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- PaperApplied Linguistics20 May 2026
Precarity in an adult refugee’s basic literacy learning
Guri Bordal Steien, Marte Monsen
An ethnographic case study of a Congolese refugee in Norway reveals a significant gap between her personal priorities shaped by her refugee trajectory and the content of basic literacy training. The authors argue that addressing the precarity of the refugee condition is crucial for understanding and meeting their language learning needs.
Original abstract
With this article, we respond to recent calls within research on language learning for a greater focus on societal impact by drawing attention to the needs of different learner groups. We are concerned with a group of learners who have received limited attention in the field: adult refugees with limited prior schooling who enter graphocentric spaces. Language learning is often an inevitability for this group. For instance, in Norway, where our research was carried out, Norwegian language training is juridically ‘a right and an obligation’ for refugees. This article is an ethnographic case study of the basic literacy learning of Nora, a resettlement refugee from the DR Congo via Uganda to Norway. Our main finding is that there was a large gap between Nora’s priorities and understandings—informed by her refugee trajectory—and the aims and content of the basic literacy training she attended during her first years in Norway. Based on Nora’s story, we argue that the precarity of the refugee condition should be addressed, to better understand refugees’ needs as language learners.