When Their Voices Are Heard: Bilingual Paraeducators and Organizational Dynamics

Abstract

Paraeducators play a marginal yet essential role in fulfilling teaching-related tasks in many international classrooms in China. In order to meet high standards of education, schools often provide professional training to paraeducators. However, in the training process, schools primarily focus on their own needs and rarely consider the personal condition or positionality of paraeducators. Informed by positioning theory, this study argues that overlooking paraeducators’ needs and positions can be detrimental to the success of institutionally provided training. This case study, which spans the course of 2 years, explores how Chinese bilingual paraeducators’ self-positioning impacts their responses to professional training, their daily teaching practices, and their subsequent professional development. Findings suggest that paraeducators should not remain peripheral figures in an organization because hearing and understanding their self-positioning practices and concerns can be beneficial to both paraeducators’ professional learning and schools’ organizational development.