Language ideologies in foreign language textbooks: a scoping review

Language ideologies in foreign language textbooks represent an important topic to study due to their influence on teachers and learners. As numerous publications have emerged that critically examine the multiple views and theoretical stances of ideologies embedded within textbooks, there is a need to gain an overview of this research domain. Therefore, this study aims to assess existing research on language ideologies related to textbooks, identify critical gaps, and highlight opportunities to advance this emerging research domain. A total of 51 articles published from 2014 to 2024 were included using the PRISMA approach. Our analysis reveals that the number of studies has increased since 2020 and that they are distributed across 21 countries, with secondary levels as the primary focus. These studies draw on a multitude of linguistic and anthropological perspectives to examine language ideologies, with CDA and CA as the most popular analytical frameworks. Across the reviewed studies, we identified five main strands: representation of sociocultural values, standard language ideology, neoliberal ideology, political ideologies, and social identity shaping.