Institutionalized Inclusion: A Case Study on Support for Immigrants in English Learning

Abstract

Based on a three‐year ethnography, this article illuminates how institutions and individuals can support immigrants' language learning and settlement in today's globalized, multicultural societies. It focuses on how a Mandarin—English bilingual Chinese church's practices fostered a young couple's English learning and social economic inclusion into the evangelical Christian Chinese community in Canada. Drawing on the conceptualization of learning as legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991), concretized by concepts of region and stage (Goffman, 1959) and social capital (Bourdieu, 1977, 1986), I illustrate the multiple effects of this couple's increased participation in their church community. I then analyze how institutionalized, multiple forms of mediation (Vygotsky, 1978) opened up spaces for and assisted their increased participation. I argue that allowing ethnolinguistic minority immigrants a legitimate speaking position, at interpersonal, institutional, and ideological levels, facilitates immigrant language learning and integration.

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