Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/34.2701

AUTHOR: Jeff Bale
AUTHOR: Shakina Rajendram
AUTHOR: Katie Brubacher
AUTHOR: Mama Adobea Nii Owoo
TITLE: Centering Multilingual Learners and Countering Raciolinguistic Ideologies in Teacher Education
SUBTITLE: Principles, Policies and Practices
SERIES TITLE: Language, Education and Diversity
PUBLISHER: Multilingual Matters
YEAR: 2023

REVIEWER: Kanza Tariq

SUMMARY

In this review I evaluate the book, "Centering Multilingual Learners and Countering Raciolinguistic Ideologies in Teacher Education", authored by Jeff Bale, Shakina Rajendram, Katie Brubacher, Mama Adobea Nii Owoo, Jennifer Burton, Wales Wong, Yiran Zhang, Elizabeth Jean Larson, Antoinette Gagné, and Julie Kerekes. Across its eight chapters, this book provides a comprehensive examination of the policies, practices, and challenges related to teacher education and the support of multilingual learners in Ontario.

Chapter 1: Contradictions of Stability and Change
Authors: Jeff Bale and Antoinette Gagné
In this first chapter the authors examine changes in Ontario's policies for teacher-education programs, made in 2015, which include the requirement to teach candidates how to support multilingual learners (ML). They delve into the circumstances that surrounded these policy changes: the multilingualism and multiculturalism of the Ontario region juxtaposed against the lack of information available about the diverse speakers of these languages enrolled in "language education programs" (Bale et al., 2023, p. 18); the limited government funding available for languages other than Canada's official two, and their absence in education policies; and the rise of movements in Canada against discrimination of Indigenous, Black and Muslim peoples. This policy directly led to a curriculum review of the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education (OISE) Masters of Teaching (MT) program in 2017, an objective of which was to strengthen the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion culture of the program.

Chapter 2: The Research Design and the People Behind It
Authors: Jeff Bale, Shakina Rajendram, Mama Adobea Nii Owoo, Katie Brubacher and Wales Wong
In this chapter the authors expound on their view of "language policy as social practice" (Bale et al., 2023, p. 28); the policy creates the frame within which the many actors involved operate. This chapter also includes the research questions of the study: (i) whether Ontario's 2015 policy was compatible with student multilingualism in the province and (ii) how teacher educators, candidates and practicing teachers make use of this policy. In order to identify the realities of student multilingualism, the authors employed "Me Maps" (Bale et al., 2023, p. 30), videos in which MLs show how they define themselves, with particular attention paid to their "linguistic profiles" (Bale et al., 2023, p. 40). Policy ethnography was used in the MT program course "Supporting English Language Learners" (Bale et al., 2023, p. 32), where data was collected in the form of observations, interviews, discussion posts and documents. To assess the preparedness of teacher candidates in supporting MLs, an instrument called the "Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Language Inclusive Teaching (PeCK-LIT) test" (Bale et al., 2023, p. 34) was used. This test was also thought to be a means for candidates to "reflect on multilingualism" (Bale et al., 2023, p. 38); and it is available in the book's appendix.

Chapter 3 : Framing the Study
Author: Jeff Bale
This chapter serves as the literature review of the book, exploring research on the topic of "teacher education with multilingualism" (Bale et al., 2023, p. 57) from the US, Germany, Australia, Peru and South Africa. The author discusses related theories from the US and Europe and research trends from the US. Other topics covered include the lack of interaction between research taking place in applied linguistics, policy studies and critical teacher education scholarship, as well as the intersections between race, language and teacher education.

Chapter 4 : Who are Multilingual Learners in Ontario Imagined to Be?
Authors: Shakina Rajendram, Mama Adobea Nii Owoo, Katie Brubacher, Wales Wong, Jennifer Burton and Jeff Bale
In this chapter the authors examine how different policy documents, including the Ontario Ministry of Education's "policy framework", "English as a second language/English literacy development (ESL/ ELD) curriculum", and "assessment program for ... ELLs, STEP: Steps to English Proficiency" (Bale et al., 2023, p. 85), label and define MLs. Similarly, how teacher candidates envision their MLs is also explored via interview data. An important observation is that of an "Us and Them" (Bale et al., 2023, p. 84) mentality, with multilingualism being affiliated with poverty, lower social class, and languages other than French and English. The authors conclude that these viewpoints on ML identity found via Ministry of Education documents and policies, as well as through interviews with teachers, connect with perceived language hierarchies that devalue the expertise of marginalised peoples.

