‘We couldn’t share who we are without being able to draw on this “twoness”’: lessons for higher education in integrating linguistic and racial justice in the United States

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article describes a program which centered multilingualism and racial justice in higher education in an elementary teacher education program in the United States. By using the theory of ideological clarity, we sought to understand learning outcomes for teacher candidates (TCs) and their contexts, and make salient the racial and linguistic intersections within TCs' identities/subjectivities. We show that by drawing significantly on candidates' linguistic, racial, and cultural resources, and intentionally supporting them within their teacher development, the program allowed TCs to develop critical awareness of ongoing educational inequities. At the same time, how candidates take up linguistic justice varies according to their raciolinguicized subjectivities while their reflections and enactments around multilingualism cannot necessarily be equated with taking a stance towards racial justice. We, therefore, advocate for higher education to continue establishing multilingual pedagogies through pedagogies and frameworks that concurrently address racism and decenter Whiteness.