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Language Hierarchies, Liminality, and Resistance in Canadian and Finnish Integration Educations for Adult Migrants

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 October 2024

Tobias Pötzsch Open the ORCID record for Tobias Pötzsch [Opens in a new window]
Tobias Pötzsch*
Affiliation:
Swedish School of Social Science (SSKH), University of Helsinki, Finland
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article explores the effects of language hierarchies within SFI (Swedish for Immigrants) and LINC (Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada) national integration programmes and how discourses of civic integrationism framed around monolingualism and neoliberalism position adult migrant students in the liminal spaces between belonging and othering. Based on research findings obtained during multiple case study fieldwork in Finland and Canada, I examine the underlying norms and subtexts upon which practices of host language acquisition are founded. How students are positioned depends greatly on who serves as an arbiter over which expressions of linguistic diversity are deemed beneficial or obstructive to integration. Migrant liminality within integration educations could be debilitating while simultaneously fostering resistance in transgressing and reimagining essentialist integration policy and pedagogical goals, thus creating opportunities for transformation.

Keywords

Language hierarchiesliminalityintegration educationscivic integrationism
Type
Article
Information
Social Policy and Society , First View , pp. 1 - 15
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press

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