Shibao Guo

Toward recognitive justice: emerging trends and challenges in transnational migration and lifelong learning

As a result of globalization and transnational migration, many countries are becoming increasingly ethno‐culturally diverse. Unfortunately, lifelong learning has failed to integrate cultural difference and diversity into educational environments. Rather than facilitating immigrants’ adaptation, lifelong learning has become a vehicle for assimilating immigrants into the dominant norms and values of the host society. To build inclusive and socially just lifelong education, this article proposes transnational lifelong learning for recognitive justice and inclusive citizenship that offers a promising alternative to distributive and retributive approaches to lifelong learning. This framework questions the claim that a universality of citizenship transcends cultural difference and particularity. It suggests ‘pluralist citizenship’ as an alternative form of citizenship that recognizes transnational flows of migration and concomitant diasporic allegiances and affiliations. In rejecting the deficit model of lifelong learning, this framework acknowledges and affirms cultural difference and diversity as positive and desirable assets. Transnational lifelong learning seeks to balance freedom of mobility with protection, recognition and membership.

Economic Integration of Recent Chinese Immigrants in Canada's Second-Tier Cities: The Triple Glass Effect and Immigrants' Downward Social Mobility

In examining the economic integration of Chinese immigrants in Calgary and Edmonton, this study reveals that recent immigrants have encountered multi-faceted barriers, particularly in employment and language. Furthermore, they have experienced deskilling and devaluation of their prior learning and work experience after immigrating to Canada. As a consequence, many have suffered unemployment and underemployment, poor economic performance, and downward social mobility, which have adversely hindered their integration process. Immigrants’ negative experience can be attributed to a triple glass effect consisting of a glass gate, glass door, and glass ceiling. While a glass gate denies immigrants’ entrance to guarded professional communities, a glass door blocks immigrants’ access to professional employment at high-wage firms. It is the glass ceiling which prevents immigrants from moving up to management positions because of their ethnic and cultural differences. This study calls for the adoption of an inclusive framework that works toward recognitive justice in balancing freedom of mobility with recognition and full membership in Canada.

Governing through non/recognition: the missing ‘R’ in the PLAR for immigrant professionals in Canada and Sweden

Despite claims that prior learning assessment and recognition (PLAR) can act as a transformative social mechanism and a means of social inclusion, this study reports that PLAR has become a serious barrier to adult learning rather than a facilitator. Drawing from Foucault’s concept of governmentality, the study examines the difficulties that immigrant professionals have experienced in having their foreign credentials and work experience recognized in the contexts of Canada and Sweden. Using document analysis and interviews, the study analyses how PLAR has created a system of governing through technologies of power and technologies of the self which work as dividing practices in discounting and devaluating immigrants’ prior learning and work experience. The study concludes that PLAR has become a technical exercise and a governing tool rather than a form of social transformation.

Chinese Immigrants in Vancouver: Quo Vadis?

This article reports findings from a study carried out in Vancouver that examined the settlement and adaptation experiences of Chinese immigrants. The findings reveal that non-economic reasons such as the environment, education, and citizenship constituted the primary motivations for Chinese immigrants to move to Canada. Employment and language facilities were the most frequently cited barriers inhibiting their integration into the Vancouver social and economic spheres. Their poor economic performances, coupled with the devaluation of both their acquired Chinese educational qualifications and labour market experience, have hindered integration and increased dissatisfaction with their lives in Canada. Given the logic of our posited triangular migration model, we argue that this dissatisfaction will encourage Chinese emigration from Vancouver.Cet article présente les conclusions d’une étude effectuée à Vancouver et portant sur l’établissement et ládaptation des immigrants chinois. Les réesultate indiquent que ce sont surtout des raisons non économiques - l’environnement, ’éducation et la citoyenneté - qui ont poussé les immigrants chinois á venir au Canada. Le marché du travail et les ressources linguistiques figuraient parmi les facteurs les plus souvent évoqués comme obstacles à leur intégration aux milieux sociaux et économiques de Vancouver. Leurs faibles rendements économiques, conjuguées à la dépréciation de leur scolorité et leurs expériences professionnelles chinoises, ont nui à leur intégration tout en augmentant leur insatisfaction face à leur vie au Canada. Suivant la logique qui sous-tend notre modèle triangulaire de migration, nous maintenons que cette insatisfaction poussera la population chinoise à émigrer de Vancouver.

The politics of recognition: critical discourse analysis of recent PLAR policies for immigrant professionals in Canada

The unprecedented transnational mobility that skilled immigrants have experienced in the global war for international talents has made foreign credential recognition a policy challenge for many countries. Under the pressure of critics, Canadian governments recently launched new initiatives to facilitate foreign qualification recognition through policy interventions. Using critical discourse analysis, this article analyses the policy orientation of two benchmark government documents concerning prior learning assessment and recognition (PLAR) for immigrant professionals in Canada. The analysis shows that while these initiatives claim to promote fair, timely and transparent recognition practices, they are found playing an instrumental role in reinforcing the ideals of market individualism and procedural fairness. In particular, they have established Managerialism as the mechanism to reducing recognition barriers, which has in effect served to strengthen the monopolistic power positions of the Canadian regulatory bodies to delimit valid knowledge and skills and Canadian standards. Not only are immigrants left out of the process to decide on the value of their qualifications, they have also been further objectified vis-à-vis universal Canadian occupational standards. To build a more inclusive and equitable PLAR system, this article suggests a paradigmatic shift towards recognitive justice, which will take us beyond the discourse of righteousness in debating issues of PLAR concerning foreign credentials recognition for immigrant professionals.

