Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici

Wednesday, April 30, 2025
at 5:00 PM
Online Seminar
Organiser: Marco Santello

The field of language education has integrated social justice imperatives to a greater extent in recent years. Especially, conceptual and empirical research has exposed problems of intersectional injustice involving race and language (Von Esch et al., 2020). Research has revealed not only biases attached to linguistic differences, such as non-standard accents and grammar, but also entanglement of linguistic and racial prejudices and oppression. In this presentation, I will shed light on how language intersects with race and other identity categories in the perpetuation of hidden forms of oppression. I will also present an example of public scholarship by turning a qualitative study (Kubota et al., 2023) into a creative project of animation film-making. The importance of fostering intersectional justice will be proposed.
 
Ryuko Kubota is a Professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia, Canada. Her research draws on critical approaches to language, culture, and education, focusing on antiracism, intersectional justice, language ideologies, and critical pedagogies. She is a co-editor of Race, culture, and identities in second language: Exploring critically engaged practice (Routledge 2009); Race, racism, and antiracism in language education (Routledge, 2025), and others. Her publications also appear in such journals as Applied Linguistics, Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, ELT Journal, Journal of Second Language Writing, TESOL Quarterly, and World Englishes.