I have met a few exceptional teachers who were not giving permanent positions because their credentials were not from this country. This is a reality not only at the K-12 level teaching and administration hiring processes. Abawi pointed out how the obstacles to hiring and recruitment are linked to the same issues that cause poverty, unstable work, and lack of credential recognition in the BIPOC community. This connects to education in a way that opens the conversation on whether the institutions merely replicate social inequality rather than confront it. Of course, this leads me to think that maybe hiring schools cannot be improved separately from the systems that cause BIPOC people to be excluded before they even get into a job interview.

Linguistic differences are observed early in social interactions, much like characteristics like sex, skin color, or age, and as a result, they impact how people categorize others (Schulte et al., 2022). Recognizing linguistic differences can help us navigate conversations during both informal and formal exchanges. However, Rapid information processing based on stereotypes can result in discrimination if speakers are perceived as having unfavorable traits, potentially leading to biased treatment of them.

Schulte, N., Basch, J. M., Hay, H. S., & Melchers, K. G. (2024). Do ethnic, migration‐based, and regional language varieties put applicants at a disadvantage? A meta‐analysis of biases in personnel selection [Review of Do ethnic, migration‐based, and regional language varieties put applicants at a disadvantage? A meta‐analysis of biases in personnel selection]. Applied Psychology, 73(4). https://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12528

Abawi contends that merit and fit often mask racialized decision-making, especially when administrators are overwhelmingly White. This is indicative of wider critiques of colour-blind racism and neoliberal policy language. It makes me think of how fairness is often claimed through procedure, while structural inequities persist underneath those procedures.

The author suggests that hiring practices are influenced by the social location of those in power and that diversity among leaders is as critical an issue as diversity among teachers—something that relates to the general discourse of educational gatekeeping practices, reproduction of institutional culture, and the necessity of those in power to question their assumptions and biases.

Hiring processes, though presented as neutral, can reproduce racial bias through credentials, geography, and names. Also, there is a policy contradiction: diversification efforts without anti-racist structural change may reinforce inequality rather than reduce it. Administrator autonomy, then, demands critical self-reflection and accountability.

I found the emphasis on "Whiteness” and White privilege as a self-reinforcing system a significant idea. According to the article, educational systems validate Whiteness and White privilege and, as a result, promote policies and practices that further oppress BIPOC. This idea also promotes a discussion regarding how the dominant cultural norms that the benefactors are often unaware of, actively manifest obstacles and sustain inequities, rather than being a background that has no impact on the situation.

Canada is seen as standing for racially stratified society, where Whiteness is privileged. That's especially the case in resource distribution, for instance in employment and education. Canada is different from other countries as it lacks a national education framework. This means that the construction of educational policies and regulations is the responsibility of the province. This allows each province, including Ontario, to set its own policies in regard to education, teaching, and educational administrators which may lead to different levels of diversity.

Equity cannot only be achieved with an “equal” employment opportunity standard, as the social location of the administrators greatly impacts what they will pay attention to, value, and reward. Abawi (2021) used Applied Critical Leadership (ACL) to demonstrate that the dominance of whiteness occurs in leadership roles, placing BIPOC educators in more precarious positions of exclusion. Structural power is discussed as relevant to hiring practices. If Ontario schools want truly representative positions and voices, administrators need to commit to reflecting, building allyship, and being accountable.

The central argument in the article is that fair recruitment will be ineffective unless administrators do some serious soul-searching concerning their positionality, bias, and complicity in perpetuating racial inequity.

I think this is an example of how AI can be used positively by supporting cultural survival when it is built with consent, local institutions, and linguistic diversity in mind.

I think this shows that Gramsci’s politics came from his life, not just from books, and helps us understand why he valued Sardinian as a real language and not a dialect; that means his fight against fascism was also rooted in preserving local culture as a source of strength.

There is a field in applied linguistics and sociolingustics called English as a Lingua Franca (EFL). I have written a couple of papers (assignments) aboout this. David Crystal (2013) indicated that the fact English enjoys global status and prestige is not necessarily a guarantee that this will continue. The language has the position because of socio-economic, political, and scientific reasons. The moment that the economic or political power center shifts from the English-dominant regions, the interest may change. According to Crystal, English is diversifying to different varieties dependent on the existing culture. This means that the continued domination of the English language may no longer be the case as there will be several world “Englishes” existing in time. The maintenance or preservation of the language does not rest on the momentum of the language but on the future priorities of its people.

Crystal, D. (2013). Will english always be the global language? [Video].YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kvs8SxN8mc

I agree with this idea. Society often underestimates people who work "menial jobs." Additionally, if you belong to a minority group, the situation can be even more challenging—this concept is known as intersectionality. It’s important to recognize that someone who does not have a high school, college, or university degree can still think critically and have a voice. Personally, I had to work in restaurant kitchens as a cook and other "menial jobs" for many years due to circumstances beyond my control. Such experiences lead me to reflect on the concept of human agency.

Zuckerman reads LLMs not as tools of direct oppression (force) but as instruments of consent production—they make a particular cultural order feel natural, inevitable, and universal.

This connects to debates about AI replacing editorial judgment (in news, publishing, education). If LLMs become the default interface for knowledge, the "common sense" they produce becomes the de facto cultural canon. This echoes Neil Postman's argument that every technology carries an implicit epistemology—a theory of what knowledge is and who gets to produce it.

Capitalism persists not just through force or economic control, but through cultural hegemony—institutions like schools and media make inequality feel like common sense. I think that changing an unjust system requires not just rebellion, but building a new culture where fairness becomes the normal, obvious way of life.

Large language models automate and enforce cultural hegemony by embedding the values of a narrow, weird producer class into opaque, hard-to-modify infrastructure. This makes radical social and cultural change far more difficult than in previous media eras.

Gramci suggested that the "war of position" (slowly shifting cultural norms within existing systems) is what LLMs automate and lock in place. In contrast, the "war of maneuver" (building parallel institutions) is the only viable escape route.