Enacting a Raciolinguistic Perspective for the “New Mainstream” in Literacy Classrooms

This chapter contributes to the conversation on reconceptualizing literacy teacher education through exploring the fallout of neoliberal sensibilities on U.S. schools. It continues to describe the new mainstream to be primarily racialized bi/multilingual students that defy the mono-mainstream assumption. The chapter then defines the mono-mainstream assumption that surreptitiously pervades educational systems with its deleterious effects on students. To combat this, the author explores how literacy teachers can enact a language architecture framework as an extension of a raciolinguistic perspective with practical classroom examples, including the terms used to describe students, their languages and literacies, how to negotiate hegemonic systems of accountability, specific pedagogical practices, and continued teacher reflexivity.

The Politics of Reflexivity in Music Teachers’ Intercultural Dialogue

In this chapter, we explore the politics of music teacher reflexivity that emerged in a transnational collaboration between two institutions, the Nepal Music Center (NMC) and the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki when co-developing intercultural music teacher education. We examine in particular the reflexivity in this intercultural dialogue and how the collaboration became a complex field of issues of power related to social positions and epistemologies. Such reflexivity may act as an invitation to discomfort but at the same time as an invitation to deep professional learning. The empirical material was generated in the flow of activities within teachers’ pedagogical studies organized by the Sibelius Academy for the NMC teachers in Nepal. The authors’ experiences and the omnipresent colonial setting were taken as a backdrop of the overall interpretation and discussion. We argue that in an intercultural dialogue, negotiating one’s premises, stance, and the ethical relations with the Other requires reflection on one’s existential groundings. However, professional learning in intercultural dialogue is prone to persistent paradoxes that cannot be swiped away, or even solved. The politics of reflexivity thus keeps the questions open, with no final answers or ultimate solutions.

Keeping It Relevant: Student-Centered Reflections, Choices, and Actions of Critical Race Womanist Pedagogues

This article examines how three Black women educators disrupt oppressive norms in urban schooling through their applications of critical race womanist pedagogy (CRWP). Using narrative excerpts formed from semi-structured interviews exploring how they contend with sociopolitical injustices through their pedagogical choices and actions, CRWP characterizes their daily classroom practices in four ways: (1) teacher reflexivity and student-centered curriculum, (2) authentic and reality-based curriculum, (3) culturally and politically relevant pedagogy, and (4) self-actualization and capacity-oriented approaches. Concretizing enactments of CRWP can inform the work of teachers, teacher educators, and administrators committed to prioritizing student-centered, politicized, academically responsive, and asset-based urban education.

Réflexion épistémologique en didactique du français langue étrangère sur la place de la grammaire de l’oralité?

This chapter aims to highlight that learners of the French as a foreign language need to understand the characteristic patterns of oral grammar in order to be autonomous in their communication. I identify the main trends in the way spoken discourse (lexical and syntactic) is organized, which differs from the explanations of traditional morphological grammars. These orientations, in the service of teacher reflexivity, help to move away from representations based on the ideological paradigm of several centuries of history that must first be understood. The insights from oral linguistics studies and authentic resources underpin our discussion.

How democratic is popular music in Finnish schools? Exploring popular music education through intersectionality

In this article, we use intersectionality as a theoretical lens to explore the negotiations in popular music education (PME) in one Finnish upper elementary classroom. By considering the hegemonic position of PME in Finnish schools, two researchers engaged in inter-reflexivity in order to shift the focus from popular music ‘itself’ to the sociocultural structures and conditions in which PME is implemented. PME has often been treated as the democratizer of music education. In this article, however, we argue that the democratic potential of PME depends on the pedagogical implementation of the practice. Furthermore, we argue that for such education to become democratic, the teacher needs to identify the intersectional power structures that shape interaction between people so as to become aware of the school culture and its norms. In this process, the ongoing development of teacher reflexivity plays an essential role.