‘A fair go for all?’ Australia’s language-in-migration policy

Abstract

As the power of tests lies in their uses, language tests that are used to assess immigration eligibility exercise enormous power. Critical Language Testing calls for exposing the power of tests by examining the intentions of introducing tests and their effects on individuals and society, especially from the perspective of testtakers. This case study investigates the rationale for and impact of a particular language-in-migration policy in Australia, drawing on the experiences and perceptions of two skilled migration applicants. One of them was successful and the other unsuccessful, essentially on the ground of their language test results. Insights from the study challenge prevalent discourses about language tests and social integration, employability, economic efficiency, and national security. The article makes some policy recommendations for making the use of language tests more beneficial for immigrants and immigrant-receiving societies in a globalised world that has witnessed unprecedented flows of immigrants.

Test-takers’ perspectives on a global test of English: questions of fairness, justice and validity

“…The test's acceptability has also been extended globally with the number of institutional test-users exceeding 9000 entities, including schools, universities, employers, immigration authorities and professional bodies in both traditional and emerging English-speaking nations. Initially introduced to assess language proficiency of ESL students seeking admission to universities in English-speaking countries, IELTS has recently been assigned a gate-keeping role for immigration and employment purposes in Australia, Canada and the UK (see Ahearn, 2009;Hamid et al, 2019;Hoang & Hamid, 2017;O'Loughlin, 2011). Educational institutions and immigration departments in these countries have set up different IELTS score requirements for prospective students and visa applicants (see Hyatt, 2013).…”

“…Compared to such test-internal fairness issues, Ahearn's (2009) case study of an IELTS test-taker from Korea problematizes the use of the test for academic, political (immigration) and commercial purposes (see also Hoang & Hamid, 2017). Similarly, Chik and Besser's (2011) case study involving young test-takers, their parents and school principals highlights private uses of commercial English language tests and their educational and social consequences.…”

“…scores had an impact on people's life and career choices (Ahearn, 2009;Hoang & Hamid, 2017), candidates' responses also indicated that test owners had more opportunities created by the test than test-takers. By opportunities, test-takers referred to test owners' commercial gains (cf.…”

“…[ … ]. (p. 143, emphases added) How test-takers perceive English proficiency tests that entail socio-political and ethical questions in terms of fairness, justice and validity, and what kind of experiences they have of test-taking and test impact deserve critical scrutiny, particularly given that studies have shown that test results mediate global mobility (Ahearn, 2009;Deygers, 2017;Hamid, Hoang & Kirkpatrick, 2019;Hoang & Hamid, 2017). As would be expected, the language testing literature has given significant attention to test fairness and validity; the concept of justice has also gained attention in the past decade (see Kunnan, 2014).…”

Australian Media and Islamophobia: Representations of Asylum Seeker Children

“…Shee (2016), and also Bambrick (2016), proposed some level of compassion towards asylum seeker children around 2015 and 2016-indicating a vague, potentially short-lived, paradigm shift in written text. However, both historical and contemporary analysis shows that racist underpinnings have continued to prevail in media reporting of Australia's immigration policies and of the Muslim asylum seekers effected by them (Poynting and Briskman 2018;McLaren and Patil 2016;Kabir 2006Kabir , 2007Hoang and Hamid 2017;Nolan et al 2016;Woodlock 2016;Itaoui 2016). Further, critics argue that demonizing media representations of Muslims, terror and asylum seekers has normalized Islamophobia and rooted it right in the middle of the Australian psyche (Briskman 2015; Poynting and Briskman 2018; Abdel-Fattah 2019).…”