York, Continuum International Publishing Group. SEN, A. 2009. The idea of justice, London, Allen Lane. WEBSTER, L. & MERTOVA, P. 2007. Using narrative inquiry as a research method : an introduction to using critical event narrative
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