Early career language teacher educators’ intersectional identities and practices across diverse contexts: a collaborative autoethnography

This collaborative autoethnography (CAE) aims to explore our lived experiences as four female language teacher educators (LTEs) in tertiary-level education across different contexts (U.S., China, and Indonesia). Drawing upon the concepts of intersectionality, we report on our constructed identities at the intersections of diverse backgrounds (e.g. cultural, linguistic, gendered) and the impact of the intersectional identities on our practices in language teaching and/or teacher education. Our CAE reveals that identities are not shaped by discrete categories but by multiple intersecting factors, such as cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds, while also highlighting the contextual dynamics of LTE identity negotiation. Further, our lived experiences indicate that marginalisation and empowerment are not mutually exclusive but coexist within our LTE identity construction. Despite the challenges we experienced as LTEs, we turned those challenges into resources to empower ourselves and students, specifically by agentively utilising asset-based pedagogical approaches, advocating for ourselves and students, and engaging in scholarship on bilingualism, translanguaging, and marginalisation. Lastly, the study provides implications for LTE education and research.