Zai jiao yu zhe yu fu wu zhe zhi jian: Zhongguo Beijing di qu bu xi ji gou jiang shi de shen fen ren tong = Between educators and service providers : the identity of tutors in tutorial centers in Beijing, China

Ph.D.Over the past few decades, private supplementary tutoring at the level of primary and secondary education, also widely known as shadow education, has witnessed continued development globally both in terms of the sector size and the number of tutors working in the field. The market-oriented reforms since 1978 have also promoted the rapid development of private tutoring in mainland China. Tutors are front-line employees of the tutorial industry and thus it is important to investigate questions as to how tutors view their work and identity in the market-oriented and commercialized education context in tutorial centers. Drawing on neoliberalism-related theories, especially Foucault’s idea of neoliberalism as governmentality in combination with relevant conceptual tools such as performance legitimacy, McDonaldization and emotional labor, this study has employed a qualitative method of case study to explore research questions including: why different individuals choose to work in private tutorial centers? How does tutorial centers’ marketized and commercialized education context affect tutors’ work and identity? How do tutors resist the impact of marketization on their work and identity? The source of data mainly derives from interviews with a total of 31 tutors, 3 tutorial center managers and 5 parents in Beijing, supplemented by the use of document analysis and observations.This study found that tutors in tutorial centers have diverse backgrounds. However, the primary reason for different individuals to pursue this profession is the extrinsic motivation for higher income. Working and seeking identity shift from part-time tutors to full-time tutors is an important path for individual tutors to make such a career choice. Individuals’ choice of working in tutorial centers in Beijing takes on characteristics of neoliberal entrepreneur’s free choice, ability first and self-attribution. However, under the embedded neoliberalism in mainland China, individuals’ free choice is restricted by the household registration/hukou system and bianzhi system as well as gender factors. This kind of free choice appears as a restricted free choice, and individual tutors present an image of restricted entrepreneur: a paradoxical semi-citizen identity and a drifting subject.The identity of tutors in tutorial centers presents the interweaving of two identities: being educators and being service providers. Regarding the educators’ identity, the identity and authority of tutors as educators are based on their performance legitimacy. The relationship between tutors and parents and students shows characteristics of contingent respect, unconfident educators, equal and close teacher-student relations and time-limited teacher-student relations. The advancement of standardization of teaching in tutorial centers has gradually reduced the teaching autonomy of tutors, which is the core element of educators, making tutors more and more characterized by rapidity, homogeneity, platform reliance and de-skilling. In terms of the service providers’ identity, service work constitutes an equally important task for tutors in tutorial centers as teaching. It is also the biggest difference between tutors and public school teachers in their working lives. The large quantity of service work in tutorial centers has a huge impact on tutors, such as meaninglessness and negative emotional experience, professional dissolution, occupational burnout and mobility and the blurring of work and