Rethinking English in Education: The Paradoxes of Labelling the “Other”

Abstract

ABSTRACT Research into how to support student teachers to work with diverse school students frequently uses a narrow, Anglocentric lens based on binary language speaker labels. This lens limits understandings of the complex factors impacting any individual’s ability to teach inclusively. Given the increases in diversity in the tertiary sector, we therefore sought to explore four teacher educators' perceptions of two inclusive literacy activities they taught that drew on their students’ rich knowledge in, and of, English to understand multilingual classrooms. An experiential checklist was employed to thematically analyse the psychological and sociocultural classroom experiences together with Bourdieu’s habitus and field theories with key findings revealing key aspects in activity design both affirmed and challenged some participants’ thinking. However, critical in disrupting deficit binaries that position us all as “others” was the need to understand how staff and students see themselves as English language speakers.