Navigating the emotional stickiness of belonging through scaling: A black American woman teacher's experiences in the context of teaching English abroad in Korea

Abstract

Questions about belonging are particularly poignant to migrant English language teaching (ELT) professionals. However, few studies have explored migrant ELT professionals’ emotional belonging, and even fewer studies have studied how Black women native English teachers navigate their emotional belonging as they teach English abroad, in countries like Korea. This three-year longitudinal study explores how one Black American woman, Kayla, navigated the emotionality of belonging as she taught English in Korea. By drawing on the notions of emotional stickiness and scales, our analysis shows how emotional stickiness created key reference points for the scaling processes by which Kayla constructed a sense of belonging. By highlighting Kayla's everyday feelings of belonging vis-à-vis her scaling processes, this study deepens our understanding of migrant Black ELT professionals’ emotional lives and provides implications for ELT stakeholders at the pedagogical, programmatic, and institutional levels.