Differentiated inclusion, muted diversification: immigrant teachers’ settlement and professional experiences in Singapore as a case of ‘middling’ migrants’ integration

ABSTRACT

Existing migration research has framed ‘middling migrants’ mainly in terms of transnational fluidity and flexibility, thus overlooking the issue of integration. This article adds to a burgeoning scholarship advocating a more locally embedded perspective (e.g. Meier, 2015b. Migrant Professionals in the City: Local Encounters, Identities, and Inequalities. New York and London: Routledge) by investigating the integration of immigrant teachers working in mainstream primary and secondary schools in the Asian city–state of Singapore. It is found that these immigrant teachers faced differentiated formal inclusion with respect to legal settlement, whereas their professional integration experiences also diverged between those who embodied certain ‘mainstream’ characteristics and those who did not. In negotiating professional integration, ‘non-mainstream’ immigrant teachers adopted a spectrum of strategies, but on the whole prioritised the pragmatic imperative to ‘fit in’, resulting in what may be termed muted diversification. In terms of broader ethnic and migration scholarship, this account serves to highlight the ways in which locally specific institutional and sociocultural conditions differentially shape middling migrants’ experiences in respect to settlement and work. With regard to the Singaporean context, this article fills an empirical gap in migration research while also reflecting on the accommodation and management of diversity in education.

KEYWORDS:

• Middling migrants
• mobile middle
• migrant teachers
• immigration
• integration
• diversity

Acknowledgement

The author would like to express his sincere appreciation to Mr Chow Lee Tat for the competent assistance provided during the process of the research project. The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect that of his institution.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Office of Educational Research, National Institute of Education, Singapore; Nanyang Technological University [grant number OER 16/17 YPD].