Roxanna Ng
 

PhD (University of Toronto)
Professor,
cross-appointed from Adult Education, SESE and Counselling Psychology

E-mail: roxana.ng@utoronto.ca 
Tel: 416-978-0797
 

Research Interests:

"Immigrant women" is a field of inquiry that underpins my research interests and activism in the last 25 years. Concerns about the situation of immigrant women in Canada has led me to other theoretical and empirical undertakings including: theorizing the interrelationship of gender, race and class; exploring the relationship between the community and the state; theorizing how sexism and racism are reproduced in higher education. Since 1997, I have been investigating how globalization and work restructuring are transforming the lives of garment workers, many of whom are migrant women from Asia. In this connection, I work with groups and individuals concerned with improving the working conditions of migrant workers.

At present, I am the principal researcher of a study entitled, “Professional immigrant women navigating the Canadian labour market: A study in adult learning.” This study looks at how highly trained women from China and India navigate the Canadian labour market, and touches on issues of race, gender, class and transnational relations, as Canada positions itself in a global economy. Our interdisciplinary research team consists of faculty and graduate students from sociology and adult education. Our core analytical tool is “institutional ethnography” (IE), a feminist research method that begins from the standpoint of marginalized groups and seeks to understand how their experiences are shaped by intersecting social, political and economy processes. I also teach a doctoral seminar on IE.

Another strand of my teaching and research interest, stemming from my standpoint as a minority woman, concerns the mind and body-spirit split characteristic of higher education. Here, I am interested in exploring, through eastern philosophy and practice, how to develop modes of learning and knowledge construction that take the body-spirit into account. I call this "embodied learning," and through interrogating my own pedagogical practice I am encouraging a more integrative and multi-dimensional learning environment that honours the body, mind, and spirit. My course in TPS, 'Toward an Integrative Approach to Equity in Higher Education, attempts to integrate the different strands of my thinking to date.
 

Courses
AEC1145H Participatory Research in the Workplace and in the Community
AEC1181H Embodied Learning and Qi Gong
AEC3131H Applications of Embodied Learning
AEC3140H Post-colonial Relations and Transformative Education
AEC 3183H Mapping Social and Organizational Relations in Education
TPS1820H Toward an Integrative Equity Approach in Higher Education

Selected Publications

BOOKS

1995   
Ng, R., P. Staton & J. Scane (Eds.), Anti-Racism, Feminism, and Critical Approaches to Education. Westport: Greenwood Publishers.

1990   
Ng, R., G. Walker & J. Muller (Eds.), Community Organization and the Canadian State. Toronto: Garamond Press.

1989
Vorst, J.,T. Das Gupta, C. Gonick, R. Leah, A. Lennon, A. Muszynski, R. Ng, E. Silva, M. Steedman, S. Transken, D. Wilkinson (Eds.),  Race, Class, Gender: Bonds and Barriers. Toronto: Between The Lines with Society for Socialist Studies. (2nd edition by Garamond Press, Toronto, 1991.)

1988
Ng, R. The Politics of Community Services: Immigrant Women, Class and State.  Toronto: Garamond Press.( 2nd edition by Fernwood Books, Halifax, 1996.)

1981  
Ng, R. & J. Ramirez. Immigrant Housewives in Canada. Toronto: Immigrant Women's Centre.

SELECTED ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS SINCE 1998

1998  
Conceptual considerations in gendering policy analysis on immigration. Gender, Immigration/ Integration: Policy Research Workshop and Selective Review of Policy Research Literature, 1986-1996. Ottawa: Status of Women Canada. March.

Work restructuring and recolonizing third world women: An example from the garment industry in Toronto. Canadian Woman Studies, 18 (1): 21-25. Spring.

1999
Homeworking: Dream realized or freedom constrained? The Globalized Reality of Immigrant Garment Workers. Canadian Woman Studies, 19(3): 110-114. November.

2000 
Toward an embodied pedagogy: Exploring health and the body through Chinese medicine. In G. Dei & B. Hall (Eds.), Indigenous Knowledge in Global Contexts: Multiple Readings of Our World, pp.168-183. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Revisioning the body/mind from an eastern perspective: Comments on experience, embodiment, and pedagogy. In B. Miedema, J. Stoppard & V. Anderson (Eds.), Women’s Bodies/Women’s Lives, pp. 175-193. Toronto: Sumach Press.

Restructuring gender, race, and class relations: The case of garment workers and labour adjustment. In Sheila Neysmith (Ed.), Restructuring Caring Labour: Discourse, State Practice, and Everyday Life, pp. 226-245. Toronto: Oxford University Press.

