My research studies immigrants’ learning experiences as socially organized practices. Informed by the sociocultural approach of learning and institutional ethnography, I treat learning as a material and relational phenomenon. I start by examining how fourteen Chinese immigrants learn to fit into the engineering market in Canada. I then trace the social discourses and relations that shape immigrants’ learning experiences, particularly their changing perceptions and practices and personal and professional investments. I contend that immigrants’ learning is produced through social processes of differentiation that naturalize immigrants as a secondary labour pool, which is dismissible and desirable at the same time. My investigation unfolds around four areas of learning. The first is related to immigrants’ self-marketing practices. I show that core to immigrants’ marketing strategies is to speak to the skill discourse or employers’ skill expectations at the “right” time and place. The skill discourse, I argue, is culturally-charged and class-based. It cloaks a complex of hiring relations where “skill” is discursively constructed and differentially invoked to preserve the privilege and power of the dominant group. The second area is immigrants’ work-related learning. I find that workplace training is part of the corporate agenda to organize work and manage workers. Amid this picture, workers’ opportunity to access corporate sponsorship for professional development is contingent on their membership within the engineering community. To expand their professional space, the immigrants resorted to learning and consolidating their knowledge in codes and standards, which serve as a textual organizer of engineering work. The third area is related to workplace communication. My participants reported an individualistic communication ‘culture’, which celebrates individual excellence and discourages close interpersonal relations. Such a perception, I argue, obscures the gender, race and class relations that privilege white and male power. It also leaves out the organizational relations, such as the project-based deployment of the engineering workforce that perpetuate individualistic communicative practices. My last area of investigation focuses on immigrants’ efforts to acquire Canadian credentials and professional licence. Their heavy learning loads direct my attention to the ideological and administrative licensure practices that valorize Canadian credentials and certificates to the exclusion of others.

Literature on lifelong learning indicates that major life transitions lead to significant learning. However, compared to learning in paid jobs, learning in and through household work has received little attention, given the unpaid nature and the private sphere where the learning occurs. The current study examined the changes and the learning involved in three aspects of household work: food work, childcare/parenting, and emotion work among recent Chinese immigrants in Canada. This study draws on data from a Canadian Survey on Work and Lifelong Learning (WALL), 20 individual interviews, a focus group, and a discussion group with new Chinese professional immigrants in the Greater Toronto Area. The results indicate that food work and childcare increased dramatically after immigration due to a sudden decline of economic resources and the lack of social support network for childcare. Emotion work intensified due to the challenges in paid jobs and the absence of extended families in the new homeland. To adapt to the changes in their social and economic situations, and to integrate into the Canadian society, Chinese immigrants learned new beliefs and practices about food and childrearing, developed new knowledge and skills in cooking and grocery shopping, in childcare and disciplining, in solving conflicts with children and spouses, and in transnational kin maintenance. In addition, the Chinese immigrants also developed new views about family, paid and unpaid work, meaning of life, and new gender and ethnic identities. However, these dramatic changes did not shatter the gendered division of household work. Both the qualitative and the quantitative data suggest that women not only do more but also different types of household tasks. As a result, it is not surprising that both the content and the ways of learning associated with household work varied by gender, class, and ethnicity. By exploring learning involved in the four dimensions of household work: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual, this dissertation demonstrates that learning is both lifelong and lifewide. By making household work visible, this research helps make visible the value of the unpaid work and the learning involved in it.

Using a critical feminist approach, and with attention to participants’ broad life experiences, this qualitative study explores seven women’s challenging, transformative decisions to give birth at home with midwives in Ontario, Canada. To make this choice, the women had to draw on their own strength, take responsibility for their decisions, and resist the dominant view of birth as inherently risky, and of women’s birth experiences as unimportant and incompatible with more narrowly defined good outcomes. As participants became informed decision-makers, resisted medicalized birth, and envisioned more woman-centred possibilities, they were empowered as active agents in their births. They were able to trust that with the care of their midwives, and the support of their partners or close family, they could have satisfying and safe births at home.

