This dissertation investigates how Spanish pre-service teachers (PSTs) develop Critical Multilingual Awareness (CMLA) in a World Language (WL) teacher preparation program, focusing on their evolving understandings of multilingualism, pedagogy, and classroom practice. Grounded in CMLA and participatory design research, the study followed two PSTs across two semesters of coursework and practicum, examining how iterative co-design, reflection, and relational inquiry shaped their language ideologies and teaching approaches.Drawing on data from discussions, observations, reflections, interviews, and 22 co-designed activities, the study addresses three research questions. First, it reveals how PSTs initially adopted monospectral multilingualism—a stance that nominally embraced diversity but reinforced standardized, depoliticized norms. Second, it shows how design-based inquiry supported ideological and pedagogical shifts toward broader representations of language and identity. Third, these shifts informed inclusive practices, affirming multilingual learners’ home languages, and expanding cultural content in elementary Spanish instruction.Theoretically, the study conceptualizes monospectral multilingualism as a pervasive stance in WL education and advances CMLA as an enactable orientation. Methodologically, it positions participatory design research as both inquiry and pedagogy, highlighting PSTs’ sense-making through collaborative, justice-oriented design. Practically, it brings greater visibility to multilingual learners from language backgrounds beyond English and Spanish, positioning early WL instruction as a critical space for equity-driven pedagogical innovation. The study offers a model for reimagining teacher preparation as a space for ideological unlearning, pedagogical agency, and relational transformation.
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