Where is World Language Education in Teacher Education?

• In Event: Where in the World are World Languages?

Abstract

Language study within U.S. teacher preparation is typically housed under Bilingual Education (BE), English Language Arts (ELA), or Foreign (World) Languages (WLs) designations. These distinctions have been naturalized over time to reflect purported language proficiencies which range from deficit ideologies of BE semilingualism (Flores & Rosa, 2015) to those focused on ELA as a nationalizing (Brutt-Griffler, 2002; de los Ríos et al., 2019) force via high culture and literature, and finally, a WLs-based neoliberal market-oriented (Glynn & Wassell, 2018) preparation for the elite to travel and conduct business. Whereas during the colonial (Wiley, 2014) era, the study of Greek and Latin, or the classics, was considered as central to a liberal arts education, historical and sociopolitical pressures during and throughout the U.S. postbellum and reconstruction periods influenced steady waves of education reform which fractured and hierarchized access to language study, and WLs in particular, based on racial capitalism– i.e. power.


Within the context of language education, WLs are not categorized with ELA nor with BE. In order to investigate WLs within the educational context, one must affiliate with organizations for each language or ‘language family’ (e.g. Lusophone, Hispanophone, etc.) which reflect organizational regimentation (Rosenbusch, 2005) dividing the study of WLs into classics (Greek and Latin), modern foreign languages, language specific departments, or in the case of African and Indigenous languages, departments of anthropology, ethnic or global studies. This split mirrors the genesis of anthropology as a discipline in its attempts to exotify, classify, then study (Mudimbe, 1941) the ‘Other’ as a part of Western colonial expansion, wherein languages of empires were acquired solely for and through missions efforts, while the language practices of colonized communities were considered valuable primarily for conversion purposes but otherwise seen as punishable (wa’ Thiongo, 1998) in colonial schools. Within the U.S. context, the elevation of English at the expense of Africanized/Indigenous languages solidified the creation of what I argue are language tracks in U.S. schooling among BE, ELA and WL study. Wartime (Daniels, 1990) marginalization notwithstanding, access to WL study in the modern U.S. era falls along lines of hierarchical racialization. As such, there are deleterious implications for institutionalizing this hierarchization and separation of WLs from the larger body of education research.


My commentary will explore points of rupture and discursive continuity regarding access to language study in U.S. public schooling reflecting key historical and sociopolitical moments that directly impact(ed) teacher preparation. These include anti-Black and anti-Indigenous language planning (Baugh, 2015) and anti-literacy laws and segregated industrial schools (Anderson, 1988), English-only and wartime policies (Daniels, 1990), the second Morrill Act and expansion of historically Black colleges and universities (Goings & O’Connor, 2024) and the Black tax in education (Foster, 1997) – the last of which underscores segregation in housing and school districting (Alexander, 2000) while sharpening divisions among schools that do/not offer advanced WL study. Finally, I will outline implications of consistent Black WL study historically and presently as guiding lights towards world languaging and WL education futures. [500 words]

Author

• Tasha Austin, University at Buffalo - SUNY