"The brand...? White people..." Whiteness in the valuation of foreign English teachers in China

This dissertation looks at the circulation of Whiteness as cultural capital after the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and the Double Reduction policies in 2021. It examines under what conditions Whiteness mattered in China and how its valuation changed. A major finding is that the English teaching market is racially divided by social and spatial scales in China in ways that include Chinese consumers along with foreign teachers. While White teachers from EuroAmerica still dominate the job market in first-tier cities, online Filipino teachers are being constructed as the default foreign teacher in lower-tier cities because of their local value. This thesis argues that this development in China’s English teaching market not only reflects the division of China’s private English industry according to racial categories of foreign teachers, but also constitutes a social hierarchy of Chinese consumers. This dissertation was based on participant ethnographic research and 90 semi-structured interviews at private English schools conducted between 2020-2022. The subjects of study included the teachers, clients and labor brokers involved in the day-to-day operations of private English schools. Despite local contestation to the value of Whiteness as a cultural capital, Whiteness remains cultural capital which distinguishes Chinese consumers in higher-tier cities from lower-tier cities. This research contributes to existing literature in Whiteness Studies by showing how Whiteness as cultural capital among foreign English teachers becomes interactive with social spatial hierarchies of Chinese consumers.