Native-Speakerism and Employment Discrimination in Shadow Education Industry

This qualitative study investigates how “native-speakerism” shapes employment practices and professional well-being in Kazakhstan’s growing English private tutoring sector. Drawing on critical race theory, it explores the experiences of eight non-native English language teachers who provide fee-based tutoring alongside their school duties in Astana. Through semi-structured interviews, the study highlights financial necessity and professional development as key motivations for English private tutoring, while also uncovering multiple forms of discrimination. These include unequal pay, biased treatment by center owners and parents, and students’ preference for foreign tutors, which eroded participants’ confidence and contributed to emotional burnout. The findings demonstrate how market-driven hiring practices commodify foreign tutors as “native speakers” while undervaluing the expertise of local teacher-tutors. The chapter calls for regulatory oversight of the tutoring industry, inclusive hiring standards, and awareness-raising in teacher education, contributing to broader debates on linguistic injustice in ELT and identity-based inequalities in under-regulated educational contexts.