Chaque année de nombreux adultes font le choix de retourner aux études, notamment au sein des services de formation continue des cégeps. Ils y suivent des formations créditées menant à des diplômes reconnus leur permettant d’accéder rapidement au marché du travail avec des compétences renouvelées. Dans ce milieu, ces adultes se trouvent dans une nouvelle culture éducative différente de ce qu’ils ont vécu dans leur parcours scolaire initial. Du fait qu’ils sont plus âgés, souvent avec des responsabilités familiales, un capital scolaire et des expériences de travail variées, ces étudiants non traditionnels se distinguent des jeunes en continuité de formation, ce qui conditionnera leur nouveau parcours scolaire. D’autant plus que, pour ces adultes, le retour aux études constitue une rupture et une décision radicale eu égard aux conséquences socioéconomiques immédiates de ce choix. En plus de vouloir décrire et analyser les pratiques éducatives qui concourent à soutenir les parcours de formation et d’insertion sociale de ces étudiants, cette thèse veut, dans une perspective andragogique, décrire et analyser : comment l’expérience des étudiants et des enseignants influencent les pratiques éducatives; les dynamiques de reconnaissance dans le contexte de la formation continue chez les étudiants et chez les enseignants; et la manière dont les stratégies de mobilisation de l’autonomie et de la capacité d’apprentissage autodirigé des apprenants sont utilisées par les enseignants. Nous définissons l’andragogie comme une philosophie existentialiste et humaniste de l’éducation des adultes fondant une théorie critique qui vise l’émancipation et la réalisation de soi à travers l’éducation et la formation tout au long de la vie. Cette théorie place la personne au centre des préoccupations et fait de l'apprentissage un élément fondamental du devenir de l'individu et de son émancipation. Notre démarche de recherche est basée sur l’ethnographie critique de Carspecken (2013). Le travail d’enquête de terrain a été réalisé au sein d’un service de formation continue dans un cégep dans la grande région de Montréal qui accueille annuellement environ 1000 étudiants adultes. Son intégration à l’offre montréalaise en fait un lieu important de formation pour ces étudiants, notamment pour des individus qui ont des parcours migratoires, d’emploi et de formation variés. Notre enquête fut déployée en trois phases : d’abord nous avons observé les pratiques éducatives des chargés de cours en classe. Ensuite, nous avons réalisé des entretiens avec ces enseignants pour approfondir notre compréhension de leurs pratiques et obtenir leur point de vue sur l’éducation des adultes au cégep. Nous avons réalisé, de même, des entretiens avec des diplômés afin de connaître leur parcours et les mesures de soutien qui leur ont permis de réussir leur formation et leur insertion sociale. Finalement, nous avons réalisé des entretiens avec des étudiants actifs afin de connaître leurs parcours et contextualiser leurs expériences éducatives. Notre recherche a permis de brosser un portrait global des pratiques éducatives qui visent à soutenir les adultes dans leur parcours de formation et d’insertion sociale. Elle montre que, malgré les structures institutionnelles et le contexte des cégeps qui présuppose un modèle pédagogique, les enseignants de la formation continue inscrivent leur pratique dans le cadre andragogique tel que nous l’avons défini. De plus, nous avons constaté que c’est l’expérience antérieure des enseignants qui influence le plus leurs pratiques et conditionnent leurs actions en classe. Au début de leur carrière, c’est l’expérience scolaire antérieure qui domine, en effet, sur le plan de l’influence et après quelques années, c’est l’expérience de l’enseignement qui devient déterminante. Nous avons aussi montré que les parcours des étudiants sont riches et complexes, mais qu’ils sont majoritairement ignorés et méconnus des enseignants. Finalement, les résultats indiquent que le modèle pédagogique demeure prédominant dans les pratiques observées. Nous souhaitons présenter la formation continue collégiale comme un milieu éducatif et social légitime qui permet de soutenir les adultes dans leur projet de formation. À notre avis, celui-ci dépasse le simple cadre d’un retour sur le marché du travail, alors qu’il permet également aux individus de se transformer et de se réaliser sur plusieurs plans. / Every year, many adults choose to return to school, particularly through cégep continuing education services. There, they follow credited training courses leading to recognized diplomas, giving them rapid access to the job market with renewed skills. In this environment, these adults find themselves in a new educational culture, different from what they experienced in their initial schooling. Because they are older, often with family responsibilities, educational capital and varied work experience, these non-traditional students stand out from young people continuing their education, and this will condition their new educational path. All the more so as, for these adults, returning to school is a radical decision, given the immediate socio-economic consequences of this choice. In addition to describing and analyzing the educational practices that support these students' training and social integration paths. From an andragogical perspective, this thesis aims to describe and analyze: how students' and teachers' experiences influence educational practices; what are the dynamics of recognition in the context of continuing education among students and teachers; and what strategies for mobilizing learners' autonomy and capacity for self-directed learning are used by teachers. We define andragogy as an existentialist and humanist philosophy of adult education based on a critical theory that aims for emancipation and self-realization through lifelong learning. This theory places the individual at the center of its concerns and makes learning a fundamental element of individual development and emancipation. Our research approach is based on critical ethnography (Carspecken, 2013). The fieldwork was carried out in a continuing education department of a cégep in the greater Montreal area, which welcomes around 1,000 adult students annually. Its integration into Montreal's educational offering makes it an important training site for these students, particularly for individuals with varied migratory, employment and training backgrounds. Our investigation was deployed in three phases: first, we observed the educational practices of lecturers in the classroom. Next, we conducted interviews with these teachers to deepen our understanding of their practices and obtain their views on adult education at cégep. We conducted interviews with graduates to find out about their backgrounds and the support measures that enabled them to succeed in their training and social integration. Finally, we conducted interviews with active students to learn about their backgrounds and contextualize their educational experiences. Our research has enabled us to paint an overall picture of educational practices aimed at supporting adults on their path to training and social integration. Our research shows that, despite the institutional structures and the cégep context that presuppose a pedagogical model, continuing education teachers inscribe their practice within the andragogical framework as we have defined it. What's more, we've found that it's the teachers' prior experience that most influences their practices and conditions their actions in the classroom. At the start of their careers, previous school experience is the most influential, while after a few years, teaching experience becomes the determining factor. We have also shown that students' backgrounds are rich and complex but are largely ignored and misunderstood by teachers. Finally, the results show that the pedagogical model remains predominant in the practices observed. We wish to put forward collegiate continuing education as a legitimate educational and social milieu that supports adults in their educational project, which we believe goes beyond simply returning to the labor market, but also enables individuals to transform and realize themselves on many levels.

