Learning in precarious circumstances: Social change, agency and everyday resistance in organisations supporting refugees in England and Scotland

Bouttell, Lauren (2024) Learning in precarious circumstances: Social change, agency and everyday resistance in organisations supporting refugees in England and Scotland. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

Refugees and asylum seekers in the UK are often eager to access adult education and learn what they need to settle and build their futures. Many charitable organisations around the UK provide non-formal educational opportunities for sanctuary seekers. However, funding is limited for adult education, and austerity cuts mean that organisations are stretched, while a hostile policy environment towards migrants exacerbates challenges. This PhD study set out to explore the learning that was happening in these organisations under precarious circumstances and how learning may relate to social transformation in two communities, located in Norwich and Glasgow.

Utilising an ethnographic methodology, including participant observations, interviews and workshops, this study was based in a lifelong learning centre in Glasgow and an organisation supporting refugees and asylum seekers in Norwich. I observed ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) classes, conversation cafés, allotment sessions and other community activities organised by the NGOs.

This study found that everyone, including sanctuary seekers, staff and volunteers experienced precarity in a multiplicity of ways, which affected how they could access or facilitate learning, in addition to influencing what people learned. However, people regularly exercised agency to navigate this precarity, through learning (often informally) to cope with change, sharing knowledge and building solidarities. Learning was regularly a response to change, with people acquiring the knowledge and skills to navigate uncertainty. Learning also facilitated change in ‘a minor key’, which was meaningful for their lives. Organisations acted as important, adaptable spaces for this learning to occur, with educators’ judgement and knowledge about their students playing an important role. The findings suggest that sanctuary seekers have agency to undertake varied learning that both resists and contributes to social change on an everyday level, and this agency is supported by shared connections, solidarities and informal spaces for learning amidst structural precarity. (300 words)

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Education and Lifelong Learning
Depositing User:	Kitty Laine
Date Deposited:	30 May 2025 13:19
Last Modified:	30 May 2025 13:19
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/99339
DOI:

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