Research: Understanding English Teachers’ Ideological Becoming in the Work Toward Linguistic Justice

Abstract

In this article, we explore the ideological becoming (Bakhtin, 1981) of secondary and college English teachers as they participated in professional learning communities and later codesigned pedagogical innovations that aimed to further develop teachers’ and students’ critical language awareness. Drawing on qualitative data from two design-based research studies, our cases demonstrate the impact of hegemonic and counter-hegemonic authoritative discourses as well as diverse internally persuasive discourses on the participating teachers’ ideological becoming. Our cases also illustrate the complicated and contradictory nature of developing critically conscious internally persuasive discourses. The findings suggest the importance of sustained professional learning across a teaching life if we are truly committed to working toward linguistic justice in schools and communities.