The use of migration-related competencies in continuing education: individual strategies,social and institutional conditions

Focusing especially on biographical competencies that are gained through the experience of migration and socialisation in a certain country or cultural context, this article analyses how professionals define and deploy these ‘migration-related competencies’ when it comes to employment in the field of adult education in Austria. By means of selected example cases individual strategies are discussed vis-à-vis institutional frameworks of adult education and processes of exclusion towards migrants in general. Considering questions of representation and othering, the circumstances under which the utilisation of migration-related competencies is experienced as beneficial or problematic are examined. Furthermore, educational institutions of the majority society display different modes of recognising and acknowledging migration-related competencies. In a context, in which the official acknowledgement of these practices by institutions and transparent policies towards diversity orientation are lacking, the possession and demonstration of migration-related competencies has shown to be a highly ambivalent and individualised process.