life boundaries, which eventually lead tutors to show an identity of “service providers in the garb of teachers”. It is worth noting, however, that the teaching work and service work of tutors do not always conflict, but also complement each other. The two have been integrated under the audit culture and performance accountability implemented in tutorial centers.While the tutorial centers’ market-oriented and commercialized education environment influence tutors’ working life, tutors are also responding to such influence mainly in the manifestation of daily resistance. With respect to teaching, the resistance strategies include carefully preparing lessons and teaching, sticking to the professionalism of teaching course content, and cultivating students’ traits while imparting professional knowledge. With regard to service work, the resistance of tutors is reflected in parrhesia and the care of themselves, flexible tactics and traditional Confucian discourse: being a literati/wenren and morally lofty/qinggao.This study presents an exploration of the identity of tutors in private tutorial centers. On the basis of the previous studies on the impact of neoliberalism on school teachers’ work and identity, the study enriches research on neoliberalism and education, teacher/educator identity and teacher/educator resistance by further exploring the situation of tutors in a complete and thorough market-oriented education context. For tutors, on the one hand, they must follow the existing education and teaching rules, while they are restricted by the profit-seeking market logic of tutorial centers on the other hand. The contradictions and tensions between these two logics more often than not cause tutors to be in a dilemma full of pressure. As such, tutors negotiate and struggle between the identities of being an educator and being a service provider. The essence of their struggle is trying to achieve a balance between a responsible and moral individual and an economic-rational individual under neoliberalism.過去幾十年，被稱爲影子教育的中小學課外補習在全球範圍內不斷增長，補習講師隊伍不斷壯大。中國內地自1978 年開始的市場化改革同樣推動了課外補習的迅速發展。作爲課外補習從業者的補習講師，在補習機構市場化、商品化的教育情境中，如何看待與審視自己的工作和身份認同？以新自由主義的相關理論尤其福柯關於作爲治理術的新自由主義的相關論述爲主軸，結合績效合法性、麥當勞化和情緒勞動等相關的概念工具，採用質化研究取向的案例研究，本研究共招募北京地區的31 位補習講師、3 位補習機構管理者及5 位家長，以訪談資料爲主，輔以文件資料與觀察，探討不同個體爲何進入補習機構工作，補習機構市場化、商品化的教育情境對補習講師的工作與身份認同有何影響，補習講師如何應對、抵抗市場化對其工作與身份認同的影響。研究發現，補習機構講師具有來源多樣化的特徵，個體從事該職業的首要原因是更高收入的追求的外在動力。從兼職到全職，是個體從業選擇的一個重要路徑。個體在北京的補習機構工作的選擇，呈現出新自由主義企業家主體的自由選擇、能力至上和個體歸因的特徵。然而，在中國內地嵌入式新自由主義下，個體的自由選擇受到戶籍制度和編制制度以及性別因素等的限制。這種自由選擇實際上呈現爲一種受限制的自由選擇，個體則呈現出一種受限制的企業家主體的形象——一種弔詭的半公民身份和漂泊的主體。補習講師的身份認同呈現出作爲教育者和服務者兩重身份之間的交織。在教育者身份認同方面，補習講師作爲教育者的身份認同和權威表現爲績效合法性。補習講師與家長和學生之間的關係具有因地而異的尊重、不硬氣的教育者、平等親近的師生關係以及時間限定的師生關係的特徵。補習機構教學標準化的推進，使得補習講師作爲教育者的核心要素——教學自主性被逐漸壓縮，補習講師越來越呈現出速成化、同質化、平臺化以及去技能化的特徵。在服務者身份認同方面，服務工作是和教學工作並列的補習講師的兩大工作內容之一，也是補習講師與學校教師工作生活最大的不同之處。補習機構大量的服務工作的開展對補習講師造成了巨大的影響——無意義感與消極情緒體驗、專業性的消解、職業倦怠與流動、工作與生活邊界的模糊，並最終導致補習講師呈現出“穿著教師皮囊的服務員”的身份認同。在兩者的關係上，補習講師的教學工作與服務工作既存在著沖突的一面，也存在著互補的一面，並在補習機構的審計文化與績效考核之下最終實現了融合。在補習機構市場化、商品化的教育環境對補習講師産生影響的同時，補習講師也在對其進行著應對，補習講師的這種應對主要呈現爲日常抵抗。在教學工作方面，補習講師的抵抗措施包括：認真備課和上課、堅持課程內容的專業性、授業並傳道。在服務工作方面，補習講師的抵抗則體現在關懷自我與說真話的勇氣、靈活的抵抗戰術、傳統儒家話語：文人與清高三個方面。本研究所呈現的補習機構講師身份認同的探討，在以往的關於新自由主義對公立學校教師的工作與身份認同的影響的基礎上，進一步增加了完全、徹底的市場化教育情境中補習講師的情況，豐富了關於新自由主義與教育、教師/教育者身份認同及教師/教育者抵抗的研究。對於補習講師而言，他們一方面要遵循既有的教育教學法則，另一方面又受到補習機構營利性的市場法則的限制。兩者之間的矛盾與張力經常導致補習講師處於一種困境和壓力中。因此，補習講師在教育者與服務者的身份認同之間進行著協商與掙紮，其實質在於盡力實現新自由主義下一個負責任道德個體以及一個經濟理性個體之間的平衡。潘冬冬."2020年9月".Parallel title from added title page.Thesis Ph.D. Chinese University of Hong Kong 2020.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 304-320).Abstract also in English.Title from PDF title page (viewed on March 17, 2022).Pan Dongdong