The Routledge Handbook of Language Teacher Identity

The Routledge Handbook of Language Teacher Identity is the first comprehensive, systematic survey of the field. It offers a broad, cutting-edge, and authoritative overview of language teacher identity, highlighting its growing complexity and global relevance.

This handbook is organized into six interconnected, sequential parts: theoretical perspectives, analytical and methodological approaches, ideologies, innovations, professional development, and specific language teaching contexts. Contributors engage with perspectives and possibilities on an international scale, addressing issues of racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, linguicism, accentism, native-speakerism, neo-nationalism, neoliberalism, and (dis)ability, exploring how these intersect with language teachers’ professionalization, sense of belonging, authenticity, and legitimacy. Written in accessible language, thirty-four carefully curated chapters identify the major trends and developments in the field, including translanguaging, digital language teaching, study-abroad, and leadership. The volume also amplifies voices from systematically underrepresented groups, such as teachers of multiple languages and Indigenous language teachers.

This reliable source is of specialised interest for language teachers, teacher educators, students and researchers in the fields of language education and applied linguistics. It supports both academic research and policy development.

Author Biography

Vander Tavares is an Associate Professor of Education at the University of Inland Norway. His research interests include critical second language education, teacher education, and the internationalization of higher and language education. He is the editor of Social Justice through Pedagogies of Multiliteracies (2024, Routledge).

Sílvia Melo-Pfeifer is Full Professor at the University of Hamburg. She carries out research on pluralistic approaches to language learning and teaching with particular emphasis on intercomprehension across languages of the same linguistic family, heritage language education, and foreign language teacher education.