This study empirically investigated the invisibility, or symbolic annihilation, in Japanese English education of social groups at risk of marginalization. To do so, I assembled a corpus of 3746 English teaching materials selected because they involved world social group representation and because they were disseminated through the JET Program, a…

Visualizing oneself joining imagined communities of target language (TL) use represents a potent motivation for language study. Given that rationales for the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme include fostering internationalization, a student-centered classroom, and communicative skills, teaching to promote learners envisioning themselves…

Bias is communicated via the "hidden curriculum"--the vehicle for the unspoken academic, social, and cultural messages that are communicated to students while they are in school. Revealing the hidden curriculum in English language textbooks (ELTs) entails an analytical and holistic approach to the content of the text and images appearing…

The manner in which young learners are taught reinforces traditional cultural messages of many kinds, including those concerning gender. English language teaching (ELTs) textbooks have the potential to either reinforce or redress gender bias. Unfortunately the former is typically the case. There is a historical legacy of ELTs, which reinforce…