This paper examines how language and identity inform educational practices and hiring policies. It builds on prior research highlighting nuances within the discussion of native speakerism in TESOL (e.g., Houghton, & Rivers, 2013; Lawrence & Nagashima, 2020) and responds to calls for a better understanding of why "native English speakers" are sought within the current professional landscape (Ahn et al., 2021).
Native speakerism has become the default rational for language-related discrimination within the mainstream TESOL discourse and central to discussions on identity and status drawn from language-based categorization (Rivers, 2017; 2018). This broad application of native speakerism is critiqued and the rationale for "native speaker only" hiring policies is reframed through the introduction of social identity theory (SIT).
The paper begins outlining SIT and its various components. The theory's socio-structural parameters are then put forward. These variables can be applied by researchers to understand and effectively predict when bias will be employed as a status improvement strategy. Specifically, two forms of intergroup bias not directly addressed by native speakerism are introduced: realistic competition and social competition. While the existence of native speakerism is not disputed, claims that it has been largely denied and accounts for hiring discrimination (e.g., Holliday & Aboshiha, 2009) are problematized. This novel approach works within the current climate of "nonnative English speaker" advocacy to provide researchers a social psychological model to interpret professional discrimination as not solely evidence of a consensually accepted status system, but as one in a series of strategies currently being adopted to challenge the legitimacy of the intergroup status hierarchy within TESOL.
While the yeoman's work of Holliday (2005) has elevated the discourse on political inequalities embedded within TESOL, if "native speaker only" preferences are explained solely through the prism of native speakerism those on the periphery are presumed complicit in their marginalization (see Kumaravadivelu, 2016). The doctrine of native speakerism critiques a juxtaposition between "native speakers" as independent, original, and creative and "nonnative speakers" as uncritical, passive, and lacking self-esteem (Holliday, 2005, p.19-20). Consequently, native speakerism as the explanation for hiring discrimination risks countering that which it proports to combat by patronizingly suggesting that "nonnative English speakers" have internalized, accepted, and are actively furthering the imperialistic ideology of the English-speaking West.
SIT provides a theoretical lens to look beyond native speakerism as the catalyst for hiring discrimination within TESOL. The theory proposes that the need for self-esteem motivates group members to seek favorable intergroup comparisons. When hierarchical group relations are perceived as unstable, impermeable, and illegitimate, those with a strong ingroup identification are likely to resist the intergroup status system suggesting hiring discrimination as not solely a symptom of native speakerism, but (within the context of outer and expanding circle countries) an active form of resistance against the ideology.
