White profitability: an intersectional critique of Chinese women’s reckoning with the English language industry

Abstract

English language teaching (ELT) is a racially stratified industry that privileges whiteness as a norm. Drawing upon a Women of Colour feminist research design that draws on both racial capitalism and intersectional perspectives, this paper examines the experiences of 18 Chinese women teachers in the ELT industry through an innovative interviewing approach called Tucao. Our study reveals how the ELT industry in China constructs whiteness as a profitable investment for Chinese people–and, in so doing, constructs Chinese women as subordinate, exploitable, and ineffective teachers. These teachers, however, quietly oppose this gendered racism in the workplace. While this study focuses on the Chinese context, the study introduces the concept of ‘White profitability’ to explain how the commodification of whiteness underpins intersectional racism experienced by teachers of colour in the global ELT industry. The study contributes methodologically, empirically and theoretically to the scholarship on racial capitalism, intersectionality, and the commodification of race and gender in educational contexts.

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