Practising Ideology: Chinese Immigrant Mothers' Learning in Canadian Immigration Settlement Organizations

This research examines how Chinese immigrant mothers’ learning has been socially organized in a Canadian immigration settlement organization (ISO) and how mothering as an ideology shapes immigrant mothers’ learning practice. Drawing on a feminist and anti-racist theoretical framework and a critical ethnography, this dissertation problematizes motherhood learning through exploring the ideology of mothering, unpacking the ruling relations behind the learning practice, and examining immigrant mothers’ standpoint. I argue that immigrant mothers’ everyday experience of learning, mothering and settlement, which are socially organized by the state and its agencies, are not only a cultural nexus of transnational encounters, but also social relations with race, gender and class inequalities. The findings of this dissertation were generated from three parts. First, I revisit the meaning of motherhood. I challenge the ideology of mothering, which is based on Westernized and neoliberalized ideas of “intensive mothering” (Vandenbeld Giles, 2014). I unpack the ruling relations behind Chinese immigrant mothers’ learning and find out how the ruling idea of mothering shapes Chinese immigrant mothers’ learning, settlement, mothering and everyday practice. Second, I examine the social organization of motherhood learning in Canadian immigration settlement organizations. Through critical ethnographical research at MOSAIC, a Vancouver-based immigration settlement organization, I detail how hierarchical actors including the state, program organizers, social workers, and different individuals co-participate in the making of “immigrant mothers.” I provide an account of how Canadian immigration settlement organizations play a role mediating the state’s policy and immigrants’ actual settlement practice to ensure immigrant mothers’ learning is associated with the state’s neoliberal immigration policy. Finally, I investigate Chinese immigrant mothers’ experience as standpoints to understand motherhood learning as an ideological practice. I show that the discursive and material practice of Chinese immigrant mothers’ learning contains unequal social relations, hierarchically structured by race, gender, and class differences. This dissertation contributes to the understanding of migration and motherhood in the field of adult education, women’s and gender studies, anthropology and comparative and international education. The implications for immigration policy and settlement service involve a reframing of Canadian immigration policy and suggestions on the transformative practice in local immigration settlement organizations.Ph.D.2018-06-19 00:00:0