Beyond the tyranny of the typology: moving from labelling to negotiating international school teachers’ identities

ABSTRACT

This paper critically surveys four typologies that have been used to identify and understand international school teachers. The critique highlights two main limitations with the typologies. The first, ontological in nature, is that reifying teachers as a type does not capture the complexity of lived experience. The second, ethico-political in nature, is that labelling marginalises the teacher in the research process. Research is done on, rather than with, teachers. This paper’s central argument is that the typology represents a form of symbolic violence that silences teachers’ voices. In order to address the issues highlighted above, this paper proposes an alternative approach to researching international school teachers, which is situated within postmodern accounts of identity and relational ethics. This paper’s contribution lies in highlighting the limitations of typologising international school teachers and teachers in general and proposing an alternative approach that reconfigures the researcher-teacher dyad within the context of a relationship of care, mutual respect and negotiation.

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KEYWORDS:

• Teacher identity
• international school teachers
• teacher typologies
• relational ethics
• postmodernism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. It has to be noted that definitions of the international school remain contested. However, for the purposes of this paper, I offer a generalised account of these schools. For a more robust discussion of definitions of international schools see Bunnell (2014) and Hayden and Thompson (2013).

2. Speculating on the number of teachers working in international schools is inherently problematic, not least of all because just what constitutes an international school (and an international teacher) is contested. Despite this, the figures that Bunnell and others quote are indicative of a projected expansion in the international education industry which will require ever greater numbers of educators, thereby justifying focus on the international school teacher as an emerging research agenda.

3. The global middle class have been defined as a “service class who facilitate the functions of transnational corporations, as well as global political and financial organisations […] these individuals (and their children) become global citizens – nomadic, disconnected, belonging to ‘the world’” (Maxwell et al., 2018).