The concepts of intersectionality and interlocking identities came out of needs raised by communities and then academics wrote about it. This dissertation examines these concepts and how these resonate with the ways that feminist educators conceptualize and facilitate non-credit learning processes with women. This research focuses on 10 differently-located feminist educators and the processes they lead that meet a range of learning goals. Specifically, this research examines the learning practices that these educators used to help women learners gain a consciousness around their identity and issues of power and oppression. I then discuss how these practices resonate with the theoretical frameworks of intersecting and interlocking oppressions. Anti-oppression, feminist informed research and feminist standpoint theories informed the research approach. The Critical Appreciative Process, which builds on the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) method, was used to explore what is working within feminist non-credit learning processes. In addition, two case studies were elaborated on in order to examine the learning practices that were particularly successful. The educators reflected on several barriers involved in bringing differently-located women together to explore and address the power dynamics associated with power and oppression. These included the defensiveness, denial and avoidance associated with acknowledging and addressing privilege. The educators also shared effective practices for addressing such barriers. Key practices included creating an environment for difficult conversations, working intergenerationally, using theoretical frameworks to deconstructing interpersonal dynamics occurring in the group and providing tools to draw on everyday experiences and challenge (inappropriate) behaviours. Additionally, specific activities for raising learners’ awareness of their own complex and multiple identities and how these identities are co-constructed through interactions with others were detailed. This study revealed the limitations of intersectionality and interlocking identities frameworks in praxis, as well as the ways in which an awareness of identity, difference and power creates an entry point for intersectional and interlocking awareness that aids feminist movements. This research makes a contribution to strengthening the praxis of feminist educators facilitating non-credit processes. Within feminist theorizing, this research also makes an important contribution in contextualizing intersectionality and interlocking identities frameworks within a range of feminist non-credit learning practices.

