This book presents, discusses and explores questions around teachers' (mainstream teachers, student teachers, EAL teachers) conceptions of language and literacy practices as they seek to meet the educational needs of pupils from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds. The book captures the voices of a range of educators from diverse educational contexts and has implications for the future of literacy education in both pre- and in-service teacher education programmes. Learning from indigenous epistemologies associated with marginalisation and inequity in school settings, the book allows the stories and experiences of multilingual pupils in predominantly monolingual classrooms to be understood, and to form the basis of a 'proposal for hope': a clear set of principles to underpin specific curricular and critical pedagogical approaches for authentically inclusive and socially just classrooms.