Exploring the gendered and professional identities of Chinese EFL female teachers working in education leadership positions

Abstract

This longer-term ethnographic study explored the positions and opportunities open to female Chinese university leaders, and attempted to provide an understanding of how they constructed different identities for themselves, as leaders and educators. This study also observed gender-related personal experiences, leadership practices, and the status of women leaders in the context of five national or provincial universities in one of China’s most vital educational priority provinces. This research involved six participants, each of whom was an EFL (English as Foreign Language) educator, in a language department and in a leadership position. This study provided detail about the ways in which different aspects of identities might be constituted alongside each other and it enabled attention to be paid to the ‘differences’ in identities, as well as the similarities. This study also investigated how discourses were formed around gender and the feminist agenda in a patriarchal context, as well as the individual perceptions involved, and what discourses gender and feminism are drawn upon by participants in the constitution of their own identities. This study also suggested that when faced with dealing with gender issues, there is much more to it than simply identifying interventions or gender discrimination. This study paid attention to the micro, and the ways in which a number of identities might emerge over time and in relation to different contexts and discursive possibilities. By looking at this in a particular local context, the research was also able to pick up on the local inflections of gendered identity and discourse. This is particularly important given the colonial past of international research, and the tendency to see countries and contexts outside of the West as somehow wrong and sexist. The study also concludes that – although some female Chinese teacher leaders refuse to be referred to as female leaders, and reject being associated with feminism – there is evidence that in general, such leaders are experimenting with new approaches, integrating different gender and leadership discourses to seek their way to future development.