Preservice teachers (PSTs) often come to teaching with dominant narratives about children, which can include linguistic prejudice. To combat that issue, some teacher preparation programs include instruction meant to instill the belief that all languages and dialects are equally valuable, moving PSTs away from the ideology of Dominant American English. An explicit discourse is shared that Dominant American English is not more valuable than other languages or dialects. At the same time, there is often a hidden discourse shared with PSTs that Dominant American English is important and that its proper use is valued. This hidden discourse occurs through the grading practices of some faculty members when the proper use of Dominant American English is considered as part of the PST's grade. A conflict then occurs between the explicit and hidden discourses that the PSTs receive related to language which is problematic in developing PSTs critical consciousness.
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In the United States, 80% of K-12 teachers are white, with the majority of them also being monolingual and middle-class (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2022a). This demographic is often mirrored in teacher preparation programs in colleges and universities. This differs from the student population in K-12 schools, which is increasingly racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse (NCES, 2022b, 2022c). Many scholars have called out the issues with whiteness in teacher education because this whiteness becomes reinforced in K-12 schooling (Calderon, 2006; Matias, Nishi, & Sarcedo, 2018; Picower, 2021; Salazar, 2018; Sleeter, 2001, 2017). Pre-service teachers (PSTs) often do not have opportunities during their teacher preparation programs to look critically at the dominant narratives about race, ethnicity, and language (Sleeter, 2017). Thus, PSTs maintain deficit perspectives about difference and require and reward (often unknowingly) white ways of knowing and being when they become practicing teachers (Drake & Oglesby, 2020; Haddix, 2015; Simmons, 2019).
Navarro and colleagues (2019) argued that work needs to be done in teacher education to “disrupt racial, cultural, and linguistic inequity that centers Whiteness and adversely impact students of Color in schools” (p. 282). One way to decenter Whiteness is through an intentional focus on the language and discourses that teacher educators and PSTs use. In terms of language, whiteness is connected with Dominant American English, also referred to as Standard English (Baker-Bell, 2020; Flores, 2016; Kubota & Lin, 2010; Lee, 2015; Marx, 2004; Orelus, 2013). In this chapter, the authors use the term Dominant American English, championed by Paris (2011), in place of Standard English “to reflect how dominant sociopolitical factors influence what is considered standard” (Lee & Handsfield, 2018, p. 159). The preference for whiteness and Dominant American English leads to a view of families from racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse backgrounds as deficit.
To that end, the authors have been working within their teacher preparation program to teach PSTs about strategies like using culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP), including practices like translanguaging, to help them create more successful and supportive classroom spaces for their future students. The inclusion of practices related to language is an important one. Language is a part of culture, and for many people, language is a piece of their identity. Anzaldúa (1987) explained, “Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity – I am my language. Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself” (p. 74). Rather than language being thought of as separate from culture, language is understood as central to one’s cultural identity. Therefore, practices that allow students to use and take pride in their language are an aspect of culturally relevant pedagogy that needs to be included in classrooms. Ladson-Billings includes use of home language as part of the cultural responsiveness that should occur in classrooms in some of her work on CRP (Ladson-Billings, 1995). This type of instruction connects to the culture of the individuals with differing home languages/dialects as well as serving to teach other children in the class about the validity of cultures that differ from their own.
To accomplish this goal, explicit instruction within programmatic coursework and fieldwork experiences is necessary. As Marx (2004) explained,