The purpose of the course is to explore current debates in the field of language education that address language as a social practice. Students will investigate the way language constructs and is constructed by a wide variety of social relationships, including those between writer and reader, teacher and student, classroom and community, test maker and test taker, researcher and researched. Students will consider how gendered/raced/classed identities are negotiated within such social relationships. They will also explore how social relations of power can both constrain and enable the range of educational possibilities available to both learners and teachers.