The changing face of work and learning in the context of immigration: the Canadian experience

Through the accounts of the experience of recent Chinese immigrants in Canada, this study examines the changing nature of work and learning in the context of immigration. Its findings reveal the precarious nature of work and learning for immigrant professionals, characterised by part time, low wages, job insecurity, high risks of ill health and limited social benefits and statutory entitlements. The study also shows that immigrants’ foreign credentials and knowledge have been racialised on the basis of ethnic and national origins. As a consequence, they suffered unemployment and underemployment, poor economic performance and downward social mobility. The racialised experience of Chinese immigrants demonstrates how racial and socio-cultural differences have been used to entrench social inequality in immigrants’ transitions. Through the process of deskilling and re-skilling, learning has become a vehicle to colonising immigrants into the dominant norms and values of the host society. The study urges government organisations, professional associations, educational institutions and prior learning assessment agencies to adopt an inclusive framework which fully embraces all human knowledge and experience, no matter which ethnic and cultural backgrounds they emerge from.

Changes in Chinese education under globalisation and market economy: emerging issues and debates

Fuelled by forces of globalisation, China has gradually shifted from a centrally planned economy to the ‘socialist market economy’. This study examines changes in Chinese education under globalisation and market economy, focusing on the teaching and living conditions of teachers. The study reveals that the profound transformation of social and economic life has resulted in significant changes to education in China, as manifested in curriculum reform, increased disparity between rural and urban education, marginalisation of minority education and lack of accessible and affordable education for the children of migrant workers. The recent changes have also had tremendous impact on teachers in terms of their workload, payment, wellbeing, social status and teaching and living conditions. The study contextualises the concept of globalisation by examining its impact on China through marketisation and privatisation. Its analysis demonstrates a withdrawal of the state from provision and financing of public education. It also reveals a number of social injustices and inequities whose reduction and elimination require the Chinese government to take immediate and active measures.

The colour of skill: contesting a racialised regime of skill from the experience of recent immigrants in Canada

This article contests a racialised skills regime in Canada. Canadian studies of the labour market transitions of skilled immigrants are analysed through the lens of critical race theory. The analysis shows that knowledge and skills of recent immigrants in Canada are racialised and materialised on the basis of ethnic and national origins. Skin colour is a central basis of social marking. Through processes of de-skilling and re-skilling, a racialised regime of skill has become a social engineering project for manufacturing normative, white, docile corporate subjects who conform to Canadian norms and workplace cultures. The study demonstrates that skill is not colour-blind; it is coloured. Skill is not only gendered and classed, but it is also racialised. The findings move us beyond the traditional colour-blind, gender- and class-based analyses of skill that fail to account for racial differences in the social construction of skill.

Multiculturalism, Ethnicity and Minority Rights: The Complexity and Paradox of Ethnic Organizations in Canada

Ethno-specific organizations are often criticized for threatening national unity, diluting Canadian identity, and promoting ghettoization and separatism. Drawing from two case studies, this article examines the role of Chinese ethnic organizations in responding to changing community needs in Edmonton and Calgary. The study results suggested that ethno-specific organizations can be an effective alternative in providing accessible and equitable social services for immigrants because they are more closely connected with and responsive to ethnic community needs. The study reveals the salience of ethnicity as both an important resource and a liability. On the one hand, ethnicity was utilized by the state as a way to mobilize ethnic political support to serve an ethnic-specific community; on the other hand, the same ethnicity also became a device for the state to legitimize its political agenda in multiculturizing ethno-specific organizations with an ultimate goal of assimilation. To build an inclusive society, it is imperative to treat ethno-specific organizations as an integral part of Canadian society and to adopt minority rights that recognize and accommodate the distinctive identities and needs of ethno-cultural groups and their ethnic communities. Les organisations ethniques se font souvent critiquer pour menacer l’unité nationale, diluer l’identité canadienne et promouvoir la ghettoïsation et le séparatisme. À partir de l’étude de deux cas, cet article porte sur le rôle d’organisations ethniques chinoises qui répondent aux besoins changeants d’une communauté en évolution à Edmonton et à Calgary. Les résultats de cette étude suggèrent que des organisations ethniques particulières peuvent représenter une alternative efficace en fournissant des services sociaux accessibles et équitables aux immigrants, parce qu’elles sont plus étroitement connectées aux besoins de la communauté et y répondent mieux. Cette étude révèle le poids de l’ethnicité à la fois comme ressource importante et comme handicap. D’une part, l’État y a recouru comme moyen de mobiliser un soutien politique ethnique afin de servir une communauté correspondante donnée; d’autre part, cette même ethnicité est aussi devenue pour lui un outil qui rend légitime son programme politique visant la multiculturalisation d’organisations ethniques particulières dans un but ultime d’assimilation. Si on veut construire une société inclusive, il est impératif de traiter ces dernières comme faisant partie intégrale de la société canadienne et d’adopter des droits des minorités qui reconnaissent les identités et besoins distincts de groupes ethno-culturels et de leurs communautés, et s’y adaptent.

Migration and Communities: Challenges and Opportunities for Lifelong Learning.

This commentary article focuses on the theme of migration and communities. It raises a number of important concerns inherent in the report. The report mistakenly adopts the ‘sameness’ approach, thus negating Britain’s unprecedented super‐diversity that is the result of increasing migration. It wrongly assumes that all migrants are the same and require similar modes of services and lifelong education programmes. A second issue pertains to the social cohesion and integration agenda that drives this report, especially its goal of assimilating migrants into British norms and cultures. Furthermore, the idea of a culturally neutral state and universal citizenship ignores cultural differences and diversity and perpetuates oppression and inequality. These flaws turn lifelong learning into an engineering project for manufacturing Britishness through language lessons and citizenship tests. It is time for Britain to revisit this report and develop a more inclusive framework that recognises cultural differences and diversity as positive and desirable assets.