Contesting racialization: Asian immigrant teachers' critiques and claims of teacher authenticity

Abstract

Research on how racialization operates in immigrant context, particularly in relation to immigrant teachers, is marginalized as an area of inquiry in US educational research. This paper examines how immigrant teachers negotiated ideological and resistant notions of teacher authenticity in US school settings. In particular, the author examines how female South Asian teachers contested dominant interpretations on what counted as teacher legitimacy and authority. Along with racial, ethnic and gender identities, the paper argues for the need to recognize how religious, linguistic identities and one's academic disciplinary affiliation shape how one is constructed as an authentic or less‐authentic teacher. The author argues for the need to critique the narrow ways in which identities are conceptualized in schools and advocates for the need to consider heterogeneous and contradictory notions of cultural identity.

Keywords:

• authenticity
• cultural identity
• immigration
• postcolonial theory
• racialization
• teacher identity

Notes

1. The term South Asian is often used to describe people who trace their cultural identities to the nation states of Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India.

2. Emphasis in the original.