Critical Multilingual Language Awareness, Antiracism, and Raciolinguicized Subjectivities in Teacher Education

Abstract Race and language collaborate in structuring educational inequities, creating urgency for teacher education to equip all teachers to equitably serve racialized multilinguals as antiracist language educators. Emphasizing the inseparability of racial and linguistic justice, this article examines teacher candidates' (TCs') learning journeys relating to critical multilingual language awareness (CMLA) and antiracism. It responds to calls for critical reflexivity surrounding raciolinguicized subjectivities in teacher education, as part of disrupting monolingual ideologies and White normativity. Employing case study methodology within critical action research, this article examines the experiences of three elementary TCs with contrasting raciolinguicized subjectivities during English language arts coursework and practicum in a Canadian B.Ed. program. Theoretically informed by CMLA, raciolinguicized subjectivities, and raciolinguistics in teacher education, this article investigates the evolution of TCs' visions for and pedagogical enactments of antiracism and CMLA over coursework and practicum, and the relationships between TCs' raciolinguicized subjectivities and their learning journeys. Findings demonstrate that critical engagement with raciolinguicized subjectivities supported TCs to denaturalize systemic racism and monolingual ideologies while enriching TCs' visions for antiracist multilingual pedagogies. However, (racialized) power dynamics in practicum complicated TCs' pedagogical enactments. Implications address the need to destabilize White institutional listening to make the contributions of racialized multilinguals more visible in teacher education.