Title: Navigating Marginality, Negotiating Difference: Migrant Teachers in Singapore and their Experiences of Professional and Social Integration
Stream: Professional Training, Development & Concerns in Education
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
Authors:
Peidong Yang, National Institute of Education, Singapore
Abstract:
Education in a globalized world is characterized by greater interdependence between countries and cultures in knowledge and talent. One manifestation of such interdependence is the international mobility of teachers. Migrant teachers’ experiences of professional and social integration can have important implications on the values, harmony and diversity of the host education system, and the receiving society in general. Yet, in existing educational and sociological literatures, teachers of migrant backgrounds remain a relatively under-studied topic. This paper addresses this research gap by looking at migrant-background teachers working in mainstream schools in the Southeast Asian city-state Singapore. The paper draws on a study that has to date collected 144 survey responses and qualitative interviews with 24 informants. Findings suggest that younger migrant teachers in Singapore experience greater senses of precarity associated with immigration status and perceived marginality in career progression. Migrant teachers brought up and/or educated in Western liberal environments have more notable experiences of discomfort with dominant values, culture, and practices in the local education system. The teachers carefully manage and pragmatically negotiate with such differences by adopting an openness to mainstream values/practices while also finding small spaces of liberty and creativity, albeit within acceptable boundaries. It is argued that while the Singapore education system benefits from migrant teachers’ diversity in teaching expertise (esp. in case of foreign language teachers), the room for value diversification seems much more limited. Migrant teachers negotiate their professional integration by downplaying the differences arising from their migrant backgrounds while stressing their role as state-employed educator.
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