The Informality Paradox: Secure Belonging and Organizational Fragility in a Refugee Learning Center

• In Event: International Migration Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 17. Refugee resettlement

Abstract

This study explores a simple but important question: why do adult and youth learners continue to attend and remain connected to a community-based learning center that operates with limited resources, loose organization, and minimal formal structure? Existing research on refugee resettlement and adult education often evaluates programs based on formal instruction, standardized curricula, and measurable outcomes, offering less insight into why learners persist in loosely structured and under-resourced spaces. Drawing on three months of ethnographic fieldwork at the Neighborhood Learning Project (NLP) in a mid-sized Northeastern U.S. city, this study examines how participation, learning, and belonging are produced in an informal learning environment.
The data include participant observation during evening classes, informal conversations, and in-depth interviews with staff, former students, and youth teaching assistants. The findings show that participation at NLP is sustained through a combination of social belonging, organizational informality, and low-stakes learning practices. Learners often emphasized comfort, familiarity, and relationships over instructional outcomes, while staff and volunteers relied on flexible roles and improvisation to respond to changing needs. Learning occurred in uneven, non-linear ways and was evaluated through participation and emotional safety rather than formal assessment.
These findings suggest that learners continue to return not because of structured instruction alone, but because the center offers a space where they feel comfortable, recognized, and able to participate without fear of failure. More broadly, this study highlights how informality can both sustain participation and generate instability, challenging narrow evaluations of community-based learning spaces operating under limited resources.

Author

• Sobia Mushtaq, Syracuse University