This chapter describes the conclusion drawn from the research findings of this study. It also aims to draw out the key suggestions for the government that seeks to encourage, enable and support Vietnamese immigrant women to undertake the vocational training program, or that aims to maximize the returns from learning for individuals.
Conclusions
This study investigates the expectations and experiences of Vietnamese immigrant women toward the vocational training program offered by the Taiwanese government. It especially targets those individuals who had immigrated to Taiwan through the arrange commercial marriage. Another aspect of the participation criteria was that participants had participated the vocational training within one year.
A qualitative approach was utilized to explore the questions posed by the study. Using qualitative inquiry, data were collected through semi-structured interviews with twelve Vietnamese immigrant women. With the help of her advisor, the researcher developed an interview questionnaire that would take account into all the research purposes. After the interview questionnaire was developed, the pilot interview was conducted for checking if the interview and the process are appropriate enough. After that, the questionnaire was deemed fit to be used for this study. All of the interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. Each primary interview lasted between one to two hours, while follow-up communications allowed participants the opportunity to review transcripts of primary interviews and to clarify responses from initial interviews. This study revealed three key areas, nine themes and twelve sub-themes related to the major research questions. Please check the Table 4.1 for more details.
Based on the research findings, conclusions were drawn and were discussed below.
Vietnamese Immigrant Women Engaged Their Improving Lives Desires in the Vocational Training
It is no doubt that all the participants in this study valued and were respectful of the opportunity to participate the vocational training. They were guided by their own personal expectations and motivation to pursue the vocational training. Broadly, three sets of expectations were apparent:
Firstly, they hope that the vocational training can influence their future employment. By achieving the vocational training qualification, Vietnamese immigrant women hoped they
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could enhance their opportunities for employability and career progression. Financial gain and meeting sector targets or expectations were also desired outcomes.
To develop as a person is the second Vietnamese immigrant women when they decided to attend the vocational training. Some participants wanted to improve as people with increasing general knowledge andabilities and by acting as a role model to others.
The last expectation is that fighting Taiwanese discrimination against immigrant women.
Due to the discrimination experiences, they desired that the vocational training can make them more empowerment and change the way Taiwanese people are judging them.
The Vocational Training Programs for Immigrant Women Lack the Social and Cultural Context of Trainees
Although the training programmes that the female immigrants in this study attended were offered specifically for immigrant women, these courses are implemented in the Taiwanese-centric way without integrating the special socio-cultural experiences. Therefore, it hinders their full participation in the training and negatively affect their training effectiveness. The main reasons for the problems are that female immigrants attend Taiwanese-centered vocational training courses and that vocational training instructors do not understand the cultural background and life experiences of female immigrants. The training courses and textbooks are not integrated with social and cultural experiences of female immigrants, and the content and methods of vocational training programs specifically designed for female immigrants are similar to those for general Taiwanese trainees. As a matter of fact, training effectiveness cannot be improved unless vocational training programs take into account the social and cultural contexts of trainees with a multicultural background.
On the other hand, these Taiwanese-centered training programs may constrain the abilities of immigrant women, underestimate them, restrain their engagement in full citizenship in Taiwan, and fortify existing inequalities among various migrants. The participants in this research recounted encounters nationality-based opposition toward women from Southeast Asian by Chinese immigrant women during the participation of the vocational training. The opposition may come from the racialized boundaries among immigrant women of various nationalities that commercial marriage intermediaries make.
Furthermore, Chinese ability might be a marker utilized by female Chinese immigrants to indicate stratified contrasts between immigrant women in Taiwan. The nationality-based
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opposition among Chinese migrant females may make self-racialization that damages Southeast Asian immigrant women as well as the Chinese women themselves.
The Vocational Training Certificates Gave Increased Meaning to Vietnamese Immigrant Women’ Lives in Taiwan
The vocational education qualification allowed Vietnamese immigrant women to live in a socially satisfactory status that may obscure their lower education level and even their original nationality. The training certificate also legitimized them in the eyes of their families in Taiwan, employers, and the more extensive society in the host nation; and diminish their feelings of inadequacy. Besides, the training qualifications play an important role that influences on the employment opportunities of Vietnamese immigrant women.
Furthermore, due to their status as immigrant brides, these Vietnamese females are seen as “inferior” by their Taiwanese families and in the eyes of social. As a result, this created their vulnerability by the discrimination from Taiwanese people and under their Taiwanese family's control over their roles in the home. Along these lines, a significant number of the Vietnamese immigrant women decide to participate the vocational training as a way to decrease such discrimination. Finishing the training and gaining the vocational education certificate engaged these women to take part in the labor market by giving them self-confidence and raising a voice in their families, encouraging their joining into Taiwanese society, and facilitate them to accomplish their life objectives.
