Job advertisements for English teachers in the Saudi Arabian context: Discourses of discrimination and inequity

Abstract

Recruitment is a form of gatekeeping to the teaching profession, and nonnative-English-speaking teachers' (NNESTs') employability, in particular, has been a major concern for many researchers. In fact, bias favouring native speakers (NSs) without teaching qualifications over nonnative speakers (NNSs) with professional registration has been an acceptable recruitment practice in various contexts. The issue of hiring based on speakerhood in the TESOL profession

(Re)production of symbolic boundaries between native and non-native teachers in the TESOL profession

“…Their conclusions indicated that although academic qualifications and teaching experience were ranked as the two most important requirements, 72% of recruiters were steered by the native speaker criterion when making hiring decisions. Similar findings, documented in Saudi Arabia (Alenazi, 2014;Alshammari, 2021), South America (Mackenzie, 2021), and some Asian countries (Jeon & Lee, 2006), confirmed either explicit or implicit preference of candidates from the anglophone 'Inner Circle' (Kachru, 1986) countries, including the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.…”

Discrimination and native-speakerism in English for Academic Purposes (EAP)

“…As we can see from Figure 1, only a vague note is included where the university mentions the government regulations without giving any detail to the prospective candidates. Panos highlighted the discrimination he felt during his recruitment process in the Middle East, which has been validated by Selvi (2010) and Alshammari (2020).…”

Research on “native” and “non-native” English-speaking teachers: Past developments, current status, and future directions

“…The theoretical discussions on legitimacy and power enacted through the valorization of "standard English" and particular dialects (and their users) and stigmatization of others (and their users) (Lippi-Green, 2012) have real-life consequences for millions of ELT professionals who are un/willingly subjected to this artificial polarity as a category of linguistic (as in NS/NNS) and professional (as in NEST/NNEST) identity. For this reason, employability and recruitment as "a form of gatekeeping to the teaching profession" (Alshammari, 2021), or "the elephant in the room" (Jenkins, 2017, p. 373), has been a prominent focus informing research efforts and advocacy practices in this area. A quick look at the current scholarship reveals several important findings and future directions:…”

“…The theoretical discussions on legitimacy and power enacted through the valorization of “standard English” and particular dialects (and their users) and stigmatization of others (and their users) (Lippi-Green, 2012) have real-life consequences for millions of ELT professionals who are un/willingly subjected to this artificial polarity as a category of linguistic (as in NS/NNS) and professional (as in NEST/NNEST) identity. For this reason, employability and recruitment as “a form of gatekeeping to the teaching profession” (Alshammari, 2021), or “the elephant in the room” (Jenkins, 2017, p. 373), has been a prominent focus informing research efforts and advocacy practices in this area. A quick look at the current scholarship reveals several important findings and future directions: First and perhaps most disturbingly, despite anti-discrimination laws and the ongoing professional responses (e.g., BC TEAL, 2014; CATESOL, 2013; TESOL, 1992, 2006; TESOL Spain, 2016) proscribing any unfair and unequal treatment based on linguistic and non-linguistic grounds, today, the ELT profession is still characterized by blatant or subtle discrimination and discriminatory practices in hiring processes, salary, and in the workplace.…”

“…A quick look at the current scholarship reveals several important findings and future directions: First and perhaps most disturbingly, despite anti-discrimination laws and the ongoing professional responses (e.g., BC TEAL, 2014; CATESOL, 2013; TESOL, 1992, 2006; TESOL Spain, 2016) proscribing any unfair and unequal treatment based on linguistic and non-linguistic grounds, today, the ELT profession is still characterized by blatant or subtle discrimination and discriminatory practices in hiring processes, salary, and in the workplace. Collectively, such forms and contexts serve as manifestations that normalize discrimination through institutionalized practices, weave them into the fabric of the ELT profession, and define professional benchmarks and realities for ELT professionals. Research to date has confirmed the omnipresence of idealized native speakerism as the most salient discriminatory dimension in hiring practices in ELT in the Middle East and Asia (e.g., Alshammari, 2021; Doan, 2016; Mahboob & Golden, 2013; Ruecker & Ives, 2015; Selvi, 2010; Wang & Lin, 2014), North America (e.g., de Figueiredo, 2011; Ramjattan, 2019b), the U.K. (e.g., Clark & Paran, 2007), Australia (e.g., Phillips, 2017), and Central and South America (e.g., Garcia-Ponce et al, 2021; Mackenzie, 2021), among others.…”