International Education Teachers’ Experiences as an Educational Precariat in China

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to extend Bunnell’s (2016) thesis that international education teachers (IETs) are forming a ‘global educational precariat’. The paper draws upon interview data from a larger study of international teachers in two international schools in Shanghai, China. In order to substantiate and develop Bunnell’s thesis, narrative inquiry was employed as a guiding methodology, which ensured that data analysis remained rooted in the participants’ lived experience but also allowed for triangulation, thereby enhancing validity. Findings confirm Bunnell’s thesis by highlighting a lack of agency, financial insecurity, and the marginalisation of professional identities as common experiences of IET precarity. The findings also challenge the notion of a global educational precariat by arguing that it may be more appropriate to conceptualise IETs in terms of a localised educational precariat rather than a global class in and of itself. The paper ends by sketching a research agenda that would involve comparing teachers’ experiences in different types of international schools in China and other contexts.