Although various attempts to confront non-native teachers of English (NNESTs) marginalisation in the language teaching profession have taken place over the past few years, the English language teaching (ELT) domain clearly demonstrates quite the opposite; remaining structured and articulated by boundaries that are shaped by language ideologies, it marks an exclusion of non-native English teachers from participating in the field of foreign language teaching on equal terms with native English-speaking teachers (NESTs). Using a Bourdieusian lens (Bourdieu and Passeron in Reproduction in education, society and culture, Sage, London, 1990; Bourdieu in Language and symbolic power, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1991), this paper examines the way symbolic violence is exercised through exclusionary and discriminatory practices that arbitrarily impose the culture of a dominant group and result in the production and reproduction of symbolic boundaries between native and non-native teachers of English. In doing so, it calls for greater awareness among language educators of the power dynamics behind the simplistic ‘native’/’non-native’ dichotomies. Since nothing has been done so far to reconcile the two, the author believes that a continuous perception of NESTs and NNESTs as two different professional classes might serve the interest of those who wish to maintain such polarisation.

[Initial paragraphs] TESOL teacher education is, at its core, a set of practices that involve collaboration and interaction among individuals from various cultural, linguistic, and national backgrounds. It could be argued that its transnational aspect is a defining feature, which has become increasingly apparent in recent years. Transnationalism can be broadly understood as a process and practice of maintaining multiple connections between individuals and institutions that span nation-state borders (Vertovec, 2009). With English playing a pivotal role in mediating and shaping these connections, language educators have the responsibility to prepare students for participation in a globalized world with an awareness of its cultural and linguistic diversity. This raises a set of challenging questions about how transnationalism affects teacher knowledge formation, how teachers understand their work in the context of transnationalism, and what TESOL teacher education can do to prepare teachers for the challenges of transnational work. The book TESOL Teacher Education in a Transnational World: Turning Challenges into Innovative Prospects, edited by Osman Z. Barnawi and Anwar Ahmed, is a timely response to these questions. In addressing them, the editors bring together the diverse perspectives of scholars on the complexities of transnationalism in relation to teacher education.