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aguas, B. & Calado, A. (2025). Between Inclusion and Exclusion: The Role of the Welfare State in Language Learning for Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Portugal and Spain. IMISCOE and CIES-Iscte Workshop: Language Diversity, Education and Learning in the Context of Migration and Diaspora.

B. C. Águas and A. D. Calado,  "Between Inclusion and Exclusion: The Role of the Welfare State in Language Learning for Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Portugal and Spain", in IMISCOE and CIES-Iscte Workshop: Language Diversity, Education and Learning in the Context of Migration and Diaspora, Lisboa, 2025

@misc{águas2025_1765550530163,
	author = "aguas, B. and Calado, A.",
	title = "Between Inclusion and Exclusion: The Role of the Welfare State in Language Learning for Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Portugal and Spain",
	year = "2025"
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - Between Inclusion and Exclusion: The Role of the Welfare State in Language Learning for Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Portugal and Spain
T2  - IMISCOE and CIES-Iscte Workshop: Language Diversity, Education and Learning in the Context of Migration and Diaspora
AU  - aguas, B.
AU  - Calado, A.
PY  - 2025
CY  - Lisboa
AB  - This presentation aims to address the importance of learning the host country’s language for the 
social and economic inclusion of asylum seekers and refugees, as well as the barriers to this 
learning process, which emerge from the very first moment of reception by the welfare state, one 
increasingly absorbed by liberalization and the transfer of responsibilities to the private sphere.
This presentation is part of a broader investigation into the (in)ability of the welfare state to 
welcome asylum seekers and refugees in Portugal and Spain, within the broader context of the 
European Union. It is structured into three parts. The first provides a theoretical framework, 
outlining the main contemporary approaches to the topic. The second characterizes the 
reception systems in both countries, focusing on the responses related to language learning. The 
third presents findings from a set of interviews conducted with support networks for Afghan 
refugees - networks that closely accompany the integration processes of these individuals into 
Portuguese and Spanish societies - as well as from participant observation carried out in a 
reception centre for asylum seekers and refugees in Portugal.
Findings from the analysis of the reception systems reveal a clear gap between what is formally 
planned and what is actually implemented in practice regarding language learning for asylum 
seekers and refugees. This gap is reflected in the limited success of many integration programs. 
Moreover, insights drawn from interviews and participant observation indicate that: language 
learning opportunities within reception structures are unstable, scarce, and short-term, often 
dependent on volunteer efforts, which hampers their effectiveness; and that language 
acquisition is crucial for inclusion, namely, for accessing services, for entering the formal labour 
market, and for navigating the system, building agency and fighting for the recognition of their 
rights to access services, healthcare, adequate housing, and a regulated labour market. The lack 
of language proficiency thus emerges as one of the main barriers to effective inclusion.
In conclusion, we observe a welfare state that has increasingly adopted liberalization trends, 
shifting its responsibility for delivering social responses onto civil society organizations that often 
lack adequate funding and operate through volunteerism or the financial capacity of private 
actors. This model proves fragile and incapable of providing a form of reception that leads to 
genuine inclusion. As a result, what should be a policy of socio-economic integration ends up reinforcing vulnerability and exclusion, ultimately undermining goals of inclusion and the 
reconstruction of citizenship.
This contribution is highly relevant to the themes of the workshop, as it focuses on adult asylum 
seekers and refugees, highlighting how access to language learning directly impacts social 
inclusion and citizenship, or, conversely, reinforces exclusion. It also demonstrates how adult 
asylum seekers and refugees construct agency and resistance through language learning, since 
acquiring the host country’s language allows them to understand the system more effectively 
and, consequently, to act upon it in an informed and emancipatory way, and to claim their rights 
more effectively.
ER  -