Social Justice Research

The Social Justice in Language Education initiative leaders are investigating teacher understanding and enactment of social justice approaches and students’ language development and awareness.

Research on Teachers

This longitudinal case study investigates teachers’ understanding and implementation of critical pedagogies as they create social justice curricular units and addresses the following questions:

  1. How do teachers understand and enact social justice in language education?
  2. How does teachers’ identity construction impact their understanding and enactment of social justice in language education?

The study includes two instructor cohorts, one representing more commonly taught languages (French, German, Spanish) and one representing less commonly taught languages (Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish).

The following articles have been published so far:

  • Paesani, K., Goodspeed, L., Menke, M., & Ruf, H. (2024). (Re)constructing and (re)negotiating identities: A case study of postsecondary language teachers and social justice education. Modern Language Journal, 108, 625–647. https://doi.org/10.1111/modl.12948
  • Goodspeed, L., Paesani, K., Menke, M., & Ruf, H. (2023). Postsecondary French, German, and Spanish teachers' conceptualizations of social justice: A case study. Foreign Language Annals, 56(4), 867-877. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/flan.12724
  • Ruf, H., Goodspeed, L., & Menke, M. (2023). Social justice professional development: Using teacher voices to understand need and impact. Second Language Research & Practice, 4(1), 88-98. https://hdl.handle.net/10125/69880

Research on Students

This research investigates students’ experiences in social justice-oriented language classrooms and explores the following questions: 

  1. How do students use language during social justice curricular units? How does their language use vary in different types of social justice learning activities? 
  2. What is the nature of students' critical language awareness as they learn about social justice topics? What instructional activities impact students' critical language awareness? 

This research project was launched in 2024 and will continue through 2026.