Open Collections

Language tests as border work

University of British Columbia. Centre for European Studies; University of British Columbia. Centre for Migration Studies

Language tests provide scores which are signs with social meaning. The social function of these tests are varied. Increasingly through reconceptualisations of language tests for immigration and settlement purposes, these scores relate to solutions for social problems. This talk will outline the role of security in shifting the terrain of language tests as education assessments to more ideological and securitised purposes which serve to reify differences between those deemed integrated and unintegrated citizens. This creates situations in which a lack of integration is discursively constructed as a threat to the nation. The talk will conclude by examining what this means more broadly for notions of justice.

eng

2024-05-30

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/88384

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/