"I want to speak like the other people": Second language learning as a virtuous spiral for migrant women?

This article contributes to scholarship on migrant women's second language (L2) education in North America and Europe. Questioning reductionist understandings of the relationship between female migrants, their receiving communities and L2 education, the authors consider existing literature as w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	International review of education 2017-08, Vol.63 (4), p.583-604
Main Authors:	Ennser-Kananen, Johanna, Pettitt, Nicole
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Classrooms Competence Complicity Education Emancipation Empowerment Females Foreign Countries International and Comparative Education Interviews Language acquisition Language Proficiency Learning Migrants Migration Noncitizens Oppression Original Paper Participant Observation Qualitative Research Recordings Scholarship Second Language Learning Second languages Social Bias Social exclusion Social Integration Social Mobility Weaving Women Working women
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Summary:	This article contributes to scholarship on migrant women's second language (L2) education in North America and Europe. Questioning reductionist understandings of the relationship between female migrants, their receiving communities and L2 education, the authors consider existing literature as well as their own qualitative work to investigate the challenges, opportunities and agency of migrant women. Weaving together and thematically presenting previous scholarship and qualitative data from interviews, participant observations and classroom recordings from a mixed-gender L2 adult migrant classroom in Austria and an allwomen L2 migrant classroom in the United States, they trouble conceptualisations which position women primarily as passive recipients of education and in need of emancipation, while simultaneously elevating communities as agentic providers of these. Specifically, the authors emphasise that (1) L2 proficiency is not a guarantee for migrant women's social inclusion or socioeconomic advancement; (2) migrant women's complex challenges and agency need to be recognised and addressed; and (3) all involved in L2 education of migrant women do well to become learners of their own experiences of oppression, including their complicity in it. « Je veux parler comme tout le monde » : l'apprentissage d'une seconde langue, cercle vertueux pour les femmes migrantes ? - Le présent article contribue aux connaissances scientifiques sur l'enseignement d'une seconde langue (L2) aux femmes ayant migré en Amérique du Nord et en Europe. Remettant en question les conceptions réductrices de la relation entre les femmes migrantes, leurs communautés d'accueil et leur apprentissage d'une seconde langue, les auteures examinent la documentation existante ainsi que leur propre travail qualitatif en vue d'explorer les défis, les opportunités et l'agentivité de ces femmes. Par le croisement et la présentation par thèmes de données scientifiques et qualitatives antérieures issues d'interviews, d'observations de participants et d'enregistrements dans un cours d'enseignement de la L2 pour adultes migrants des deux sexes en Autriche, ainsi que dans un autre uniquement pour femmes migrantes aux États-Unis, les auteures remettent en cause les conceptualisations qui positionnent les femmes essentiellement comme bénéficiaires passives de l'éducation et ayant besoin d'émancipation, et qui en même temps élèvent les communautés au rang de prestataires agentiques de ces biens. Concrètement
ISSN:	0020-8566 1573-0638