Critical Language Awareness in the United States: Revisiting Issues and Revising Pedagogies in a Resegregated Society

Abstract

As scholars examine the successes and failures of more than 50 years of court-ordered desegregation since Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, and 25 years of language education of Black youth since Martin Luther King Elementary School Children v. Ann Arbor School District Board, this article revisits the key issues involved in those cases and urges educators and sociolinguists to work together to revise pedagogies. After reviewing what scholars have contributed, the author suggests the need for critical language awareness programs in the United States as one important way in which we can revise our pedagogies, not only to take the students’ language into account but also to account for the interconnectedness of language with the larger sociopolitical and sociohistorical phenomena that help to maintain unequal power relations in a still-segregated society