Feeling White Teachers as Time Bombs: Feeling Fear, Anger, and Exhaustion

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 9:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: CERECG SIG Round Table 1: Disrupting Whiteness and Cultivating Racial Consciousness in Education (Table 3)

Abstract

Scholars have long explored the contesting meanings of whiteness in the ELT industry from the perspective of White teachers. This paper extends this scholarship through examining the affective experiences of Chinese women teachers in their encounters with whiteness. Using emotional maps and interviews with 18 Chinese women teachers in the ELT industry, this study delves into Chinese women teachers’ construction of foreign teachers as “time bombs”. Through managing White teachers as “time bombs”, Chinese women teachers in my study reported shared feelings of fear, anger and exhaustion. I argue that these feelings are shaped by segmented histories of racism and gender regulation which condition hierarchical interactions between Chinese women teachers and White teachers.

Author

• Shuling Wang, University of Southampton