Toward an inclination to advocate: a discursive study of teachers’ stance toward linguistically-responsive pedagogy in online language teacher education

The Development of Collaborative Advocacy: Dialogic Engagements Over Time and Texts

“…Building on existing definitions (Staehr Fenner, 2014;Warren, 2021), we submit that language teacher advocacy is the dialogic process of identifying and leveraging multiple voices to clarify alignments and divergent ideas of equity, policies, and practices for the remediation of inequity on behalf of others. By centering the dialogic process of advocacy work, this definition challenges dichotomized conceptions of language teacher advocacy as either transformative or non-transformative.…”

“…Conceptions of EL advocacy emphasize the observation of injustices and actions taken on behalf of students (Dubetz & de Jong, 2011; Linville, 2016; Staehr Fenner, 2014; Warren, 2021). Advocacy as observation and action can be transformative, bringing about change in policy and practice, or non-transformative, when an awareness of injustice exists but lacks a consequent change (Harrison & Prado, 2019).…”

“…From a dialogic lens, these definitions often frame advocacy as resulting from individual teachers’ internal dialogues about inequities. Yet, educators constantly manage a multiplicity of discourses, so that it is reasonable to focus on how teachers dialogically co-construct their advocacy (e.g., Warren, 2021). When viewing advocacy as dialogic work both inside and outside of the teacher, it has been described as transitive (Harrison & McIlwain, 2019), where EL advocacy “involves another agent to whom knowledge, skills, or behaviors are transferred on behalf of another which then allows further acts of advocacy” (Harrison & Prado, 2019, p. 24).…”

“…Class discussions are often used to engage teacher learners in actively understanding new concepts, including the development of advocacy orientations (Lucas & Villegas, 2013; Suh & Michener, 2019). Warren’s (2021) discourse analysis of asynchronous online course discussions found that discussions allowed candidates to develop roles convincing stakeholders to share concerns for changing the status quo. During discussions, both preservice and inservice teachers positioned themselves as advocates with leadership responsibilities to propose changes but engaged less with the structural realities of proposed plans.…”

“…During discussions, both preservice and inservice teachers positioned themselves as advocates with leadership responsibilities to propose changes but engaged less with the structural realities of proposed plans. Dialogically, teacher learners employed linguistic and discursive choices (e.g., re-framing others’ contributions) “to convince and compel on the one hand, while maintaining the social order of the [online discussion] on the other” (Warren, 2021, p. 73), suggesting the importance of engaging with tensions in interlocutors’ ideas while also sustaining collegial dialogue. These discussions revealed candidates constructing advocacy as an individual moral choice embedded within their professional expertise.…”