A production of education migrants: A case study of South Korean transnational families in Canada

2016

Critical Sociology

Self Cite

In a global knowledge economy, western nations compete for the best knowledge workers, while positioning English language and western education as superior. Drawing from critical theories of globalization, we argue that the international education field has become a site to maintain a neo-imperial agenda concealed by a neoliberal rhetoric of progress and economic expediency. Using Canada as a case study, we critically examine the global tactics of power and governance strategies in international education policy, as they influence and shape education and immigration policy within Canada. We illustrate how the OECD positions itself for global dominance in education and (re)produces the international education field using tactics such as rescaling, the policy cycle and ‘self-responsibilizing’ students. This process creates and maintains a global market for knowledge producers and expands the soft power of western nations.

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Canada and the Global Rush for International Students: Reifying a Neo-Imperial Order of Western Dominance in the Knowledge Economy Era

Johnstone

2016

Critical Sociology

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“…She has had to negotiate many social locations to survive and manage in the host country, and may have formed justifiable anticipating fears and anxieties regarding Aisha's future in that Aisha might repeat her marginalized social position. Scholars in immigration and education note that the immigrant family's emphasis on education needs to be contextualized within this fear, and that their subsequent strong desire to seek their own and their children's education could be a projected outlet away from a marginalized position towards upward mobility and better assimilation/settlement in the host society (Lee and Johnstone, ; Ong, ). Across the sessions, an emphasis on the significance of education is a value shared by both Rida and Aisha overtly.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Joining revisited in family therapy: discourse analysis of cross‐cultural encounters between a therapist and an immigrant family

Journal of Family Therapy

Tsang

Bogo

et al. 2017

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With increasing diversity in therapeutic dyads, there has been renewed attention to the process of ‘joining’ in cross‐cultural encounters. Inspired by discourse analysis, we conducted a close reading of therapy transcripts between a Pakistani immigrant mother‐daughter dyad and a Canadian white female therapist in an outpatient clinic. Our findings illustrate detailed discursive interactions for joining techniques – selective joining, confirmation, and tracking – (1) where the therapist facilitates joining moments with the family and (2) where the same techniques are used to preclude further exploration of the family's cultural views. Consequently, the joining process is at times limited by the therapist's enactment of her own assumptions about the family's culture. Due to the doxic nature of cultural assumptions, a discursive analysis may help to prevent therapists from silencing their clients’ cultural voices and to be more reflexive of their assumptions, thus promoting joining. Practitioner points Joining in family therapy is a dynamic process The detailed analysis of joining moments can serve as an example for training therapists to examine their moment‐to‐moment responses to culturally diverse clients Therapeutic constructs/techniques (e.g. joining) cannot be decontextualized or conceptualized as apolitical and acultural Critical reflexivity may prevent therapists from unknowingly oppressing culturally diverse clients’ experiences and cultural identities

“…The other is the debate between 'brain drain' and 'brain circulation' (Robertson, 2006). The former studies assist social workers to understand the personal challenges of international students, thus enriching direct practice, and yet have been criticized as individualizing social issues into personal shortcomings (Lee and Johnstone, 2014). The latter debate extends social worker attention into the structural policy-related issues, which this article focuses on.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Locating international education as a site to debate and re-imagine democracy in Canada

International Social Work

Johnstone

2019

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Equity is inherent to democracy and the stated mission of the social work profession. We contend that neoliberal values re-define democracy, as if market-driven ideology, practices, and modes of governance are the essence of democracy, and this further precludes us from re-imagining democracy-to-come. To illustrate how democracy is undergoing a metamorphosis, we use the international education policies in Canada as a case study. Informed by Deleuze and Guattari’s work on the construct of the rhizome, we illustrate how complex rhizomatic systems in the global market have been endlessly devised while legitimizing neoliberal products as the ‘real’/democracy in international education.