How Decisions Are Made: Organizational Isomorphism and a Focus on English in Refugee Education

Abstract

In this article, I draw from interviews conducted with stakeholders in education in emergencies (EiE) to examine the underexplored topic of language in refugee education. I argue that organizations and government staff members who work on EiE are functioning in an institutionally defined field that has been shaped by a shared mission, formal structures of collaboration, and significant information flows in the midst of uncertainty. Given these factors, the EiE field is vulnerable to organizational isomorphism, a process through which organizations become increasingly similar to one another. These organizations and government bodies are tasked with answering big questions related to language in education but have little data or expertise to support their work. Given these significant constraints, I find that program leaders and policymakers who initially articulated ambitious goals for language in refugee education tend to shift away from these data-informed, multilingual approaches, instead defaulting to monolingual English support programs aimed at education access. Drawing from 34 in-depth interviews with individuals working in EiE, as well as participant observations across meetings and other convenings, I reveal the isomorphic tendencies in the language-related work of EiE. I also offer recommendations for how to use data more effectively when making decisions in EiE. These include hiring programmatic and policy leaders who have the appropriate training to tackle some of the most challenging questions in education, and ensuring that structures for collaboration continue to offer targeted opportunities to examine, understand, and act on data and research.