(Re)production of symbolic boundaries between native and non-native teachers in the TESOL profession

Abstract Although various attempts to confront non-native teachers of English (NNESTs) marginalisation in the language teaching profession have taken place over past few years, (ELT) domain clearly demonstrates quite opposite; remaining structured and articulated by boundaries that are shaped ideologies, it marks an exclusion from participating field foreign on equal terms with native English-speaking (NESTs). Using a Bourdieusian lens (Bourdieu Passeron Reproduction education, society culture, Sage, London, 1990; Bourdieu Language symbolic power, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1991), this paper examines way violence is exercised through exclusionary discriminatory practices arbitrarily impose culture dominant group result production reproduction between English. In doing so, calls for greater awareness among educators power dynamics behind simplistic ‘native’/’non-native’ dichotomies. Since nothing has been done so far reconcile two, author believes continuous perception NESTs NNESTs as two different professional classes might serve interest those who wish maintain such polarisation.