Le travail enseignant a connu au fil des années une évolution continue qui s’est traduite par une complexification de la tâche et des changements dans les pratiques professionnelles avec des possibles conséquences sur le bien-être pédagogique des enseignants. C’est dans ce sens que cette recherche s’intéresse à l’exploration des relations entre les pratiques professionnelles réfléchies des enseignants oeuvrant dans une école secondaire et leur bien-être pédagogique. Pour ce faire, nous avons réalisé une recherche de type exploratoire, à dominance qualitative, auprès de onze enseignantes et de deux enseignants d’écoles secondaire de la grande région de Montréal. Afin de documenter leurs niveaux de réflexions au cours de leurs relations avec les élèves et les collègues et les relations entre ces réflexions et les dimensions du bien-être pédagogique chez les enseignants interviewés, nous avons opté pour une approche sociocognitive. Pour la cueillette des données, nous avons fait appel à deux techniques : la technique Q et la technique de l’incident critique. Pour explorer ces liens, nous avons commencé par nous pencher sur le modèle des niveaux de changement de Korthagen et Vasalos (2005), qui ont mis en évidence les interactions entre les réflexions spécifiques concernant six niveaux de réflexions : environnement professionnel, comportements centrés sur l’apprentissage scolaire, compétences de gestion de classe, croyances, identité professionnelles et mission auprès des élèves. Nous avons ensuite exploré le concept de bien-être pédagogique des enseignants. D’après l’ensemble des résultats de notre recherche, le bien-être pédagogique des enseignants des écoles secondaires s’avère à la fois un processus dynamique, dont l’évolution est influencée par ce qui se passe dans le milieu de travail, particulièrement dans la classe, et par les qualités essentielles de l’enseignant, et un construit reposant sur des dimensions spécifiques; trois dimensions ont été retenues pour cette étude : l’autoefficacité, l’engagement et la satisfaction au travail. Les relations pédagogiques avec les élèves constitueraient la principale source de bien-être pédagogique des enseignants. Le fait de croire en l’efficacité de leurs compétences de gestion de classe et de constater que les élèves sont contents d’être dans leur classe et engagés dans leur apprentissage stimulerait l’engagement et la satisfaction au travail des enseignants. Les réflexions sur les caractéristiques et sur le vécu des élèves, y compris sur leur bien-être en classe, et les compétences professionnelles seraient les aspects des interactions avec les élèves qui interagiraient le plus avec le bien-être pédagogique des enseignants. Pour ce qui est des interactions entre les relations de travail avec leurs collègues, elles auraient un impact positif sur le bien-être pédagogique, notamment par l’entremise de réflexions collectives sur les situations ordinaires des pratiques professionnelles. Enfin, malgré certaines limites méthodologiques et conceptuelles, cette étude met en évidence l’existence de liens empiriques entre les pratiques réfléchies et le bien-être pédagogique des enseignantes et enseignants oeuvrant dans une école secondaire. Elle dégage également des pistes de recherches futures sur les influences réciproques entre les pratiques pédagogiques et le bien-être pédagogique, et propose des idées de recherches prospectives. / This research explores the relations between the well-designed professional practices of high school teachers and their educational well-being. To do this, we conducted an exploratory research, with a qualitative dominance, among eleven female and two male high school teachers from the Greater Montreal Area. We adopted a sociocognitive approach to document their levels of reflection throughout their relations with their students and colleagues and their relations with dimensions of educational well-being among high school teachers. We used two data collection techniques: the Q technique and critical incident technique. To explore these links, we started by examining the change level model of Korthagen and Vasalos (2005), which highlighted the interactions between the specific reflections of six levels of reflection: work environment, schooling-centered behaviors, class management skills, professional beliefs and identify and mission with students. We then explored the concept of the educational well-being of teachers. According to the overall results of our research, the educational well-being of high school teachers is both a dynamic process whose evolution is influenced by what is going on in the work environment, especially in the classroom, and by the teacher’s essential qualities, and a construct based on specific dimensions; three dimensions were used in this study: self-efficacy, commitment and job satisfaction. Educational relations with students seem to be the main source of educational well-being for teachers. Believing in the efficiency of their class management skills and noticing that students are happy to be in their class and are involved in their learning apparently stimulates the commitment and job satisfaction of teachers. Reflections on the characteristics and background of students, including their well-being in the classroom, and professional skills seem to be the aspects of interactions with students that affect the educational well-being of teachers the most. As for interactions between work relations with their colleagues, they seem to have a positive impact on educational well-being, namely through collective reflections on the ordinary situations of professional practices. Lastly, despite certain methodological and conceptual limitations, this study highlights the existence of empirical links between well-designed practices and the educational well-being of high school teachers. It also identifies directions for future research on the reciprocal influences between educational practices and educational well-being, and proposes foresight research ideas.

