Rethinking language textbooks: Language, Ideology, and Liquid Racism

In my latest post, I raised the point that schoolscapes aren’t neutral. Unobtrusively placed in the background of learning settings, they reflect which languages are welcome in our schools, and —somewhat more importantly— they silently shape which languages, identities, and values become visible. But the shaping of our learners’ worlds does not stop with classroom walls. It extends to the language textbooks we use and the ideology they encode.

Textbooks, like schoolscapes, are not neutral containers of grammar and vocabulary. They are ideological artefacts, sedimenting assumptions about who we are, how we should speak, and who belongs. I will explain what I mean shortly, but first, I would like to make some remarks about what ideology is, how it is sedimented and how it is naturalised.

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Ideology in language education

I tend to use the term ‘ideology’ often in this blog and in teaching and writing. Sometimes my students struggle with this, because they misunderstand ideology to mean something like ‘political bias’ or ‘deliberate distortion’. Given the way alt-right rhetoric distorts such terms, it is important to clarify what we mean by “ideology”.

Ideology is not a “false” or politically coloured distortion of truth (whatever the latter word might mean). It is a framework of beliefs, attitudes, and values through which we perceive and interpret the world around us. Beliefs, attitudes and values are private, in the sense that they reside in individual minds; but ideology is social, diffused across communities, and it often functions as the connective tissue that holds groups together.

Groups retain cohesion by ensuring that their ideology spreads across all members. But this is not imposed through force. Rather, ideology is naturalised by presenting itself as ‘common sense’ and by excluding alternative views from discussion, a process Antonio Gramsci described as hegemony.

Naturalisation gives to particular ideological representations the status of common sense, and thereby makes them opaque, i.e., no longer visible as ideologies.

Fairclough, N. (2010). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language (p. 44). Routledge.

This is where education becomes important, as it is one of the main conduits through which ideology spreads, not just through instruction, but also through schoolscapes, routinised practices, and —as I will argue next— textbook content. By clarifying this, we become better equipped to notice and question the assumptions that textbooks and classroom practices present as neutral, allowing us to teach in ways that are more inclusive and critically aware.

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The language textbook as an ideological standardisation apparatus

In a book chapter I wrote (in Greek) back in 2020, I argued that English Language Textbooks (ELT) in the Greek education system are conduits for what I called ‘ideological standardisation’. That is, they present ideological content that portrays uniform versions of language and social structure, and by doing so they naturalise this particular version of reality.

Ideological content in ELT textbooks

Here’s an example. English is a language used across the world, not just in places where it was traditionally spoken, but also in post-colonial settings such as India and Kenya,¹ but in the textbook the language was predominantly associated with UK. To be exact, what the textbook showed was a stereotypical representation of the UK, with red telephone booths, fish-and-chips and double-decker buses.²

Such practices do not exist in a vacuum. They serve to maintain invisible power relations in the Greek education system, and tensions between English language specialists and generalist teachers. By reinforcing the stereotypes that ‘English the language they speak (only) in the UK’ and that ‘UK is exotic’, the ELT becomes reductively associated with a particular culture. Not just any culture, in fact: one to which graduates of prestigious English Language and Literature Departments have privileged access. Conversely, this ideological move serves to exclude education professionals who have teaching credentials and linguistic proficiency but whose education took place outside the ELT academic base.

Ideological content in Modern Greek textbooks

Spyros Moustakas, who wrote his dissertation under my supervision in our MA in Language Education for Refugees and Migrants, made similar observations about the textbooks used for teaching Modern Greek. In Moustakas and Kostoulas (2024), we point out that these textbooks consistently construct an image of “Greekness” that is monolingual, monocultural, and Orthodox Christian. This is then presented as the unmarked norm against which ‘others’ are defined.

For example, consistent references to “our” language narrowly define readers as monolingual speakers of Modern Greek. This exclusion strategy means that students whose home languages,⁴ cultural practices, or religious identities differ from this constructed norm are often invisibilised. Whenever others (e.g., “Europeans”, “the British”) appear, their portrayal is usually dehumanising. For example, they might be reduced to economic roles (“the wealthy foreigner buying Greek land”) or essentialised through appearance (“blonde female tourists”).

Such representations reflect the pervasive racism in Greek society but do so covertly. While overt racism is rarely tolerated in education, it is not erased. Rather, it survives in ‘liquid’ forms, i.e., subtle framings and word choices that position ‘others’ as inferior or threatening, while presenting these ideas as ‘neutral truths’. By casually displaying these representations, textbooks reconcile nationalist ideologies with the education system’s stated commitment to inclusion and equality.

Attitudes towards linguistic otherness in Modern Greek textbooks

Another interesting finding in the article Spyros and I wrote was the way in which textbooks reflect, and sustain, intolerant beliefs about linguistic otherness.

