In the field of language education, there is an increased recognition that equity, diversity, inclusion, and social justice should be established in every aspect of teaching and learning. This trend exists against the backdrop of broader sociopolitical contexts that are becoming more volatile and threatening to human existence, requiring a greater promotion of sustainability of humankind and the non-human world. Under this circumstance, language education, with its aim to foster communicative competence, contributes to honoring human dignity and building solidarity across differences. Central to this vision is justice-affirming language teaching for raising critical consciousness of how oppressive forces affect the lives of individuals who are positioned differently in power hierarchies. Simultaneously, this framework requires praxis: critical reflection for unlearning and a commitment to putting relearned critical perspectives into action (Freire, 1998). In this essay, I will outline a conceptual foundation of justice-affirming language teaching, challenges that need to be overcome, and its applications to the context of Japan.
Conceptual Framework
Justice-affirming language teaching advocated here is consistent with critical pedagogy, antiracism, decolonial/anticolonial thinking and praxis, and intersectional justice. These orientations work toward advancing justice.
First, critical pedagogy, a major progressive educational movement in North America in the 1980s, was influenced by transformative pedagogy proposed by a Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire (1998). It emphasizes the importance of raising critical consciousness of the system of domination and subordination reproduced by power inequity between groups (Crookes, 2021). One of the important concepts of critical pedagogy is praxis—committed critical reflection and action for transformation. Oftentimes, critical activities remain in the realm of thinking and talking without leading to concrete actions. Praxis disrupts this tendency and offers an important goal for critical engagement.
Second, as issues of race, racialization, and racism have attracted greater scholarly attention in language education, antiracism has begun to play an important role in language education (Von Esch et al., 2020). One of the core theoretical foundations is critical race theory, which originated in critical legal studies in the United States and illuminates the socially entrenched reality of racism, while recognizing heterogeneous experiences of racialized people. Intersectionality between race and language is often overlooked in institutional discourse but constitutes a central focus in language education as Rosa and Flores (2017) discussed in terms of raciolinguistic ideologies.
Third, decolonial perspectives (Canagarajah, 2023) and anticolonial praxis (Dei, 2019) offer important insights. For example, they challenge the enduring effects of British and American settler colonialism as reflected in the hegemony of English, whiteness, standardized language, and Eurocentric knowledge. They also problematize the persisting anti-Indigenous and anti-Black racism as well as the exclusion of knowledge produced by minoritized people and those in the global South. As such, decolonial and anticolonial perspectives have a synergetic relationship with the contestation of epistemological racism, defined as racial biases in our knowledge production and consumption as seen in curricula, textbooks, and scholarly materials (Kubota, 2020).
Lastly, recognizing intersectionality is the key to understanding the complexity of human experiences in language teaching, learning, and use. Although original discussions of intersectionality in the United States illuminated the gendered and racialized experiences of Black women whose marginality was distinct from those experienced by Black men or White women, it reminds us that experiences of language users cannot be fully understood without considering heterogeneous identities, including race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, and disability that are intertwined in complex ways.
Challenges
These critical perspectives invite teachers and learners to question taken-for-granted assumptions and foster justice-affirming practices. However, there are challenges and caveats.
First, coloniality and Eurocentrism are deeply entrenched in societies and institutions. Needless to say, critical perspectives are always contested by those who want to preserve the status quo. Moreover, what prevents social change today is neoliberalism—a capitalist ideology leveraged by exacerbated competition and self-reliance to boost the free-market economy, while undermining the social safety net. Students are expected to build their competitive edge by developing skills measured against a set of rigid standards that are devoid of criticality. Furthermore, institutions and instructors are held accountable for their effectiveness by demonstrating measurable evidence, while scholars are pressured to publish in prestigious venues that privilege the standards of the global North. In order to survive, we are all likely to become complicit with neoliberal values and practices. Even if we resist the normative language ideology by encouraging students to translanguage, doing so will not lead to transformation unless the neoliberal assessment system is changed. Disrupting the system is, thus, essential.
Second, justice-based discourses are not universally embraced. Certain discourses of justice (e.g., LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, or even antiracism) may be culturally or contextually specific. Thus, insisting that one version of social justice should be universally applied is contradictory to the decolonial principle and instead more aligned with a colonial mechanism of domination. Although this poses a huge challenge, critical professionals need to explore ways to balance the tension between universality and contextuality through strategic and dialogic approaches without either relying on indoctrination or giving up altogether.
Third, related to the previous point, justice discourse may work against a certain justice-deserving group or serve ideological interests of a certain group. This is observed in the current disaster in Gaza. Certainly, justice is needed for the survival and thriving of every human being, but the plurality of the meaning of justice requires us to avoid simplifying or romanticizing justice and it instead invites us to scrutinize what it means to protect human dignity and lives.
