ABSTRACT
After reading the chapters in this part, “Ideological and Political Dilemmas,” I see a major thread running through them, a thread that I intend to respond to in this chapter, with my own doubts and questions as a professional in English language teaching who has an explicit agenda for social justice. All the authors in this part of the book ask that CET acknowledge the harmful effects on local communities by those who hold cultural and linguistic imperialistic views. They also fear for the damage that this subgroup of CET may have on other CET who approach teaching English and training future teachers of English differently. That is, by learning from local groups and repudiating the neo-conservative agenda of “seize and conquer.” Within this subgroup, Stabler-Havener refers to Christian English teachers with hidden evangelistic goals as CETHEG and repudiates their mission and conduct, as do Wong and Byler. At the same time, in their chapters all three authors also ask readers to see the diversity that exists within CET by expressing that there are many CET who, like them, oppose the hegemonic forces of the past colonial powers and of the United States at present, which has been associated in different ways with evangelical Christianity. Interestingly, in our empirical study (Varghese & Johnston, 2007), Bill and I were genuine in our approach and intent as researchers outside the community of CET who wanted to understand how and why evangelical Christians chose the profession of English language teaching. We were careful in our article, first, to differentiate between evangelical Christians and other types of Christians and, in analyzing our interview data, what struck us was the diversity of professional identities that these future teachers espoused. In fact, the three teacher identity scenarios that Wong proposes can be actually found embodied in the participants in our study. The participants, such as David in our study, were particularly concerned about being skilled language teachers as well as being culturally sensitive when going abroad to teach English, something that these three authors also worry about and make explicit as essential traits for the ideal CET to have. Although Makoni and Makoni’s chapter is different from the other chapters in its genre and focus, they also speak to the diversity within Christian groups by casting doubt on two rigidly held assumptions regarding the spread of English in Africa. The first is the assumption that missionaries coerced local communities into adopting English; in their chapter, as we also partially argued in our article,
they articulate that by and large missionaries were actually intent on preserving the local languages although this was mainly to pursue their evangelistic goals. The second is that Christian organizations are the major forces behind the preservation of English as the language of prestige in anglophone Africa. Makoni and Makoni actually claim that it is the parents of children in this part of the world who are actually behind this push and the politicians, in paying heed to them, have passed legislation in support of this. According to them, English is part of these communities, desired by these communities, and is there to stay. This response provides me with the opportunity to reflect and also make more public some of the dilemmas that both Bill Johnston and I wrestled with, although from slightly different perspectives, when writing our article (Varghese & Johnston, 2007) on evangelical Christians who pursue English language teaching. A major dilemma that we struggled with was how to make co-exist on paper two perspectives we hold dear, perspectives shared also by the authors in this part of the book. One was our desire to highlight our empirical approach and the findings we made, which made salient the diversity of perspectives that were present within our participants. This was for us a central reason for conducting empirical research in this area, to answer genuine questions about these future teachers who identified spiritually with evangelical Christianity. The other perspective that we viewed as critical to represent was our rejection of association between evangelical Christianity and the neo-conservative project of American empire. Writing the chapter required endless drafts as we meticulously attempted to articulate these perspectives side by side. In looking at my past and present work and considering my future research, this multivocality has been important to preserve and express. In my study of bilingual teachers’ professional identities (Varghese, 2006, 2008), I used a conceptual framework of cultural production to underscore that what I found in my study was the creative and individual ways different teachers found to enact their identities as bilingual teachers. But the structural constraints and political roles of their professions were also important to convey as essential characteristics of their professional identities (Cahnmann & Varghese, 2006; Varghese & Stritikus, 2005). While I have found the personal and the political to be important to engage in, I have also recently felt uneasy about whether the emphasis on one lessens the value placed on the other. I have wondered whether my focus on teachers’ agency, individuality, and diversity is possibly diluting my attempts at showing the material