Hongxia Shan, Elena Ignatovich, Siyi Cheng, Agnes d’Entremont and Thomas Tannert
WPS 2022/3
Abstract
Higher education institutions in Canada have witnessed a surge in the number of international students and mature immigrant students. Research has established a positive correlation between attending higher institutions and immigrant and international students’ labour market outcomes. It is, however, not known how attending higher education may have worked to advance people’s professional careers. Neither do we know how the increasing number of students with migratory experiences may have impacted higher education and professions in terms of knowledge and practice. Drawing on a qualitative study with immigrants with engineering backgrounds who attended postgraduate studies in Canada, this paper provides some insights into these questions. In particular, it sheds light on the unique position that postgraduate studies occupy in the life trajectories of the respondents, the ways in which they benefited from the programs, as well as the impacts they brought to the engineering profession. Special attention is paid to the features of postgraduate programs that enabled the respondents to expand both their professional and life opportunities and the existing knowledge and practices within the engineering profession. Theoretically, the study benefits from a practice-based conception of immigrant as “distinctive knowledge practitioners”. Empirically, the study brings together life history research and situational analysis.
KEYWORDS: postgraduate studies, immigrants, engineering, international students, life history, situational analysis