Barriers to entry as barriers to identity: Short stories of the struggles of ethnic minority English language teachers to enter teaching in Hong Kong

Barriers to entry as barriers to identity: Short stories of the struggles of ethnic minority English language teachers to enter teaching in Hong Kong

Language teacher identity tensions: Nexus of agency, emotion, and investment

• Trent, John Gilbert The Education University of Hong Kong

• Tajeddin, Zia
• Yazan, Bedrettin

London

Routledge

2024

• M Teachers & Education for Teachers
  • MG Identities, Attitudes & Opinion of Educational Workers
• M Teachers & Education for Teachers
  • MI Teachers from Mainland China, Teacher from Foreign Countries, Expatriate English Language Teacher Pilot Scheme

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Unknown or Unspecified

This chapter reports the struggles of one group of ethnic minority early career teachers (EMECTs) to construct their personal and professional identities in Hong Kong. Although all early career teachers will, at times, encounter tensions as they struggle to construct, sustain, and advance their preferred teacher identities, EMECTs, because they are part of a group that lives within particular and possibly pejorative societal discourses about ethnic minority populations in Hong Kong, face additional challenges to construct their teacher identities. Nevertheless, the voices of these teachers have hitherto been largely absent from the literature. This chapter addresses this gap in current knowledge by using a narrative short story approach to explore these voices. Grounded in Bakhtin’s framework, the narratives reported in this chapter reveal discursive tensions in which EMECTs’ desire to construct their professional identities comes into tension with their identification by others as members of ethnic groups within Hong Kong. Results underscore the role of relations of power, as discourses compete to define what it means to be an EMECT in Hong Kong. Implications for supporting the identity construction efforts of these teachers are discussed and suggestions for future research are considered. © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Zia Tajeddin and Bedrettin Yazan; individual chapters, the contributors.

• English

Book Chapters

• 9781032514727

• 10.4324/9781003402411-9

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/ada792a1

2024-11-11