Exploring Preservice Teachers' Implicit Language and Literacy Ideologies Related to Urban Schooling

• In Event: Preparing Teachers to Work in Urban Settings

Abstract

This qualitative study highlights the ways three pre-service teachers’(PSTs) implicit ideologies about language and literacy were visible in their discussions about urban schooling.
Through a series of four interviews over their final two years in an urban-focused elementary education licensure program, this analysis demonstrates how these PSTs primarily tended to reinforce standardized language ideologies, rather than disrupt them. Although some of the PSTs recognized the importance of language in teaching and learning, they all tended to position linguistic diversity as interference or inappropriate for school, and some demonstrated static conceptions of literacy development. Ultimately, this study reveals ways PSTs’ underlying language ideologies manifest in their understandings of teaching, learning, students, and urban communities.

Authors

• Rebecca Woodard, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Arthi B. Rao, University of Illinois at Chicago