Higher education is undergoing substantial reforms in accordance with a neoliberal ideological turn, includingadjunctification (Harvey, 2005; Aronowitz, 2000), defined in the applied linguistics context as "the push for institutions of higher learning to hire as many adjuncts (part-time, nonbenefited employees) as possible to teach courses at a lower rate and without job security" (Marcotte, 2020, np). In Canada, Rose (2020) statistically analyzed the 2019 Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Database on Academic Employment in Canada to demonstrate how more than half of all postsecondary teaching positions are staffed from an adjunct reserve pool of "low paid and marginalized academic workers" (p. 15), particularly in education services such as EAP programmes. Globally in higher education, a similar trend is happening (Ball 2012; Childress 2019). Here, we address the transformation of the work of one such group of marginal teaching staff impacted by the neoliberal turn in universities, ESL/EAP instructors who work in English Language Centers (ELCs).
In this presentation, we will describe how discourses of professionalism, insecurity, and exploitation among English as a second language/English for Academic Purposes (hereinafter ESL/EAP) instructors and curriculum-level administrators at two Canadian universities construct their understandings of fair work within and against their current working conditions. Instructors' understandings are examined in a nested manner, in keeping with social positioning theory (Lawson 2022). Via discourse (Blommaert 2005) and thematic analysis of ESL/EAP instructor job advertisements and semi-structured interviews with instructors and administrators of these ESL/EAP programmes, we will illuminate how ESL/EAP instructor work is increasingly rendered un(der)paid, constantly evaluated, surveilled, and precarious not just in Canada but globally. Viewed through the lens of "magic time," an infinite category of work time, we will explore the frustrations of ESL/EAP instructors who recognize their own exploitation. The relevance of this study is described in relation to the growing numbers of international students at Canadian universities who require a more robust infrastructure supporting their needs, while the ESL/EAP instructors who provide these programmes are increasingly made disposable through contingent employment relationships, known among contract professors in higher education for-credit courses as adjunctification. We suggest that focused global advocacy and action is required, targeting decreased gigification of ESL/EAP instructor work.
References
Aronowitz, S. (2000). The Knowledge Factory: Dismantling the Corporate University and Creating True Higher Learning. Beacon Press.
Ball, S. J.(2012)Performativity, Commodification and Commitment: An I-Spy Guide to the Neoliberal University,British Journal of Educational Studies,60(1),17-28. DOI:10.1080/00071005.2011.650940
Blommaert, J. (2005). Discourse: A critical introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Childress, H. (2019). The Adjunct Underclass: How America's Colleges Betrayed Their Faculty, Their Students, and Their Mission. University of Chicago Press.
Harvey, D. (2005). A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford University Press.
Lawson, T. (2022). Social positioning theory. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 46, 1-39. https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beab040
Marcotte, S. N. (2020). The rise of adjunctification: From surviving to thriving. TESOL Blog. Retrieved June 30, 2022 from: http://blog.tesol.org/the-rise-of-adjunctification-from-surviving-to-thriving/
Rose, D. (2020). A snapshot of precarious academic work in Canada. New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry, 11(1), 7-17.