Fourth, minoritized people—Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC), nonnative language users, women, sexual minorities—are not necessarily advocates of antiracist and decolonial perspectives. As Kumaravadivelu (2016) pointed out, many of us are complicit with colonial hegemony and reproducing coloniality.
Finally, we tend to discuss and promote justice-affirming discourses only within our academic bubbles. Our institutions rarely hold individuals accountable for such discussions. Transforming the real world is only enabled by praxis (Freire, 1998) or result-oriented strategic actions (Kumaravadivelu, 2016). In short, we must walk the talk. Scholars as knowledge producers are expected to engage with more public scholarship by sharing their research with teachers, students, and the general public in accessible ways (Kubota, 2023b).
Relevance to Japan
How does the above discussion apply to the context of language teaching in Japan? Like elsewhere, social injustice exists in many forms. Anti-BIPOC racism is prevalent, coupled with enduring colonial thinking and acting. This is seen in the discrimination against Indigenous peoples, zainichi Koreans, burakumin, and people of color in Japan. The flip side is the preferential treatment of white people who are often positioned as English speakers (Kubota, 2023a). Furthermore, other forms of discrimination exist related to gender, LGBTQ+, disability, and more. Given that learning to communicate in another language is part of a larger educational mission to foster understanding across differences, developing awareness of these issues plays a pivotal role in pedagogy. What is especially important is to understand Japan’s colonial history as well as European colonialism and ongoing coloniality that have given rise to unequal global structures involving race, language, and culture. In discussing these issues, care should be taken to create a safe space for all members so that they feel protected when participating in critical explorations.
In conclusion, justice-affirming language teaching is reflective, inclusive, and praxis-oriented. Because individuals are positioned differently in multilayered power relations, they may find critical discussions either empowering or uncomfortable. Justice-affirming language teaching requires dialogic engagement, rather than indoctrination, as well as compassion toward the vulnerability involved in unlearning and relearning.
References
Canagarajah, S. (2023). Decolonization as pedagogy: A praxis of ‘becoming’ in ELT. ELT Journal, 77(3), 283–293. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccad017
Crookes, G. V. (2021). Critical language pedagogy: An introduction to principles and values. ELT Journal, 75(3), 247–255. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccab020
Dei, G. J. S. (2019). Foreword. In A. Zainub (Ed.), Decolonization and anti-colonial praxis (pp. vii–x). Brill.
Freire, P. (1998). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum.
Kubota, R. (2020). Confronting epistemological racism, decolonizing scholarly knowledge: Race and gender in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics, 41(5), 712–732. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amz033
Kubota, R. (2023a). Jinshu to kotoba to pawaa: Fikushon shōsetsu ga gengo kyōiku ni ataeru jisa (人種とことばとパワー —フィクション小説が言語教育に与える示唆—) [Race, language, and power: Fiction novels and their implications for language education]. The Japanese Journal of Language in Society, 26(1), 49–63. https://doi.org/10.19024/jajls.26.1_49
Kubota, R. (2023b). Linking research to transforming the real world: Critical language studies for the next 20 years. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 20(1), 4–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/15427587.2022.2159826
Kumaravadivelu, B. (2016). The decolonial option in English teaching: Can the subaltern act? TESOL Quarterly, 50(1), 66–85. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.202
Rosa, J., & Flores, N. (2017). Unsettling race and language: Toward a raciolinguistic perspective. Language in Society, 46(5), 621–647. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404517000562
Von Esch, K. S., Motha, S., & Kubota, R. (2020). Race and language teaching. Language Teaching, 53(4), 391–421. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261444820000269
Ryuko Kubota is a professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at University of British Columbia. Her research draws on critical approaches to language education, especially focusing on antiracism, intersectional justice, language ideologies, and critical pedagogies. Previously, she taught EFL in public schools in Japan and JFL in higher education in the United States. She is a co-editor of Discourses of Identity: Language Learning, Teaching, and Reclamation Perspectives in Japan (Mielick et al., 2023).
