Critical Perspectives on Diversity in English Language Education

“This fascinating volume resonates deeply with my long-standing critiques of the 'feel-good' rhetoric of the diversity doxa in multidisciplinary research. Tavares and colleagues critique who gets to speak, who is labeled 'diverse' and who benefits from it. A must-read for those ready to be transformed, it offers radical alternatives rooted in care, justice and a deep un-re-thinking of English language education.”

-Fred Dervin, Professor of Multicultural Education, University of Helsinki, Finland

“This volume, carefully curated by Vander Tavares, reminds us that we need to handle terms with care. We do not want to be part of the problem by commodifying diversity as it if were the flavour of the season.”

-Darío Banegas, University of Edinburgh, UK

This edited book makes a much-needed contribution to the scholarship focused on critically examining concepts, discourses, and frameworks of diversity in English language education. It offers global perspectives from both established and emergent scholars in the domains of material design, teacher education, policy analysis, teacher identity in English language education and research. The authors employ a range of approaches to investigate diversity-issues from textbook analysis and poetic autoethnography to larger qualitative, interview-based studies with English language teachers, student teachers, and families. Covering seminal issues such as the diversity lost (or available) within and across traditional English language categorizations (e.g., ESL/EFL, English as a lingua franca) to the use of ChatGPT in English language education, this volume confronts ideologies that reproduce neoliberal and Eurocentric engagements with diversity, despite the appearance of plurality, and calls for a care-centered engagement with diversity. This book will be of interest to teachers, teacher educators, policy makers, material designers, and researchers in fields including Applied Linguistics, TESOL, Teacher Education, Sociology of Education, and Cultural Studies, among others. 

Vander Tavares is an Associate Professor of Education at University of Inland Norway. He holds a PhD in linguistics and applied linguistics from York University, Canada. His research interests include critical second language education, teacher education, and the internationalization of higher and language education.