Privilege plays a significant role in world language (WL) education. Studying what some still refer to as "foreign" language has been described as a colonialist, imperialist, and elitist endeavor (Lanvers, 2017; Macedo, 2019) that is targeted toward white students and students with ample resources. Scholars also suggest that there is a need for more intentional critical and culturally sustaining pedagogies in WL education to address issues of equity in both the curriculum and instruction (Baggett, 2020; Glynn et al., 2018; Osborn, 2006). Equity issues, structural and organizational, have been defined more broadly in schooling contexts, such as tracking, retention, standardized testing, curriculum, pedagogy, climate and physical structure, disciplinary policies, and the limited roles of students, teachers, families, and communities (Nieto & Bode, 2018). However, the extent to which WL teachers, supervisors, and administrators are aware of these threats to justice and equity, or may be working to dismantle them, is less clear.
The framework that guided this study emphasizes the dialectical relationship between institutional structures and agency (Sewell, 1992). This mixed methods study involved 236 WL teachers and 12 supervisors and aims to answer the following research questions: (1) What are WL educators' and WL supervisors' perceptions of equity issues in their schools, communities, and WL programs? (2) What are WL teachers and supervisors doing in response to these issues? The findings from a questionnaire revealed that although the teachers could identify key equity issues in their schools, some still felt that the issues had little impact on their programs. The teachers' agency to take action and address the equity issues also varied greatly from passive action to sustained, engaged action. Focus groups with WL supervisors demonstrated that although they were able to more easily identify equity issues affecting language programs, they varied in their abilities to describe meaningful, effective steps toward addressing the issues.
Baggett, H. (2020). Relevance, representation, and responsibility: Exploring WL
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