This reflective article examines the emerging tendencies in critical perspectives within English Language Teaching (ELT). The article begins by providing a brief historical overview of ELT's critical pedagogies and discussing its perspectives in the post-pandemic era. It highlights the need for critical approaches that address power dynamics,…

This article reports the findings of a qualitative interpretive research study that explored the social representations children have about the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language in elementary schools in Medellín, Colombia. Sixty children in first, third, and fifth grades of public and private schools participated in the study.…

This paper draws from "Silencios" -- a photography series by the Colombian artist Juan Manuel Echavarría. "Silencios" comprises more than 120 portrayals of abandoned schools due to armed conflict in Los Montes de María, Colombia. Sharing Echeverría's belief that 'these chalkboards have lessons to tell us about war', the author…

This article reports on a case study that analyzed pedagogical relationships and teacher identities in research incubators. Conducted over two years in an English teaching program at a Colombian private university, the study included semi-structured interviews with four research incubator coordinators and two focus groups with eight students. We…

An investigation into an aspect of indigenous education provides the opportunity to forefront an epistemological discussion about mathematical knowledge. This paper analyses indigenous peoples' educational experiences in Colombia and Aotearoa/New Zealand of mathematics education, focusing on, among other things, sociolinguistic issues such as…

This study used task-based group interviews with young adolescents in four countries to investigate their understanding of the causes of human rights violations, means for protecting human rights, and their own potential role in ensuring human rights. Although students recognized the role of personal and institutional factors in both violating and…

This article inquires into the coloniality present in EFL textbooks, which continue being used as the core resource for language learning and teaching in Colombia. However, its instrumentalization, imperialism, and exploitation as an instrument of subalternation suggest that EFL textbooks produced by foreign and local publishing houses in the…

The promotion of language ideologies, policies and pedagogies that treat languages as separate and hierarchical has become a central concern for critical education scholars. In this case study, I explore how school actors at Colegio Colombiano (CC), an international school in Colombia, engaged with critical approaches to bi/multilingual education…

Within the spirit of conspiration, this article brings together contributions from participants of the PhD-led UCL Reading and React Group 'Colonialism(s), Neoliberalism(s) and Language Teaching and Learning', which ran in 2019/20. Weaving together various perspectives, the article centres on the dialogic nature of the decolonial enterprise and…

This article examines the relationship between authority and music. It starts with the proposition that music--as an art or an educative enterprise in Western environs--remains a highly idealized enterprise and this idealization creates an alibi for action that is characteristically narrow and guided by authority. Schmidt claims that authority is…

Critical peace education literature has focused attention on how programmes that promise to teach peace contribute to and contest existing power relations. However, using social theory to work out the relationship between peace education programmes and their context is only beginning. This paper uses a document review and interviews with experts…

The paper presents an exploration of Colombian teacher education from Paulo Freire's "directivity" perspective, which involves the political notion of education and the struggle for social justice. It examines certain existing tensions in teacher education, and analyses critically their implications for the teaching profession regarding…

This article is the result of a theoretical investigation and a reflection guided by a revision of literature and a set of interviews conducted of two members of the Nasa community: Adonias and Sindy Perdomo, father and daughter who belong to a Nasa sub-community located in Tierradentro, Cauca, southwestern Colombia. The article addresses three…