LLED Research Seminar: How do raciolinguistic ideologies impact the way learners and teachers negotiate their identities?

Questioning the impact of racialized native speaker ideologies on linguistic identities of minoritized French immersion students 
Dr. Marika Kunnas

This presentation draws from my dissertation study investigating the experiences of racialized minority students in French immersion (FI) programs in Ontario. In this study, racialized minority FI students (n=3) shared counter-stories and created monologues about their experiences in FI. In stage 2, FI stakeholders (n=39) shared their own stories in an online questionnaire. Framed by critical language and race theory (Crump, 2014) and raciolinguistics (Rosa & Flores, 2017), this paper reports on the findings related to French speaker identity, understanding identity as multiple, complex, and ever-changing (Darvin & Norton, 2015). Despite studying French for their entire school careers, stage 1 participants refused to identify as a French speaker. While participants did not make a connection between their linguistic and racial identities, racialized native speaker (Wernicke, 2017) ideologies were prevalent in the participants’ conceptions of French speakers generally, who they viewed as white. In stage 2, a professor and a pre-service teacher shared stories of linguistic delegitimization and lack of belonging based on their racial and sexual identities.  Findings indicate that racialized ideologies are negatively impacting what identities French learners can claim and imagine for themselves. Oppressive ideologies, like racialized native speakerism, must be challenged in language education in order to support pluralistic linguistic identities. 

Marika Kunnas (she/her/elle) is an Assistant Professor in the department of Language and Literacy Education. She is a former secondary school French teacher in Ontario. Her research specializes in French immersion programs and antiracism. Broadly, Marika’s research interests lie within French, second/additional language, race, culture, decolonization, teacher education, and equity. 

How teachers negotiate their raciolinguistic identities in an FSL education context
Dr. Meike Wernicke

In this presentation I provide a brief overview of an ongoing SSHRC-funded project conducted with French pre-service teachers and their instructors in Western Canada. The study examines how teacher candidates understand their raciolinguistic identities in relation to professional practice, and the challenges/supports they encounter in validating their own and their students’ multilingual and ethnoracial identities. In my talk I focus on two analytical concepts we have used to interpret participants’ narratives : (1) the multilingual listener (Prasad, 2020) which builds on Garcia’s (2017) emphasis on developing critical multilingual language awareness; (2) Liu’s framework of critical reflection in teacher education (2015). I discuss some of the findings these analytical tools have produced so far in highlighting the impact of “White institutional listening” (Daniels & Varghese, 2020) in FSL education and how we might understand the processes of racialization manifested in participants’ accounts.

Meike Wernicke is an associate professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education. Her research with French language teachers in minority language settings engages critical questions on teacher professional learning and identity, and discursive processes that inform raciolinguistic ideologies and exclusion and educational settings. Her current research focuses on multilingual and decolonial approaches to center local Indigenous language reclamation and critical intercultural pedagogies in second language teacher education.

Identity, land, curriculum: Looking at key points in scholarship on the integration of Indigenous cultures into modern language teaching
Anastasia Zhuravleva

In this presentation I share part of my ongoing PhD project, which focuses on modern language teachers’ experiences of and perspectives on integrating Indigenous cultures and knowledges into their lessons and classroom materials. This topic has been discussed in various contexts, with some recent work conducted in New Zealand (Wang, 2023), Norway (Murray, 2022), Chile (Riquelme-Sanderson et al., 2024), Brazil (Rodrigues et al., 2019), and elsewhere. Within this literature review, I have tentatively singled out three factors that push researchers and practitioners to explore the integration of Indigenous cultures into modern language teaching: students’ identities, the land/territory where they teach, and curricular requirements.  So, I invite us to consider how these and other factors influence the choices teachers and researchers make across global contexts in their work, from teaching and materials selection to theoretical discussions on the goals of modern language education.

Anastasia Zhuravleva is a PhD candidate at the Department of Language and Literacy Education, University of British Columbia. Her research is focused on critical applied linguistics and culturally sustaining modern language pedagogy.  She has also worked on collaborative projects related to the history of Native Hawaiian settlement in British Columbia and anti-racism in language and literacy education.