The Modern Greek textbooks that Spyros analysed frame otherness as something to be tolerated cautiously, if at all. Even when teaching vocabulary, the books divide words into a clearly demarcated Greek core and Persian, Phoenician, Hebrew, Latin etc. loan words, depending on their etymology. Another common pattern in these textbooks is the recurring concern about the “erosion” of the Greek language. While Greek is described as resilient and unbreakable in the face of outside “invasions”, it is simultaneously portrayed as being under constant threat. The books present these supposed dangers in rhetorically charged terms: loan words become “armies of [foreign] words,” and phrases like “dangerous linguistic dependence” are used. Such imagery amplifies a sense of threat and sharpen the divide between the “national” in-group and the supposedly dangerous foreign “other.”

Having framed language contact as war and domination, the textbooks can then justify the process of language standardisation —i.e., the imposition of a standard form over local varieties. This enables the erasure of regional dialects and other languages spoken by students, presenting such erasure as a necessary defence of linguistic purity rather than an ideological choice. In this way, the project of standardisation is framed not as a matter of power and control but as an act of cultural preservation, aligning seamlessly with nationalist narratives while sidelining the rich multilingual realities of learners’ lives.

The ‘standardised form’ is constructed by and associated with powerful social groups (western; literate; white; male; middle-upper class), who manage access to opportunities such as employment and education, using standardised language benchmarks as a gatekeeping mechanism.

Cushing, I. (2021). ‘Say it like the Queen’: the standard language ideology and language policy making in English primary schools. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 34(3), 321-322.

Learning as discipline in language textbooks

Both in the ELT textbooks that I examined and in the Modern Greek textbooks that Spyros analysed, the aims and structure of the lessons enforces discipline and compliance.

Assessment activities focused heavily on grammatical correctness and vocabulary accuracy, with little room for creative or critical engagement. Students learn to conform to externally imposed norms, preparing them not only for exams but, implicitly, for a future in which following instructions quietly is the natural norm.

This hidden curriculum aligns with what Critical Theory describes as the transmission of social norms and dominant values through schooling, under the guise of neutral content delivery.

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Challenging ideological standardisation in language textbooks

This analysis does not mean that we should reject textbooks entirely. I am aware that in many settings, teachers might lack the authority or resources to replace the coursebooks they use. Rather, as with schoolscapes, the goal is not to discard these materials but to engage with them critically.

Language education can become a practice of inclusion, agency, and justice; one that prepares learners to navigate and shape the diverse societies they live in.

Doing this would involve two things, probably at the same time: One approach is to raise consciousness of how textbooks do ideological work. The other involves canceling out the naturalisation of the ideological content the books inscribe by supplementing them with richer material.

Encouraging multicultural and plurilingual learning

One way to do this might be to create space for learners to bring their own linguistic identities into the classroom, challenging the hidden curriculum of conformity. In a short-lived project with my colleagues Anastasia Gaintartzi and Magda Vitsou, we supported pre-education teachers who did ELT to capitalise on the linguistic backgrounds of their very young learners. Although I think that the project was at least moderately successful, it is regrettable that it gained little traction, and more than a little criticism from the direction of the English Language and Literature departments.

Fostering critical engagement with language education

In addition, we might want to work with students to critically interrogate the materials that they have to use. Some possible questions could be:

• Whose stories and perspectives can we identify in our textbooks and classroom materials?
• Whose voices are missing, and why might that be the case?
• How could we find and include other perspectives to enrich our learning?

Such questions could function as discussion starters (not all speaking practice needs to focus bland and uncontroversial topics!), or —for those who are more confident— they could serve to launch exploratory practice projects.

Promoting the visibility of non-standard varieties

A third way forward might be to make visible forms of language other than the standard. Just to illustrate, here are a couple of example activities⁵:

The point of these activities is not to teach students all the varieties of English (or Greek or any other language). Rather, it is about challenging the notions that the target language is uniform, that the output of all speakers should conform to this ideal standard, and that variation is deviance which has carelessness or idleness as its cause.⁶

Rethinking language education

This list of examples is hardly exhaustive, and it’s quite possible that not all would work equally well in every context. But that’s not really the point. What I am arguing for is a re-imagining of language education that foregrounds critical perspectives, a version of language education that empowers students to see how language shapes social hierarchies, inclusion, and justice.

If we want language education to be more than drills and silent socialisation into narrow norms, we need to start asking hard questions about the materials we use and the assumptions they carry. Let’s begin noticing what presents itself as “normal” in our classrooms and whose voices are missing. Let’s find small but meaningful ways to make space for learners’ linguistic identities and encourage critical reflection on how language shapes our views of the world. By taking these steps, we can turn language education into a practice of inclusion, agency, and justice—one that truly prepares learners to navigate and shape the diverse societies they live in.

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Additional reading

Here are some readings you could explore if you’d like to deepen your understanding of how language ideologies shape English language teaching and what a critical perspective can offer.

• Pennycook, A. (1994). The cultural politics of English as an international language. Longman.
• Canagarajah, A. S. (1999). Resisting linguistic imperialism in English teaching. Oxford University Press.
• Cushing, I. (2021). ‘Say it like the Queen’: the standard language ideology and language policy making in English primary schools. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 34(3), 321–336.
• Holliday, A. (2005). The struggle to teach English as an international language. Oxford University Press.
• Rosa, J., & Burdick, C. (2017). Language ideologies. In O. García, N. Flores, & M. Spotti (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of language and society (pp. 103–124). Oxford University Press.

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