Monolingual content-area teacher candidates’ identity work in an online teacher education course

Abstract

This exploratory qualitative study presents the findings of a deductive analysis of the online teacher education coursework of four self-identified monolingual English-speaking content-area teacher candidates (TCs) at a Hispanic-serving university in the southwestern United States. Guided by Clarke's (2009) framework of ethical self-formation and Ruiz's (1984) orientations to language planning, the authors examined the intersections between identity construction and language ideologies as these TCs navigated their positionalities as monolinguals preparing to teach multilingual learners. Findings revealed that teacher candidates harbored both asset and deficit beliefs about teaching multilingual learners. Implications suggest that through reflective online teacher education coursework, monolingual content-area TCs may develop agency, empathy, and a multilingual stance as they challenge deficit beliefs about multilingual learners.