Over the last decade, the integration of immigrants into countries such as Canada and Germany has become a hotly discussed topic of conversation. Different stakeholder groups provide necessary services to help new arrivals to these countries feel more part of the societies they are entering into. The various programs that these groups operate, fund, oversee, etc., can collectively be referred to as Adult Learning and Education (ALE), and are part of a broader system of governance structures, funding regimes, and networks of providers and stakeholders 1 2. Given this larger structure, governments in these countries have a vested interest in assessing and collecting data on the efficacy of ALE programs, especially concerning social and economic outcomes for new arrivals.
These assessments, however, tend to focus on specific ALE programs and specific outcomes 3 4 and do not approach them as part of a larger, dynamic system. Additionally, such research does not look at the overall relationships between program provision, participation and integration outcomes for immigrant participants. These are missed opportunities to not only appreciate the impacts of ALE as a social mechanism of intervention in the immigrant integration process, but also understand how ALE programs are making an impact on immigrant integration from an institutional perspective. To address these issues, we propose to build a research partnership in Adult Learning and Education in Immigrant Settlement and Integration (ALE-in-ISI) to compare the ALE systems for immigrants in Canada and Germany.
Some goals of the ALE-in-ISI partnership and Dialogue Network are to compare and develop a systematic overview of the policies, provision, and governance of ALE programs for immigrants across cities since 2015; to identify how immigrant integration is imagined, and approached by ALE practitioners and policy makers; to explore relationships among program provision, program participation and integration outcomes, and; to build the capacity of ALE researchers and practitioners to inform dialogues over policies and programs in relation to immigrant integration.
Prior research has been conducted to compare migration-related issues in the two countries, including immigrant integration experiences 5, government and institutional responses to migrants 6 7, and the provision and governance of settlement services 8. The proposed project adds to these anthologies with a focus on the ALE systems. It is significant because this is the first project that studies ALE practices for immigrants from an institutional perspective. It will not only contribute to the scholarly field of ALE through an international and comparative lens, but also provide policy makers and ALE providers with new knowledge to use in deliberating program provision. Other potential outcomes include opportunities to build a sustained research relationship; deepened relationships between principal researchers, ALE practitioners and community organizations for knowledge exchange and mutual learning; and a basis for future studies that involve other immigrant destinations with different approaches to immigrant integration.
Scope of Project
- The project focuses on programs funded by the governments, mainly in the areas of language training, employment training, and citizenship training.
- The project begins with a focus on Calgary and Vancouver in Canada and Frankfurt and Cologne in Germany
- The project focuses on the period after the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015.
Phases of Research