Plenary Abstract
Justice-Affirming Language Teaching: From Envisioning to Engagement of Praxis
As threats to human dignity and existence are growing in our society, language educators have increasingly recognized the importance of equity, diversity, inclusion, and social justice. This trend is consistent with our professional mission to promote cross-cultural communication which contributes to protecting human dignity and building solidarity across differences. Central to this mission is justice-affirming language teaching for raising critical consciousness of how oppressive forces affect the lives of individuals who are positioned differently in power hierarchies. This pedagogical framework also requires what Paulo Freire called “praxis” or committed critical reflection and action for transformation. In this presentation, I will outline the conceptual foundation of justice-affirming language teaching by shedding light on critical pedagogy, antiracism, decolonial/anticolonial thinking and praxis, and intersectional justice. While these orientations synergically work to advance justice, they are also confronted with obstacles. They include enduring coloniality and Eurocentrism, neoliberal ideology that imposes norm-based accountability, a risk of becoming complicit with normative ideas and practices, a tension between universal rights and the contextual meaning of justice, and a tendency to merely think or talk but not act. One way of exercising praxis is mobilizing knowledge in the form of public scholarship. I will share some examples and invite the audience to explore how a justice-affirming vision can be put into praxis.
基調講演
正義を肯定する言語教育 −プラクシスの構想から実践へ−
久保田竜子
ブリティッシュコロンビア大学
人間の尊厳と存在がますます脅かされている社会において、言語教育者は、公正、多様性、包摂、ならびに社会正義の重要性の認識を高めている。この動きは、私たちの使命である異文化間コミュニケーションの促進と合致し、それは人間の尊厳の尊重とあらゆる差異を超えた連帯の構築に貢献する。その中心にあるのは正義を肯定する言語教育である。この教育は、権力のヒエラルキーの中で階層化された人々が、抑圧の力からどのように影響を受けているのかを批判的に認識することを目指す。この教育的枠組みの中で必要とされるのは、変革を目指した批判的内省と実行であり、パウロ・フレイレはこれを「プラクシス」と呼んだ。この発表では、クリティカルペダゴジー、反レイシズム、脱植民地主義•反植民地主義的思考と実践、そして交差性を踏まえた正義に光をあてることで、正義を肯定する言語教育の概念基盤を概説する。これらのアプローチは正義の実現に向けて相互作用すると同時に、難題も抱えている。例えば、根強い植民地主義と西欧中心主義、規範に基づいた説明責任を強いる新自由主義のイデオロギー、規範的思考・慣習に加担してしまう危険性、普遍的権利という概念と状況により意味合いが異なる正義との緊張関係、単に考えたり語ったりするだけで行動を怠る傾向などである。考えを行動に移すプラクシスとして、学問知識を大衆と共有する方策がある。いくつかの例を示しながら、どのように正義を肯定する構想を実践につなげることができるのかを探ってみる。
Workshop Abstract
Embracing the Diversity of English and English Users
In English language teaching and sociolinguistics research, the heterogeneity of English has been discussed in terms of World Englishes, English as a lingua franca, English as an international language, and nonnative speakerness, among others. Although these perspectives challenge the normative understanding of language forms and practices, including phonological, lexicogrammatical, pragmatic, and discourse features, they tend to overlook interactional experiences of language users with various intersectional identities. Moreover, as Kumaravadivelu (2016) points out, scholars and professionals who engage in intellectual critiques of normative ideologies, such as native speakerism and the superiority of standardized language, often fail to practice what they advocate in their professional discourses. Overall, critical discussions tend to be confined in academic bubbles and devoid of praxis—committed critical reflection and action for transformation (Freire, 1998). This workshop will provide an overview of the importance of focusing on language users by addressing the intersectionality of race and language as an example and introduce a documentary film making project as a form of public scholarship. The audience will be invited to generate ideas of how the film can be used for raising critical consciousness and to brainstorm similar projects which can be developed using praxis.
ワークショップ
英語と英語使用者の多様性を包みこむ実践
久保田竜子
ブリティッシュコロンビア大学
英語教育や社会言語学の研究では、世界英語、共通語としての英語、国際語としての英語、非母語話者などの観点から英語の多様性が議論されてきた。これらの視点は、音韻・語彙・文法・談話の特徴を含む言語形式と言語使用に関する規範的理解を批判的にとらえる反面、多様な交差性のアイデンティティを持つ「言語使用者」がどのような言語体験をしているのかを見過ごす傾向がある。さらに、Kumaravadivelu（2016）が指摘するように、母語話者中心主義や標準言語の優越性などの規範的イデオロギーを理論的に批判する学者や専門家は、自ら提唱した内容の実践を怠りがちである。総じて批判的な議論は、学術活動の枠に閉じ込められがちであり、プラクシス、つまり変革のための批判的内省と行動（Freire, 1998）が欠けている。このワークショップでは、人種と言語の交差性を例として取り上げながら「言語使用者」に着目する重要性について論じ、学問を大衆と共有する目的で行ったドキュメンタリー映画製作プロジェクトを紹介する。批判的認識向上のためにこの映画をどのように活用できるのか、また、プラクシスを実践するためにどのような類似プロジェクトが開発できるのか、参加者と共に探る。
