Positioning Radical Love through Narrative Inquiry to Foster Transformative Language Identities in the Multilingual Classroom

Oct 15, 2026

文章探讨在多语课堂中如何通过叙事探究（narrative inquiry）重塑语言身份，并对英语教学领域中的“白人主流英语”与“whiteness”进行去中心化。作者指出多语学生在英语学习情境中处于压迫性制度之内，需理解语言如何参与歧视。文中提出教师可通过倾听彼此经验、营造安全避风处（hush-harbors）并融入“激进之爱”（radical love），同时引入来自边缘群体作者的反叙事，以实现反种族主义教学与归属感。

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages16

Reading Time40 min

AccessFree to download

The Story of How and Why We Came to This Work

Cristina’s Story

Positioning Radical Love through Narrative Inquiry to Foster Transformative Language Identities in the Multilingual Classroom Multilingual students learning English are situated in systems of oppression that require a critical understanding of the role that language plays in discrimination. We describe how we create opportunities to develop and implement critical pedagogies that aim to challenge white mainstream English (Baker-Bell, 2020) as the default language in our multilingual classroom spaces and detail how our pedagogies can contribute to decentering “whiteness” in English Language Teaching (Motha, 2014). Through narrative inquiry, we demonstrate how teachers can develop antiracist pedagogies in ELT by actively listening to each other’s experiences, forming hush-harbors (Kynard, 2010), and integrating radical love (hooks, 2001) . Additionally, exposing students to counternarratives from marginalized writers diversifies and enriches their learning experience. These pedagogical practices create opportunities for students’ growth by centering love, humanizing education, and deliberately creating a sense of belonging. Keywords: linguistic justice, antiracist pedagogies, narrative inquiry, identity, transformation. The Story of How and Why We Came to This Work The seed for this project was scholars. In this article, we planted in the summer of 2020, a point of inflection in our lives as teacherwill be sharing our stories of how, during that time, we came together (RAsheda Young, PhD student in an applied linguistics and composition program where Cristina taught as faculty) as we grappled with structural racism and its relationship to our identities and those of our multilingual students. As other scholars have described recently, by that time, the Covid-19 pandemic had revealed more dramatically than ever the deep structural inequities permeating the U.S. society. For example, Latinx populations (many of which are Spanish speaking) were more exposed to the virus and required language interpretation services for medical assistance in contexts where English was the medium of communication, despite the fact that Spanish was the “predominant language spoken” in those spaces (Mulpur & Turner, 2021) . In the context of a pandemic, English-only policies mattered and had serious consequences for some patients. As reported in an NPR article,“(p)atients who didn't speak much, if any, English had a 35% greater chance of death”(Bebinger, 2021) . This is just an example of how monolingual policies are inherently inequitable and affect marginalized demographics’ access to basic needs. As teacher-scholars, we must account for how language dynamics reveal deeper inequalities (e.g., on health, education, civic engagement, self-perceptions, etc. ) . In this context of wider and international reckoning with systemic racism during the Covid-19 pandemic, our paths crossed as part of the graduate PhD program in applied linguistics and composition studies. We came together in the program, whose goals were to inquire about critical language pedagogies for various demographics, from multilingual international students in the U.S. (so-called ESL students) to US-born linguistically diverse students. Specifically, we connected in two courses during the summer of 2020. The courses were about 1) multilingual literacies and 2) language, writing, and identity in transnational education, respectively. Both courses were conducted online, although the university was in a predominantly white rural part of the U.S. Northeast. While Cristina was physically located in this context, RAsheda was a few hours away in a more urban context. Our relationship developed as part of the courses but continued throughout the following year. In what follows, we take turns to tell the story of how we joined forces and began developing antiracist pedagogies that span specific demographics and address the larger systemic structures of racism impacting students

FAQs

文章关注多语课堂中的什么核心问题？

文章关注多语学生在英语学习系统中面临的压迫，以及语言在歧视中的作用。并强调需要批判性理解英语教学中“白人主流英语”的默认地位。

作者如何用叙事探究来支持反种族主义教学？

作者认为教师可以通过叙事探究发展反种族主义教学：主动倾听彼此经验、形成安全避风处（hush-harbors），并融入“激进之爱”（radical love）。

文中提到的教学实践如何帮助学生成长？

这些实践通过将爱置于中心、使教育更具人性化，并有意识地创造归属感，来为学生的成长提供机会。同时，通过引入反叙事丰富学习体验。

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Mafia Boss