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This article aims to show how entrepreneurship serves as a pathway for the socio-professional integration of immigrant women, while at the same time acting to avoid as much as possible the various forms of discrimination they face in the Quebec job market. Systemic discrimination is a current issue that has been the subject of much discussion in Canada and Quebec. It can contribute to the hyper-precarity of immigrant women from visible minorities, who experience double discrimination due to their ethnocultural backgrounds and to the fact that they are women. Indicators of discrimination include higher rates of unemployment, deskilling and low income, with their effects on local development. We first provide an overview of systemic discrimination in employment. Then, we present three resources that support women’s entrepreneurship throughout Quebec (MicroEntreprendre, Entreprendre ici, and the Réseau des femmes d’affaires du Québec). We conclude with the impacts of businesswomen on local development.

Keywords: Women, Femmes, discrimination, discrimination, visible minorities, minorités visibles, entrepreneurship, entrepreneuriat, développement local, local development

Globally, not just in the case of Singapore, which is the focus of this paper, migrant care workers are a devalued and unappreciated workforce. Long before the pandemic, issues of migrant rights and care shortages were major topics of concern for feminist adult education and care work scholars, who advocate for the importance of critical hope and the transformative potential of imaginations. As human communication pivots online, physical face-to-face encounters dwindle while digital solidarities thrive. In this hybrid scenario, I narrate the structurally oppressive circumstances of live-in employment alongside an online (Facebook) support group that asserts its members’ rights to receive, not simply provide, care. For my migrant worker activist research participants, care and digital activism are mutually interactive social processes that challenge Singapore society’s dominant market mentality in the educational, learning, and socialization practices of family care. Power asymmetries often prevent migrant worker activists such as foreign “maids,” as they are often disparagingly called in the local parlance, from mobilizing their transformative feminist imaginations into policy change. Based on my findings, I call for a reciprocal approach to reconfiguring care ethics and practice that centres migrant perspectives. I invite colleagues to join me in storytelling about resilient groups and individuals who embrace the imaginative power of critical hope to rewrite the status quo of public knowledge.

Keywords: éthique et pratiques de soins, Care Ethics and Practice, activisme numérique, Digital Activism, Feminist Imaginaries, imagination féministe, travailleurs de soins migrants, Migrant Care Workers, Feminist Adult Education, éducation féministe des adultes

Although free access to food is a common response to food insecurity, it does not guarantee consumption. Our research examines how the concept of pleasure can be incorporated into food support programmes offered by community organizations in Québec. A mixed methodology was employed to analyze the relationship between experienced food insecurity and the pleasure of eating. The results offer theoretical and practical ways forward, emphasizing the importance of considering the notion of choice in interventions. They provide food for thought and suggest to public decision-makers that they adopt a collective approach to combating food insecurity, enabling people to rediscover the pleasure of eating.

Keywords: plaisir, pleasure, food insecurity, insécurité alimentaire, community organisation, organisme communautaire, precarity, précarité, James Bay, Baie-James, Québec, Québec

The numerous changes observed in the world of work over the past few decades have influenced productive organization, the nature of the work to be performed, and consequently, the learning needs of the staff. With these changes, the concept of competence has become ever present in human resource management, particularly in training. Theoretically, the concept of competence allows us to recognize that a person is able and authorized to take initiative in their work. However, its disconnection from the concrete content of work in practice within organizational settings has been reported by several authors, particularly regarding the concept of competency frameworks. We can then question how training professionals have appropriated the concept of competence and what approaches could enable competencies to better explain and represent the reality of work situations. Is training focused on the application of procedures and the correct, one-size-fits-all work method, or is it designed to enable professionals to assess situations, adapt to them resourcefully, and make appropriate decisions? To answer these questions, this paper explores the impact of the definition of competence on training, its types, its content, and the training methods. The analysis given draws on studies in ergonomics and sociology, as well as accounts from professionals enrolled in the workplace trainer programmes at UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal).

Keywords: Competencies, Compétences, situational frameworks, référentiels de situation, workplace situation, situation de travail, workplace training, formation en milieu de travail, needs analysis, analyse des besoins, activity analysis, analyse des activités, tacit knowledge, savoirs implicites