In conclusion, even as a disadvantaged group that is susceptible to discrimination identified with their sexuality, ethnicity, and status as immigrant brides in Taiwan, these Vietnamese immigrant females were not simply inactive victims of the social, economic, and familial cultures in the host society. Actually, they employed their own strategy to obtain different meanings for their lives. The also asked the assistance from their families to overcome difficulties and hinders. Encountered to a range of barriers, these women persisted in finishing the training by procuring various types of resources. By attending the vocational training, they became empowered through their labor market participation, even though they might be further exposed to reinforced gendered roles.
Suggestions
Based on the current research finding, some suggestions can be formulated for policymakers, the training organizers, the immigrant women and future researchers on similar topics.
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Suggestions for Policy Makers
As the research findings revealed, access to vocational training is crucial for migrants to enable them to adapt their skills and qualifications to the labor market requirements of the host countries. However, due to the language barrier and not be introduced the employment services offered by the Taiwanese government, immigrant women often work in low skilled, temporary and badly paid jobs. Therefore, information and individual advice and guidance services are essential to assist immigrant women in finding their way in the training system. Advice is necessary to support them with choosing the right course and exploring options for financial support, childcare etc. In addition, the staff of service providers (in particular employment offices) should take more account of immigrants’ previous educational and professional backgrounds and consider their specific training needs, the available courses and support services, and refer them accordingly.
The government should ensure that immigrant women have access to adequate information and individual advice and guidance (for example through a system of caseworkers) on vocational training and educational opportunities. Staffs of the relevant service providers (in particular employment services) should receive training on the specific needs of immigrants and ensure that they are referred to progression routes to training that takes into account their skills level.
The difficulties in Chinese of Vietnamese immigrant women during the participation of training course shows that adequate language skills are essential for immigrant women to be able to access vocational training programs. However, the existing language provision is often insufficient to enable them to reach the necessary entry levels. Therefore, the government should ensure that language courses are sufficiently available, adequate and affordable to enable immigrant women to reach the level necessary to access further training.
The vocational training program can only be successful if upon completion jobs are available. This requires the awareness and cooperation of the private sector. However, many employers are not sufficiently aware of the skills and economic potential of immigrant women.
Therefore, the government should propagate and facilitate the vocational training program to be well coordinated with labor market needs and at the same time be in accordance with the immigrant women. In order to lead to employment, vocational training should be especially targeted in fields where there is a labor market shortage. representatives of employers should be included in vocational training initiatives.
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Suggestions for Training Organizers
The first encounter of Vietnamese immigrant women when participating the vocational training program is getting the permission from their husband and family-in-law. Therefore, it is important for the organizers of the training program to be able to provide an up to date information on their programs, on the opportunities which stem from the training and the value of training. This information should be easily accessed by the immigrant women family in Taiwan, and this is most effective where there are direct contacts with them or outreach activities to them. It allows Taiwanese families to perceive the meaning and the importance of participation in the vocational training. As a result, they will encourage or give the permission for immigrant women to receive the training.
The findings showed that Vietnamese immigrant women experienced the discrimination due to the difference in culture. Therefore, training should be designed in such a way as to demonstrate that cultural diversity is respected and valued. Minority or immigrant cultures are significant to trainees' identity and self-esteem. In particular, cultural competency intercessions are required to educate the instructor in advance and to encourage training instructors’
comprehension of the students' background. Teachers also ought to be equipped for conveying training content in ways that perceive and use the cultures and identities of immigrant women.
It is important to build up a supportive training environment to facilitate immigrant women to share their thoughts and to collaborate with training community members to comprehend and gain by each other's social and cultural capital (Alfred, 2003).
Not only differences in culture, but the limits in language also causes the experience of discrimination as well as the difficulties in perceiving knowledge. Therefore, the training organizers should offer the preparatory courses which are a kind of extra language classes (including sometimes language courses adapted to specific academic or professional language) in order to achieve a successful intake of immigrant women and prevent dropout during training.
Furthermore, affordable intensive language courses adapted to specific academic or professional language may also be needed to enable immigrant women to enter courses in their field of profession. As a result, training for additional language proficiency is more effective when built into the vocational training itself so that is can be based on trainees' particular needs.
