Exploring raciolinguistic biases: implications for international teaching assistants

• In Event: Roundtable Group 15
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Language, Interaction, and Agency in Educational Settings

Proposal

Research on the native speaker fallacy (Phillipson, 1992) and the role of nonnative English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) in language and mainstream classrooms has been extensively studied. However, limited attention has been given to exploring other domains, such as opera in music education. Multilingualism plays a significant role in classical opera music (Mateo, 2014), yet there is a dearth of research addressing its implications from raciolinguistic perspectives.

This qualitative research examines the experiences of 5 international teaching assistants (ITAs) from Asia in a midwestern university who teach music with a multilingual repertoire. It employs theoretical frameworks such as raciolinguistic ideology (Flores & Rosa, 2015), pedagogical identity (Bernstein, 2000), and self-efficacy (Morris et al., 2017). Through interviews and observations and adopt qualitative data analysis technique (Saldana, 2016), this study investigates how ITAs navigate instances of discrimination based on their appearance and accent, and how their approaches to teaching include accommodations for the preferences of the white listening subject by answering the research questions: 1) What are the tensions when ITAs teach in a predominantly White classroom? 2) How do these experiences impact ITAs' pedagogical identity construction?


The findings of this study indicate ITAs feel compelled to modify their voices and suppress their linguistic identities in order to conform to the white norm, without power to negotiate these expectations. Furthermore, as opera often encompasses various European languages, ITAs perceive that their students show more tolerance and respect towards their white TA colleagues who can also speak German, French, and Italian as additional languages. In the context of opera, which often encompasses various European languages, ITAs perceive that their students exhibit more tolerance and respect towards their white TA colleagues who can also speak German, French, and Italian as additional languages. Interestingly, students tend to challenge and broaden the native speaker fallacy (Phillipson, 1992) more when it comes to non-native English-speaking TAs compared to native English speakers. However, they still hold the belief that White TAs, despite being second language speakers, closely resemble Europeans and possess proficient language skills in European languages. This belief leads students to assume that Asian ITAs lack the ability to speak these European languages well due to geographical distance and differences in appearance. Despite undergoing rigorous pronunciation training, participants received consistent skepticism of their professionalism from their students. These racial challenges contribute to ITAs' low self-efficacy in teaching multilingual repertoire and make them feel excluded and marginalized, which subsequently affects their confidence in their singing abilities. This study highlights the importance of expanding critical multilingual language awareness (Garcia, 2017) beyond language classrooms and into areas like arts education. It also emphasizes the need to address raciolinguistic biases in ITA training and preparation in order to create a more inclusive and equitable environment.

Authors

• Luqing Zang

• Liang Zhao