Eighteenth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

Part of a larger study, this paper explores, through the use of narratives, the experience of Filipino teachers employed in Thai educational institutions and looks into the politics of English education in Thai schools. The data were drawn from a year-and-a-half of ethnographic study in Thai primary and secondary schools in the Bangkok Metropolitan area during which the researcher conducted in-depth interviews with Filipino teachers, Thai school administrators, and Philippine diplomats, and organized focus group discussions (FGDs) with said Filipino teachers. Selected documents from the Philippine and Thai governments were also analyzed. The findings reveal 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 female, Filipino teachers are expected to embody warm and caring personalities and to present well-kept and beautiful bodies while their predominantly male native English speaker counterparts are exempted from the feminization of the teaching profession. The researcher employed a critical race and gender analysis to explain workplace discrimination faced by Filipino teachers and adopted a postcolonial lenses to analyze Thai discourses on the West and the English language that creates such discrimination.