Bridging the Gap: Exploring the Experiences of South Asian Women Immigrant Teachers in Toronto
type: CreativeWork
description: In this dissertation, I share the voices of South Asian women immigrant school teachers living in Toronto. In this era of global mass migration and the increasing number of women immigrants, I argue that it is important to examine how gender and race affect racialized immigrant women’s working experiences. Historically, racialized immigrant women in Canada have faced various forms of discrimination in the labour market: not only are their previous qualifications and experiences devalued in the job market, but after entering the job market, racial and gender identity remain a concern in their professional lives (Crea-Arsenio et al. 2022; Premji et al. 2014). While scholars have highlighted the common labour market barriers, the struggles of South Asian women when facing these challenges in seeking a specific career do not get enough attention in the academic world. A significant number of South Asian women must engage in precarious jobs that are not consistent with their skills and qualifications. Here, I recruited South Asian immigrant women who hold a teaching certificate in Ontario and are coping with the secondary-education labour market and/or other related jobs in Toronto. Guided by a Critical Race Feminist perspective, I used interpretive inquiry as a research methodology to facilitate participants telling their struggles, challenges, and negotiations of their everyday lives while living in a large urban center like Toronto. My analysis of this research shows that these South Asian groups of women must overcome barriers that are similar to many other non-racialized female professional immigrants - but as racialized female immigrants, they also face more challenges in accessing and coping with their current professions. My findings suggest that policymakers should focus on an adaptable labour-market transition process for these professional groups after migration. This could also be helpful for other racialized groups in general. Promulgation to eliminate syste…
abstract: In this dissertation, I share the voices of South Asian women immigrant school teachers living in Toronto. In this era of global mass migration and the increasing number of women immigrants, I argue that it is important to examine how gender and race affect racialized immigrant women’s working experiences. Historically, racialized immigrant women in Canada have faced various forms of discrimination in the labour market: not only are their previous qualifications and experiences devalued in the job market, but after entering the job market, racial and gender identity remain a concern in their professional lives (Crea-Arsenio et al. 2022; Premji et al. 2014). While scholars have highlighted the common labour market barriers, the struggles of South Asian women when facing these challenges in seeking a specific career do not get enough attention in the academic world. A significant number of South Asian women must engage in precarious jobs that are not consistent with their skills and qualifications. Here, I recruited South Asian immigrant women who hold a teaching certificate in Ontario and are coping with the secondary-education labour market and/or other related jobs in Toronto. Guided by a Critical Race Feminist perspective, I used interpretive inquiry as a research methodology to facilitate participants telling their struggles, challenges, and negotiations of their everyday lives while living in a large urban center like Toronto. My analysis of this research shows that these South Asian groups of women must overcome barriers that are similar to many other non-racialized female professional immigrants - but as racialized female immigrants, they also face more challenges in accessing and coping with their current professions. My findings suggest that policymakers should focus on an adaptable labour-market transition process for these professional groups after migration. This could also be helpful for other racialized groups in general. Promulgation to eliminate syste…
author: Omar, Rozalina
keywords: Immigrant, South Asian, Women
license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
date published: 2025-11
date modified: 2026-07-27T21:27:52Z
provider: University of Toronto
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Toronto

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: https://hdl.handle.net/1807/150052