To ensure the quality of outcome, the training contents are always needed to be updated and be relevant to the future labor market needs. Some immigrant women made suggestions for upgrading and updating facilities, technology, and texts to meet current requirements,
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improving the availability of adequate and appropriate resources, including relevant and practical texts, and using the new model of equipment. They also think that it would be worthwhile if the training could provide more teaching media which would encourage them to understand the knowledge conveying from the textbook and want to learn more, rather than just giving printed material and following the teachers.
Suggestions for Vietnamese Immigrant Women
This study provides insight the difficulties and hinders of Vietnamese immigrant women during the participation of the vocational training. Therefore, the researcher made some suggestions for them to help them avoid or overcome these hinders.
First of all, Vietnamese immigrant women should have the preparation for training.
Language fluency as a critical instrument in their effective training and as a fundamental requirement to get the knowledge and skill during the training. Therefore, immigrant women should try to improve their Chinese by participating the Chinese classes offered in the local before enrolling the vocational training. Besides, they also need to search the information related to the training to ensure fit their training needs and get appropriate supports.
Some Vietnamese immigrant women reported the issue of mental health due to tensions between their family responsibilities and their pursuit of vocational training. The researcher suggests that Vietnamese immigrant women should learn the way to keep a balance between their learning and their housework by seeking assistance from family-in-law, friends, and the immigrant community centers.
They can also join in or create female immigrant associations where they will meet regularly to share their problems and together devise solutions; they can push their motivation as to inviting other immigrant women who are successful after completed the training, so they can learn from their experiences and get tips on how to be handle difficulties when starting the training.
Last but not least, although completing the vocational training may help orient immigrant women toward a Taiwanese workplace, these women were still conforming to oppressive conditions in the labor market due to racialism and feminism. Thus, getting the vocational education qualification does not mean that the immigrant women will have a job with good salary and environment. The researcher suggests that Vietnamese immigrant women should take the initiative in seeking jobs by connecting with the employment agencies, gaining a
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certain knowledge about the labor law and always make an effort to improve themselves to increase their self-confidence and raise the voice in the society.
Suggestions for Future Researchers
Since immigrant women are minimized with available scholarly literature, there are myriad of opportunities to expand future research, but based on the particular findings of this study, there are three significant recommendations.
The first suggestion is further research that examines the particular expectation and experiences of Vietnamese immigrant women in other settings and circumstances to determine if their expectations and experiences are similar to those in this study. Some examples might be Vietnamese immigrant continue to participate the vocational training level 2 or pursuit higher education such as bachelor degree or master degree in Taiwan. In addition, the varying understandings of immigrant women also indicate that additional research may be necessary to immigrant women within varying environments and cultures. This study focused only on Vietnamese immigrant women. Further research might examine other ethnic groups or other forms of education in the learning path.
Improving the employment prospect is an expectation of Vietnamese immigrant women when they decided to participate the vocational training because, before the training, the jobs that these women obtained were in low-paying, female-dominated, entry-level positions in the Taiwanese labor market. One of the main purposes of this research is determining the impacts of vocational training on immigrant women and not focusing on evaluating the training outcomes as well as the influences of training on immigrant women's employment prospects.
Therefore, the second suggestion is further research regarding the outcome related to employment.
Finally, it is no doubt that after participating the vocational training, the Vietnamese immigrant women in this study received many benefits to improving their lives, but their futures still are unclear. Therefore, further longitudinal research is required to investigate the living of these women after obtaining the vocational education certificates.
Limitations of the Study
In interpreting the findings of this study, the following limitations must be considered:
The first limitation of this study is that the research was conducted in Taipei and New Taipei. The study was also limited by the research only focus on Vietnamese women who
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immigrated to Taiwan through marriage and completed the vocational training program offer by the Taiwanese government. Therefore, the participants in this study were not representative of all Vietnamese immigrant women living in Taiwan that also participated the vocational training.
Besides, while participants were volunteers who were comfortable expressing their opinions about the vocational training, they were not randomly recruited. They chose to participate in the study as they were comfortable talking about their thoughts. There are many Vietnamese immigrants who may have participated the vocational in a similar to this study’s sample but did not feel comfortable in joining in the study. A more random selection may have changed the results of this study.
Due to purposive sampling, the results of this study may not be generalized to all Vietnamese female immigrants in Taiwan. The findings in the present study included a small sample of immigrants who completed the vocational training offered by Taiwanese government within one year. The study did not include those who might have participated the vocational training but not offered by the Taiwanese government.
The last limitation concerns the method of data collection used. In fact, a semi-structured interview was used to gather the information from twelve Vietnamese immigrant women and the data was given by interview result at the particular time of the study, so the practical application may change with time.
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