Exploring Language Settlement Programs in Canada: Racialized Social System Approach

• In Event: Friday Roundtable Session 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Raciolinguistics, Translanguaging, and Indigenous Language Revitalization (Table 38)

Abstract

Language Settlement Programs (LSPs) are presented as spaces of welcome, designed for the successful integration of immigrants into the labour market and civil society. Critical research regarding LSPs suggest the practices and procedures of LSPs may operate to assimilate
(Cervatiuc & Ricento, 2012; Pӧtzsch, 2018) or differentiate (Barker, 2021; Lee, 2015) immigrants, however falls short of identifying the purpose this serves or possible socio-cultural and political implications. Utilizing empirical research, program documents and practitioner insights, this paper offers a racialized social systems approach (Bonilla--Silva, 2012; Meghji, 2022) attentive to the material bases of racial inequality and its reproductions, as a tool to extend understandings of LSPs, challenge white settler notions of settlement care and begin the work of welcome.

Author

• Wanda L Chell, University of Alberta/ NorQuest College