Race, gender and politics of English language education in Thailand : The Filipino educators in the Kingdom

Abstract

This study explores the politics of race and gender in the English education in Thai schools through the experience of Filipino teachers employed in Thai educational institutions. The data were drawn from a two-year ethnographic study in Thai primary and secondary schools both in the Bangkok Metropolitan area and other nearby provinces, during which the researcher conducted in-depth interviews with Filipino teachers and Thai school administrators and organized focus group discussions with Filipino teachers. Selected documents from the Philippine and Thai governments were also analyzed. The researcher employed a critical race and gender analysis to explain workplace discrimination faced by Filipino teachers and adopted postcolonial lenses to analyze Thai discourses on the West and the English language that create such discrimination. A number of major findings are revealed by the study. Firstly, findings demonstrate that the Filipino teachers' employment in Thailand is oftentimes facilitated by their extensive network through family and friends. Secondly, the study also shows that Filipino teachers engage in transnational activities involving their host- and sending-countries by way of making productive investments, helping them make further sense of their earnings, savings and remittances. Thirdly, findings reveal as well the role religion plays in many of the Filipino teachers' migratory experience. More importantly, findings demonstrate that not only is a Filipino teacher's religious membership used for spiritual nourishment, but it also serves as a channel through which one can gain employment via a church network and relevant support system hence the teachers' resorting to instrumental religion. Lastly, this study reveals that Filipino teachers experience overt discrimination in the workplace where their race and the variant of English language they produce place them as second-class foreign teachers compared to white native English speakers from Western countries. Predominantly, Filipino teachers are expected to embody warm and caring personalities and present well-kept and beautiful bodies while their male native English speaker counterparts are exempted from the feminization of the teaching profession.