Discursive policy webs in a globalisation era: a discussion of access to professions and trades for immigrant professionals in Ontario, Canada

Author: Goldberg, Michelle¹

Source: Globalisation, Societies and Education, Volume 4, Number 1, March 2006 , pp. 77-102(26)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

This article explores the link between discourse and policy using a discursive web metaphor. It develops the notion of policy as a discursive web based on a post-positivist framework that recognises the way multiple discourses from multiple voices interact in a complex web of power relationships to influence reality. Using Ontario's Access to Professions and Trades as the policy example, it demonstrates how globalisation and neo-liberalism facilitate a `brain drain' discourse, which in the Canadian, and specifically Ontario, context evolved into a `skills shortage' discursive web. Deconstructing the discourses in this web, I expose how their interactions facilitate policy solutions such as assessment or training while constraining others.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1080/14767720600555103

Affiliations: 1: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada

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