‘Foreign education and companies are superior to local ones’: nativeness preferences are also found amid non-English teaching positions in China’s job market, but with different focus

ABSTRACT

Native-speakerism denotes a prevailing belief within English language teaching (ELT) that native speakers are perfect linguistic exemplars and practitioners of a better pedagogical approach. Despite unrelenting efforts made to discontinue the biased employment behavior in ELT, other professions facing the same conundrum receive much less attention. This study, therefore, intends to fill this gap by applying document analysis to examine 249 online recruiting advertisements for non-English teaching positions in China and using thematic analysis to interpret interviews with employers. Findings indicate neither traces of discriminatory practices in terms of the language of job adverts nor favorable attitudes to native speaker status. Regarding English language certification, both international and domestic language certificates are accepted, although certificates developed by English-dominated countries are more persuasive concerning oral proficiency. Nevertheless, an unreasonable preference for overseas experiences that add nativeness to candidates’ professional and educational background is easily noticed. This economy-based prejudice of equating native background with working ability echos precious scholarship focusing on ELT. Thus, this study advocates that enhancing awareness across all sectors of society about this unfair recruiting ideology is not only paramount in the ELT field, but also needed in all walks of life.

KEYWORDS:

• Native-speakerism
• English native speaker
• nativeness
• employment discrimination
• English language

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.