The purpose of this study was to examine formal volunteering among retirees in order to explore whether their volunteer experiences represent an extension of their career in the paid workforce or whether their volunteer activities represent a completely new direction, and how this influences their career self-concept, as interpreted through Donald Super’s life-span, life-space theory of career development. This study employed a developmental mixed-method design. In Phase 1, qualitative interviews were conducted with 12 participants to better understand retirees’ volunteer experiences. Phase 1 informed the design of an instrument for the Phase 2 survey which examined the issues among a larger sample of 214 retirees. The Phase 2 results supported the Phase 1 findings and indicated that many retirees sought an extension of career in volunteer activities in that they used similar skills and knowledge. Study participants also displayed a desire for lifelong learning. Retirees relinquished their paid-work career, took on the retiree and volunteer roles, and integrated these roles within their career self-concept to create a new sense of self. These results indicated that the retirees had entered a new stage of life, qualitatively different from ‘retirement’. To better reflect the experiences of these retirees, it was proposed that Donald Super’s life-span, life-space theory of career development be extended to include Redirection. This theorizing is consistent with the finding that retirees both wanted to and are able to integrate previous paid work elements as well as seek out lifelong learning opportunities within their volunteer activities. This study demonstrates that the volunteer role in the lives of retirees can lead to personal renewal and reshaping of the career self-concept, or what is labeled as the stage of Redirection. This study also has implications for volunteer management, retirement planning and social policy, and may be of interest to volunteer managers, nonprofit organizations, career counsellors, financial planners, retirement planning consultants, life coaches and policy planners.

Community art is a multidisciplinary practice that was engendered by two main perspectives on art; a functionalist approach and an ‘art as essential to humanity’ approach. These differing ideological positions led to the construction of polarizing dichotomies that divided the field of practice and stagnated the community art discourse. This thesis re-visions community art as transformative community art (T.C.A.) to integrate a diverse range of practice into a distinct, recognizable field, transcend the binaries inherited from its founding fields, and identify the field as an innovative artistic movement and radical practice for social change. In this thesis T.C.A. is employed as a framework for theorizing practice. Threats to T.C.A. from funding structures, cooptation, and institutionalisation are explored and strategies of resistance identified. The concept of T.C.A. is mobilized to identify areas for future work; raising questions and ideas that can contribute to advancing a more complex, nuanced, and productive discourse.

Community art is a multidisciplinary practice that was engendered by two main perspectives on art; a functionalist approach and an ‘art as essential to humanity’ approach. These differing ideological positions led to the construction of polarizing dichotomies that divided the field of practice and stagnated the community art discourse. This thesis re-visions community art as transformative community art (T.C.A.) to integrate a diverse range of practice into a distinct, recognizable field, transcend the binaries inherited from its founding fields, and identify the field as an innovative artistic movement and radical practice for social change. In this thesis T.C.A. is employed as a framework for theorizing practice. Threats to T.C.A. from funding structures, cooptation, and institutionalisation are explored and strategies of resistance identified. The concept of T.C.A. is mobilized to identify areas for future work; raising questions and ideas that can contribute to advancing a more complex, nuanced, and productive discourse.

The widely acknowledged doctor shortage in Canada has recently motivated a more critical look at the licensure rates of International Medical Doctors (IMDs), also known as International Medical Graduates (IMGs). However, very little research has been conducted on the experiences of IMDs before they enter the Canadian medical system. This qualitative study collected interview data from 15 diverse IMDs seeking licensure in Ontario, Canada. The participants varied with respect to age, country of origin, English language proficiency on arrival, and time in Canada. In addition, two bridging support programs were observed, and interviews were conducted with three educators from the programs. The interviews were analysed using thematic content analysis (Boyatzis, 1998; Miles & Huberman, 1994). An analysis of metaphors used by the IMDs to describe their experiences during the licensing process supported the use of poetic representation for key findings, resulting in three poems that are interspersed in the body of the thesis (Ellingson, 2011; Glesne, 1997; Richardson, 2002; Richardson & Adams St. Pierre, 2005). The theoretical framework of the research was informed by Vygotskian Sociocultural Theory, which views learning as inseparable from social interaction and context (Vygotsky, 1987). Third-generation Activity Theory (AT), which has descended from Vygotsky’s work, was applied to highlight the higher-level systemic issues related to medical licensing. Results of this study indicate that IMDs with lower English proficiency face substantial difficulties on arrival, with limited access to the type of medically-relevant language instruction needed to support them. In fact, all pre-licensure IMDs struggle to access the interactional learning opportunities (i.e., Vygotskian “mediational means”) to support their entry into the system. Licensing challenges include limited exam preparation resources that support acquisition of Canadian cultural content; unequal access to clinical observerships; and a selection process which lacks transparency and emphasizes a screening tool unfamiliar to IMDs, the residency interview. Implications of this study include the revisiting of immigration policy; increasing the transparency and effectiveness of the selection process/residency interview; reviewing the role of clinical observerships in the selection process and exploring the potential of observerships to function as a licensure portfolio assessment.