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Upskill America? : The implications of neoliberal discourses in educational programs for migrant learners

Year of publication

2021

Authors

Ennser-Kananen, Johanna; Vanek, Jen

Abstract

In the US, adult literacy and English language programs have long had a functional framing, making use of public funds to acknowledge and support a range of learning goals. Such programs have fallen short of providing educational opportunities, because they are underfunded. At the same time, the rapid pace of innovation and high levels of employment create an imperative for adults who have been traditionally left out of the work/economy to become employable. Hence, crisis discourse around “skills gaps” and the need to upskill is common. This chapter understands such processes as part of neoliberal ideologies and analyzes the discourses around “upskilling” in two policy documents, the Migration Policy Institute (MPI)’s English Plus Integration Shifting the Instructional Paradigm for Immigrant Adult Learners to Support Integration Success and the National Immigration Forum (NIF)’s Upskilling New Americans: Innovative English Training for Career Advancement. Our analysis illustrates how discourse in these texts provides a glimpse of the priorities that influence learning, some of which may create vulnerability and disenfranchisement for adult migrants with emerging print literacy. More specifically, our findings speak to the different ways adult learners are viewed and the problematic prioritization of employers as main beneficiaries of upskilling initiatives. We thereby shed light on what it means, when educational opportunities are framed as “training” versus “learning” and what the implications of such discourses are for the inclusion/exclusion of adult learners in the US.
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Organizations and authors

University of Jyväskylä

Ennser-Kananen Johanna Orcid -palvelun logo

Publication type

Publication format

Article

Parent publication type

Compendium

Article type

Other article

Audience

Scientific

Peer-reviewed

Peer-Reviewed

MINEDU's publication type classification code

A3 Book section, Chapters in research books

Publication channel information

Parent publication editors

Brown, Mabel Ann

Publisher

Routledge

Pages

42-56

​Publication forum

5876

​Publication forum level

3

Open access

Open access in the publisher’s service

No

Self-archived

No

Other information

Fields of science

Social policy; Educational sciences; Languages

Keywords

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Publication country

United Kingdom

Internationality of the publisher

International

Language

English

International co-publication

Yes

Co-publication with a company

Yes

DOI

10.4324/9781003016090-5

The publication is included in the Ministry of Education and Culture’s Publication data collection

Yes