2001 
Training for whom? For what? Reflections on the meaning of training for garment worker. In S. Peerbaye (Ed.), Employment-related Training for Immigrant Women: A Forum on the Role of Employment and Training in the Settlement of Immigrant Women in Toronto. Toronto: Toronto Training Board, Community Papers, No. 1, Series 1.

2002  
Freedom from whom? Globalization and trade from the standpoint of garment workers. Canadian Woman Studies, 21/22 (4&1), 74-81.

2003 
Toward an integrative approach to equity in education. In P. Trifonas (Ed.), Pedagogies of Difference: Rethinking Education for Social Change, pp. 163-183. New York: Routledge.

Siemiatycki, M., T. Rees, R. Ng, & K. Rahi.    Integrating community diversity in Toronto: On whose term?  In P. Anisef & M. Lanphier (Eds.), The World in a City, pp. 273-456.Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

2004 
An Embodied Integrative Anti-racist Feminism. In Integrative Anti-racism and Feminism, Popular Feminism Presentations 20th Anniversary Series, Centre for Women’s Studies in Education, February (www.oise.utoronto.ca/cwse/wrpubl.html)

2005  
Mirchandani, K., R. Ng, J. Sangha, T. Rawling, N. Coloma-Moya. Ambivalent learning: Gendered and racialized barriers to computer access for immigrant garment workers. Canadian Journal for the Study of Adult Education (CJSAE), 19(2): 14-32.

Deconstructing race, deconstructing racism– A conversation between Jeannette Armstrong and Roxana Ng  (with Postscript 2004 by Roxana Ng. ) In J.A. Lee & J. Lutz (Eds.), Situating “Race” and Racism in Time, Space and Theory: Critical Essays for Activists and Scholars, pp. 30-45. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press.

Immigrant garment workers as embodiment of gender, race and class relations. In L. Biggs & P.J. Downe (Eds.),  Gendered Intersections: An Introduction to Women’s & Gender Studies, pp. 204-209. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.

Embodied pedagogy as transformative learning: A critical reflection. Proceedings of the 24th  Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for the Studies of Adult Education (CASAE) (unpaged).

2006   
Ng, R., G. Man, H. Shan,, & W. Liu. Learning to be good citizens: Informal learning and the labour market experiences of professional Chinese immigrant women. In L. English & J. Groen (Eds.), Proceedings of the 25th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association of Studies in Adult Education (CASAE), p. 266-267.

Exploring the globalized regime of ruling from the standpoint of immigrant garment workers. In C. Frampton, G. Kinsman, A.K. Thompson & Kate Tilleczek (Eds.) Sociology for Changing the World: Social Movements/Social Research, pp. 174-188. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.

2007   
Garment production in Canada: Social and political implications. Studies in Political Economy, 79, Spring: 193-211.

Ng, R. and H. Shan. Learning to navigate the Canadian labour market: The experiences of professional Chinese immigrant women. In R. Mark, R. Jay, B. McCabe & R. Moreland (Eds.), Researching Adult Learning: Communities and Partnerships in the Local an Global Context –  Proceedings of the 37th SCUTREA 2007 Annual Conference, 3-5 July 2007, p. 348-354.

2008   
Mathews, A.,R.Ng, M. Patton, L. Waschuk & J. Wong. Learning, difference, embodiment: Personal and collective transformations. New Horizons in Education, 56(1): 45-63, May.

Church, K., E. Shragge, J.M. Fontan & R.Ng. While no one is watching: Learning in social action among people who are excluded from the labour market. In K. Church, N. Bascia & E. Shragge (Eds.), Learning Through Community: Exploring Participatory Practices, pp. 97-116.  Holland: Springer.

Mirchandani, K., R. Ng, N. Colomo-Moya, S. Maitra, T. Rawlings, K. Siddiqui, H. Shan & B.L. Slade
The paradox of training and learning in a culture of contingency. In D.W. Livingstone, K. Mirchandani & P. Sawchuk (Eds.), The Future of Life Long Learning and Work: Critical Perspectives. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.

Outreach Activities

In addition to being active in the professional organizations to which I belong, I work with a number of groups including: a group of garment sewers, the Chinese Canadian National Council - Toronto Chapter (CCNC Toronto - a social justice organization led by Chinese Canadians), the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women (CRIAW - a NGO aimed at bridging academic and community-based feminist research), and Inter Pares (a feminist and social justice oriented international development agency working with grassroots groups and coalitions in the economic south).