Through the Anti-Bias Looking Glass: The Messages We Send Our Learners in (Primary) ELT

English language teaching materials in primary schools are fraught with images and examples that upon closer scrutiny, need unpacking or even replacement to steer learners away from stereotypes and to promote deeper thought and encourage exposure to the world. The purpose of this paper is to introduce readers to the Learning for Justice’s Social Justice Standards and show how these can be applied to standard coursebook images for basic A1, A2 and B1 level activities. These same activities can be applied to images and texts from other sources, such as international newspapers’ images of the day. Secondly, results of a classroom experiment with pre-service teachers using the Dispositions for Culturally Responsive Pedagogy Scale will be shared and ideas for prompting discussion provided. Finally, larger project ideas for EFL lessons in public primary schools to promote an anti-bias stance to education will be suggested.+repphzhbib2023