Paper short abstract:

Young substitute teachers in China suffer from the derogation of social stigmatization, especially differentiated treatment by various groups at school. Substitute teachers bear the derogation of stigmatized status in the special gap between actual and virtual social identities.

Paper long abstract:

Substitute teachers in China are teachers who work in state-run schools without an authorized identity within the state system. These 'teachers' do not have a 'complete' (paper) identity that help them fit in and pursue professional development. Inspired by Goffman's stigma theory, my research looks at the 'awkwardness' and 'strangeness' of substitute teachers in everyday school life.

Drawing on two months long ethnographic fieldwork, this paper highlights five young substitute teachers' life stories. All of these five teachers work in an urban public school in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province which is located on the east cosat of China. During my fieldwork, I followed their routines on campus, observed their interactions with peers and senior teachers. Besides casual chats, I also conduct formal interviews with the five substitute teachers, four teachers with within-state-system identit.

Research findings show that the young substitute teachers suffer from the derogation of social stigmatization, especially differentiated treatment by various groups at school. Substitute teachers bear the derogation of stigmatized status in the special gap between actual and virtual social identities. They suffer from uncomfortable interaction in the context of remixed contact and promotes the transformation of self-identity in the reflection because of the stigma.

This paper argues that the stigmatization toward substitute teachers is not only a social construct of hierarchical membership between different groups of teachers, but also a practice of normalized symbolic violence at work. The feelings of incompleteness is a constant construction of social identities.