Critical teacher education for equitable learning in multilingual classrooms: a possible way forward

Abstract

ABSTRACT Addressing the ongoing calls to reform teacher education to prepare future teachers to serve students from diverse backgrounds, this introduction reviews recent developments in teacher education to situate our thematic issue on critical teacher education for equitable learning in multilingual classrooms. The five empirical papers and two commentaries included in this issue focus on the connection between language, power, and critical consciousness to address equity concerns in teacher education as it pertains to supporting multilingual learners, asking: how do teacher education programs prepare teachers to work with diverse students in schools where there exists a long-standing history of marginalization and discrimination based on racial, economic, social backgrounds? In this introductory paper, we discuss the contributions of the papers included in the issue and share a vision for new ways for reimagining teacher education for multilingual learners.