Anti-oppressive global citizenship education in English language teaching: a three-pillar approach

Abstract

Anti-oppressive global citizenship education (GCE), a specific strand of critical GCE, is a new field, especially concerning empirical studies within English classrooms. Based on an anti-oppressive GCE framework and the research question, “what does anti-oppressive theory look like in practice in English classrooms and how can this be woven into GCE?”, this paper explains the results of a project which used a portraiture methodology to collect and analyze approximately 6 hours of semi-structured interviews, detailed impressionistic records, and several lessons collected with one secondary school English teacher in Ontario, Canada. The portrait showcases how the educator implements a three-pillar approach to anti-oppressive GCE language education and the need to shine light on minoritized identities, create healthy soil for the foundation of learning about systemic oppression, and give the proper amounts of water/support to each student.

Keywords:

• Anti-oppression education
• global citizenship education
• language teaching
• portraiture

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The participant’s name and any other identifying information have been changed to protect her identity.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) under Grant number 21K13536.

Notes on contributors

Shawna M. Carroll

Shawna M. Carroll is an Associate Professor at Okayama University in the Graduate School of Education. Before arriving in Japan, Shawna completed her teacher training from Kindergarten to Grade 12 in Ontario, Canada, and also taught at the postsecondary level within education and women & gender studies departments. Her research expertise focuses on anti-oppressive and anti-colonial English teaching and research methods in language education. Most recently, Shawna is the author of Anti-oppressive global citizenship education theory and practice in pre-service teacher education (2021) and “Language lives in our bodies not just in our heads”: Embodied reading and becoming beyond the molar (2022).