and structural conditions of their profession. In the same way, I have been concerned that our attempt at solely humanizing evangelical English language teachers might contribute to dampening our critique of the association between fundamentalist Christian groups, English language teachers, and American neo-imperialism. In my recent flirtations with poststructuralist theories and feminist critiques of poststructuralism, I have witnessed that similar concerns have been voiced within the feminist scholarly tradition. Weedon (1999) discusses how feminists working within movements such as Marxism and radical feminism, have criticized the postmodern feminist movement for what they view as their lack of concern for social and material oppression. These feminists ask whether poststructuralist musings have led people to ignore such realities as
those of battered women and of women of color experiencing the vicissitudes of racism. At the same time, I have found poststructuralist theories and approaches as extremely helpful in considering the primacy of language in constructing multiple realities as well as in conceptualizing identities as overlapping and shifting, among other contributions. Overall, poststructuralism has pushed many of us engaged in educational research to question what may be viewed as given truths. Davies (2004) writes that a characteristic of poststructural theory is its “troubling of those knowledges that have been taken to be certain and secure” (p. 4). In fact, poststructuralism has been heavily influential in my work in the way I approach a study and the participants in the study. For instance, in our study of evangelical English teachers, what pushed us was to question what we perceived as an essentialization of them as Bible thumpers with solely a proselytizing agenda. In my response to these chapters, I am expressing my difficulty at being caught between validating the value of poststructuralism in my scholarly work, especially in my work with evangelical English language teachers and my fear of not acknowledging enough the possible material conditions and consequences of these professional roles across the world. In this response, I also wanted to discuss another thought I had when reading what the authors wrote about how valuable a number of CET view cultural diversity. Byler, in his chapter, went as far as proposing that CET could be advocates who “point out injustices in their own society” and “address issues of racism and prejudice in American history.” However, it does seem that a number of the authors lean more toward an espousal of valuing other cultures, which Kubota (2004) refers to as “liberal multiculturalism,” which “emphasizes common humanity and natural equality across racial, cultural, class, and gender differences” (p. 32). Another important characteristic of liberal multiculturalism according to Kubota is how it ignores issues of power and privilege that are often associated with whiteness. As expressed earlier in this response, I have experienced a certain discomfort with making most salient in the study, the diversity among evangelical English language teachers, rather than other aspects. Part of this discomfort also comes with that in doing so I may have cast myself as a liberal multiculturalist. A critical multiculturalist might have highlighted the hierarchical relationship that exists not only between teachers and students (and therefore, the greater responsibility these teachers may have held when teaching their students) but also between the United States and many countries. Moreover, the issue of race was left completely out of the piece as well as a number of the chapters in this part of the book. It is undeniable that many CET are white, middle-class individuals (as Byler discussed) and the power of these categories and identities need to be put at the forefront of a discussion of their impact. As I respond in this manner, I also need to express that one of the reasons I feel caught in between relativism and materialism, liberal multiculturalism and critical multiculturalism, is my fear that adopting this authoritative stance will lessen the force (and genuineness) of our invitation to dialogue. But our emphasis on the necessity of dialogue in the chapter was an aspect of the article that I view as essential. Here, I turn to Hannah Arendt’s vision of a public arena of the spirited and courageous expression and exchange of opinion, invoking the Greek
polis. This was a coming together of individuals to express their opinions on a particular topic that needed to be debated but it required courage. Arendt argues that it was in such a space that individuals developed ideas that were alien to them once, possible now, and through the process became themselves enlarged as individuals. Whenever we write scholarly pieces, we always leave out any misgivings and fears of how we represented ourselves and our work. This is especially the case when we tackle what are perceived as controversial topics in our writing. In this response chapter, I wanted to express some of the fears and doubts I had when writing up our study on evangelical Christians teaching English while making connections with the chapters themselves. Once again, this was another move to continue the dialogue and I invite the authors of these chapters as well as others to continue to engage with me.
