Purpose This study aims to highlight the planning, process and results of drawing on engaged pedagogy to humanize Blackness in world language (WL) teacher education. The activities were designed to center lived experiences, augment self-reflection and model instructional differentiation for WL preservice teachers (PSTs). Design/methodology/approach This qualitative research paper uses a self-study in teacher education practices (S-STEP) method. It explores how tailored resources, peer and self-assessments and a responsive environment can increase awareness of antiBlackness in instruction and curricula among WL PSTs during a semester-long methods course. Findings Findings suggest that centering Blackness in WL methods initiates an awareness of antiBlack racism in WL pedagogy through opportunities for self-reflection and accountability through assessment. To varying degrees, participants demonstrated shifts in their understanding and valuing of Blackness in WL instruction as facilitated through a differentiated environment in which PSTs had access both to the instructor and to one another’s critical feedback. Originality/value Linguicism through antiBlack linguistic racism, native speakerism, idealized whiteness and other constructs has been demonstrated to decrease Black and minoritized participation in language teaching. What has yet to be addressed is this same pushout from an inclusive Black diasporic approach to WL teacher preparation. This study highlights nationalism, ableism, accentism, racism, anti-immigrant sentiments and racial stereotypes as different entry points to understanding antiBlackness within WL teacher preparation.

Perceptions of linguistic deficiency represent an extension of the devaluation of Black and racialized speakers which impacts their participation and representation, particularly within language classrooms. Though racism is directly challenged in current education research, language education remains a fertile space for weaponizing seemingly race-neutral terms like ‘culture’ and ‘identity’ as a means of minimizing the importance of race and other sociocultural factors on classroom language learning. Through semistructured interviews, this critical qualitative case study investigates the racial ideologies of three language teacher educators (LTEs) at Franklin University. Findings suggest the de-racialization of ‘culture’ and ‘identity’ influences the goals, design, and execution of instruction in this language teacher preparation program. Implications include guidance for language teacher preparation research and practice inclusive of centering race and clarifying the roles of race and power in language teacher preparation. Critically confronting who benefits or suffers when we use the term ‘culture’ in lieu of race in teacher preparation is also recommended.

Black women have been and continue to be objectified, mistrusted to voice their own realities, and pushed to the margins even among other people of color, yet expected to lead and contribute their lives and labor. In this piece, we focus on curricular and epistemic violence evidenced through omission and distortions of Black women in English Language Arts and World Languages and advocate for a centering of Black women’s voices and perspectives in ways that affirm their humanity across both contexts. We come together as literacy educators to offer strategies to support the inclusion and integration of Black women’s voices and experiences throughout secondary language and literacy learning spaces.

At the intersection of labor and racial equity in teacher preparation, Black women professors of practice (PoPs) find that they carry an excessive workload without a similar measure of compensation or recognition. The unique experiences of these Black contingent faculty provide a view from the margins regarding the simultaneity (Collins, 2002) of oppressions that are hidden from mainstream perceptions within teacher preparation, particularly through a raced and gendered lens. Through an autoethnographic approach, we reveal how our negotiations for respect, visibility and impact on pre-service teachers are navigated within larger institutional structures situated within the academy. This reflexive process provides us, as research practitioners, a socially conscious pathway (Ellis et al., 2011) towards both impactful practice and means for substantive contributions to investigating the often-hidden labor of Black women professors of practice within post-secondary institutions. While exploring how we were positioned as ‘mules’ of teacher preparation at our previous institution, we amplify experiences that hitherto are alluded to in the literature, thematically reflecting our scarce numbers, low access to professional advancement and lack of job security. We conclude with recommendations both for Black women PoPs about the nature of this work, the reality of its weight, and considerations on behalf of the academy relative to pathways for professionalizing and honoring Black women professors of practice in teacher education programs.

Over the past decade, the voice and speech recognition industry has established itself as a multibillion-dollar global market, but at whose expense? In this forum article, we scrutinize the case of Sanas, a US-based company offering an AI-powered accent-modification technology that is tailored for the off-shore call center industry. We offer this critique through a virtue-based framework for AI ethics. Our commentary exposes Sanas as an agent of racial commodification and linguistic dominance, as it rests on the perceived superiority of standardized US English. We discuss how racial commodification enables capitalism. Sanas, and similar programs, are not helping build a more understanding world; it is helping perpetuate and maintain harmful raciolinguistic ideologies that maintain language discrimination and continue to frame the language practices of racialized speakers as deficient. Thus, we write this piece with the intent to expose the fabricated humanity of accent modification technology whose existence perpetuates capitalism’s reliance on dehumanization for economic advancement and the legacy and reproduction of white language superiority.