Lacking the right aesthetic
Everyday employment discrimination in Toronto private language schools
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6058191 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Vijay A Ramjattan (0000-0001-7571-9835, University of Toronto, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 8 |
| Pages | 692-704 |
| Publication date | 2015-11-16 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Equal Opportunities International (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1758-7093 • E-ISSN: 2040-7149 |
| Publisher | Emerald (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1108/edi-03-2015-0018 |
| OpenAlex | W2206753221 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
| References cited | 31 |
Purpose – Expertise in English language teaching (ELT) is determined by being a white native speaker of English. Therefore, ELT is a type of aesthetic labour because workers are expected to look and sound a particular way. As nonwhite teachers cannot perform this labour, they may experience employment discrimination in the form of racial microaggressions, which are everyday racial slights. The purpose of this paper is to investigate what types of microaggressions inform several nonwhite teachers that they cannot perform aesthetic labour in private language schools in Toronto, Canada. Design/methodology/approach – The paper utilizes a critical race methodology in which several nonwhite teachers told stories of racial microaggressions. Findings – The teachers were told that they lacked the right aesthetic through microaggressions involving employers being confused about their names, questioning their language backgrounds, and citing customer preferences. Research limitations/implications – Future research must find out whether nonwhite teachers experience discrimination throughout Canada. Other studies must investigate how intersecting identity markers affect teachers’ employment prospects. Practical implications – To prevent the discrimination of nonwhite teachers (in Canada), increased regulation is needed. The international ELT industry also needs to fight against the ideology that English is a white language. Originality/value – There is little literature that examines language/racial discrimination in the Canadian ELT industry and how this discrimination is articulated to teachers
Aesthetics · Art · Ethnic group · Ideology · Originality · Pedagogy · Political science · Politics · Qualitative research · Racism · Social science · Sociology · Critical Race Theory in Education · Gender Diversity and Inequality · Gender Studies · Law · Multilingual Education and Policy · Psychology · Social Psychology
Culturally Responsive Practices or Assimilation? Views and Practices on Linguistic Diversity of Community College Instructors Working with Multilingual Learners
Finding our Role
The white native speaker and inequality regimes in the private English language school
Language ideologies in new media
Racist nativist microaggressions and the professional resistance of racialized English language teachers in Toronto
The effect of racialization on EFL learners’ conceptualizations of the ‘native speaker’ construct
Privation of Inclusion
The quiet purge
No one would give me that job in Australia
Nonnative Speaker English Teachers
Phone Clones
Native or non-native
Nonlanguage factors affecting undergraduates' judgments of nonnative English-speaking teaching assistants
Racial microaggressions in everyday life
Challenging the Native and Nonnative English Speaker Hierarchy in Elt
An exploratory study of Hong Kong students’ perceptions of native and non-native English-speaking teachers in ELT
Race and native speakers in ELT
The Labour of Aesthetics and the Aesthetics of Organization
Teachers, please learn our names
Racial microaggressions as a tool for critical race research
Deflecting responsibility in employer talk about race discrimination
Critical Discourse Analysis and the Marketization of Public Discourse
The employability of non-native-speaker teachers of EFL
Advantages and Disadvantages of Native‐ and Nonnative‐English‐speaking Teachers
Race and Tesol
I Am Never Afraid of Being Recognized as an NNES ”
White Native English Speakers Needed
Race and the Identity of the Nonnative ESL Teacher
Going beyond the Native Speaker in Language Teaching
World Englishes
TheNative Speaker
Critical Race Methodology
Wanted - straight talkers
Employee experience of aesthetic labour in retail and hospitality
Looking Good and Sounding Right
Transcending the nativeness paradigm
| Unique citing works | 9 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2026 (10) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 9 |