Chapter 5 : Preparing Teacher Candidates to Support Multilingual Learners: Insights from the Field
Authors: Shakina Rajendram, Mama Adobea Nii Owoo, Yiran Zhang, Julie Kerekes and Jeff Bale
In this chapter the authors conduct a review of literature from "Ontario’s 16 teacher-education programs" (Bale et al., 2023, p. 110) to see how they had responded to the 2015 policy change. The authors observe that the manner in which material on MLs' education is included in teacher education coursework is indicative of the merit the program associates with it. They also analyse interview data from Ontarian ESL teachers and teacher educators to see which strategies are currently used in order to support MLs. Many present materials are evaluated as being developed to serve non-racialised teachers or students. An example is the STEP assessment program, an often used resource, which engages MLs' diverse linguistic repertoire only as a means to improve their English. The interviews also reveal assumptions by teachers and teacher educators of a largely homogeneous student body in most of Northern Ontario , beliefs that lead to practices which further marginalise MLs.

Chapter 6: STEPing into Deficit Thinking
Authors: Jeff Bale, Katie Brubacher, Elizabeth Jean Larson and Yiran Zhang
In this chapter analysing PeCK-LIT and ethnographic case study data, the authors delve into how the STEP assessment program is interpreted by teacher candidates. Katie Brubacher's vignette gives important insight into the development of this resource.

Chapter 7: (Un)Learning Translanguaging Pedagogies
Authors: Jeff Bale, Shakina Rajendram, Katie Brubacher, Jennifer Burton and Wales Wong
Teacher candidates’ views on and application of translanguaging strategies is the major concern of this chapter. Analysis of answers from two tasks from the PeCK-LIT confirms that most respondents use MLs' language expertise simply as a tool for English development and that teacher candidates imagine having a high degree of control over MLs use of their non-English languages. An examination of the differences between year 1 and year 2 PeCK-LIT responses from candidates reveals a decrease in the mention of "language-inclusive teaching strategies" (Bale et al., 2023, p. 179) in year 2, which the authors posit is indicative of the hegemony of discriminatory practices in educational institutions.

Chapter 8: Practices and Principles of Change
Authors: Jeff Bale, Shakina Rajendram, Antoinette Gagné, Katie Brubacher, Wales Wong and Jennifer Burton
The authors respond to the findings of their study, which reveal racial and linguistic stratification within Ontario's school system, with possible practices that advocate for a reordering. These include the relinquishing of control and acknowledgement of MLs linguistic accomplishments by teachers. Helpful resources include Me Maps which give MLs a voice with which to represent themselves. The role of translanguaging is also heavily featured, with teacher educators being encouraged to "model" (Bale et al., 2023, p. 201) lessons for candidates to counter the disapproval they may face as practicing teachers.

EVALUATION

With its multitiered analysis of responses to the 2015 policy change, from ministry documents to teacher candidates, this book is a resource for school and program administrators, teacher educators, future and practicing teachers and educational policy makers. It gives stakeholders at all these levels an opportunity to broaden their perspectives on what a ML is. It also starts a conversation about the "normaliz(ation)" (Bale et al., 2023, p. 29) of whiteness within education, which is particularly important in the Canadian landscape; none of the interviewees of the study openly acknowledge the linguistic hierarchy they encounter in classrooms. The book has greatest relevance for educators in Ontario, as this is the setting for the study discussed. Details of the social context of the project given in Chapter 1 show that it is an opportune work, in light of the many anti-discrimination movements that formed and continue to rally in and around the region today.
It is a coherent work, but the chapters can be read separately as well. The authors provide ample context when reintroducing a topic elsewhere in the book. Though the book has 10 authors, the writing style is unconfused and offers an easy reading experience. Emphasis has been put in positionality as the "About the Authors" (Bale et al., 2023, p. xvii) is very detailed and it is clarified which of the researchers were involved in particular tasks throughout the study. Additionally, single-authored vignettes are scattered about the book giving deeper insight into the experiences of each researcher.

The literature review has been single authored. The research mentioned in this section comes largely from scholars in the US and Germany. It would have been interesting to have different authors' voices joining in in this chapter, for a wider look at the field. However, the studies that are relayed are pertinent to the project and context. One notable absence from the reviewed literature is of Jim Cummins and his concepts of "basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICs)" (Cummins, 2000, p. 3) and "cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP)" (Cummins, 2000, p. 3), particularly in Chapter 5, where the authors scrutinise the separation of "‘everyday’ and ‘academic’ English" (Bale et al., 2023, p. 124).

REFERENCES

Bale, J., Rajendram, S., Brubacher, K., Nii, M. A. O., Burton, J., Wong, W., Zhang, Y., Larson, E. J., Gagné, A., & Kerekes, J. (2023). Centering multilingual learners and countering raciolinguistic ideologies in teacher education : principles, policies and practices. Multilingual Matters.

Cummins, J. (2000). Language, power, and pedagogy: Bilingual children in the crossfire (Vol. 23). Multilingual matters.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Kanza Tariq is a Ph.D. candidate in the Language and Literacies Education program of the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning at OISE.