'And the Linguistic Minorities Suffer What They Must?': A Review of Conflicts In Curriculum Theory Through the Lenses of Language Teacher Education ?

Abstract

This review builds on João Paraskeva’s proposal for the development of an Itinerant Curriculum Theory (ICT), to analyse how his contributions advance the conversation on the need to deterritorialize the received field in curriculum studies and in teacher education. The subtractive forms of education that are imposed on bilingual/bicultural students and how (language) teacher education is (not) properly addressing them will be used to illustrate the relevance of Paraskeva’s work in providing the required critical lenses. In his contention for the need to reconceptualise the field of curriculum studies and teacher education, he addresses two key-concepts that are used in this text to analyse second language education and (language) teacher education with a focus on Portugal: the concept of curriculum epistemicides and the concept of epistemic colonization. Acknowledging their pervasive effects in reinforcing educational forms that severely limit the emancipatory goals of second language education and in the way teachers are prepared, this review also discusses the way teachers and students resist, oppose, and even subvert oppressive official discourses and practices, in order to create their own counterhegemonic alternatives. If used to advance the agenda for transformative and emancipatory education for bicultural and bilingual students in public schooling contexts, Paraskeva’s ICT informs, complements, and constitutes a significant contribution to move forward the concatenated fields of critical multicultural education, bicultural education, and bilingual/ multilingual education for global justice. 

Maria Alfredo Moreira works in the Department of Integrated Studies of Literacy, Didactics, and Supervision at the University of Minho, Portugal. She has been working in initial, in-service and graduate teacher education programs, teaching (foreign/ second) language education, evaluation and assessment, action research for professional development, and supervision of instruction. She has also supervised more than one hundred students in their practicum year. Moreira has worked for the UNICEF and participated on research projects funded by the European Commission, on curriculum development and language (teacher) education. Her most recent research interest is in multicultural/ multilingual (teacher) education for social justice. Her work has been published by journals like Language Teaching, Currículo sem Fronteiras, Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, Sustainable Multilingualism among other. She has 13 books (authored and edited) and 29 book chapters published by Peter Lang, Palgrave MacMillan, Authentik, the Portuguese Ministry of Education and other national publishers.