Twelfth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

Based on empirical data from a Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funded research project, this paper focuses on education migration as a process of geographical/physical, social, and economic mobility. It examines the experience of highly educated immigrant women who were professionals in their home country, and who have immigrated to Canada with their children, for the purpose of securing a Canadian education for their children as well as for themselves. These women developed strategies to sustain short or long-term transnational familial arrangements with their spouse and/or extended family members, drawing on transnational networks of support in their everyday lives. Utilizing an intersectional analysis, the paper explores how education migration is informed not only by the individual women’s agency in shaping their children’s and their own future aspirations, but are also situated within broader social, economic, political, and cultural structures in both China and Canada. In particular, the paper focuses on how migration policies and practices in the context of neoliberal restructuring, shape education migration and mobility.