Contested racial capitals of English teachers in China: reassessing Whiteness by use-value

Abstract

From the 1990s to the 2010s, China saw tremendous growth in private companies offering English programmes featuring foreign teachers. Education companies branded their foreign teachers as White depending on how their customers valued having a White teacher as part of dynamic international education plans. This paper examines dramatic changes in China’s educational infrastructure which have made it possible for Filipino teachers to be recategorised as similarly valuable foreign teachers, but primarily in cases found within marginalised Chinese cities. I identify new questions about the value of Whiteness as a ‘racial capital’ in China’s lower-tier cities. I argue that racial boundaries between foreign teachers are reflective of different value systems for racial capitals found between China’s first-tier and lower-tier cities. Social geographies that divide cities in China are shown here to be intersecting with racial hierarchies of international English teachers. This research is based on data collected through participant observation at a large Beijing private education company between 2018 and 2020 and follow-up interviews conducted between 2020 and 2022 in online tutoring centres. This paper contributes to critical race studies by showing how racial capitals are changing beyond dominant Western notions of what constitutes Whiteness.