Journal on Education in Emergencies Volume 8, Number 1

This issue of JEiE presents empirical research, theory-building, and cutting-edge field notes that are organically driven by the priorities of EiE researchers and practitioners.

In this editorial note, JEiE Editor-in-Chief Dana Burde and Senior Managing Editor Heddy Lahmann introduce the key themes, trends, and novel contributions to evidence on education in emergencies offered in JEiE Volume 8, Number 1.

Author Augustino Ting Mayai examines the effects the civil war in South Sudan had on primary school enrollment during the first four years of the conflict. He argues that cumulative lost school years among students in war-affected communities in South Sudan pose long-term socioeconomic consequences, such as the stymied development of human capital.

In a study of 7,191 Syrian children, authors Grace Anyaegbu, Caroline Carney, Holly-Jane Howell, Alaa Zaza, and Abdulkader Alaeddin report lower literacy levels among children with one cognitive or psychosocial difficulty (as determined by the Washington Group Questions). Children with two or more such difficulties were less likely to progress as far on an eight-milestone literacy pathway.

Reflecting on the feasibility of ed tech solutions for out-of-school children, authors Jasmine S. Turner, Karine Taha, Nisreen Ibrahim, Koen I. Neijenhuijs, Eyad Hallak, Kate Radford, Hester Stubbé-Alberts, Thomas de Hoop, Mark J.D. Jordans, and Felicity L. Brown report significant effects on numeracy and self-esteem among 390 children in Lebanon who took part in a digital game-based intervention.

Authors Maria Paulina Arango-Fernández and Stephanie Simmons Zuilkowski share insights from 20 Colombian ex-combatants engaged in TVET. They find that some forms of TVET may support social cohesion while other forms reinforce exclusion, but few TVET experiences addressed ex-combatants’ feelings of stigmatization. They recommend pairing TVET with economic support to encourage reintegration.

Authors Liliana Angélica Ponguta, Kathryn Moore, Divina Varghese, Sascha Hein, Angela Ng, Aseel Fawaz Alzaghoul, Maria Angélica Benavides Camacho, Karishma Sethi, and Majd Al-Soleiti uncover root causes behind low ECD access in EiE settings: low prioritization across sectors, little systematic mapping of the institutional and programmatic landscape, and limited consensus on strategic advocacy.

Calling on readers to reflect on the power of youth as agents for peace, author Mieke T. A. Lopes Cardozo brings together an education rights framework with a framework for sustainable peacebuilding in EiE contexts to advance a new notion of the role of education that transgresses current models for students’ participation in tackling big issues, such as climate change and social justice.

Authors Elizabeth Buckner, Daniel Shephard, and Anne Smiley examine how EiE professionals use data and what makes data “useful” to them. While global-level actors emphasized strategic data uses and local-level actors, operational uses, respondents at all levels elaborated on nontechnical factors (e.g., the politics of data) that influence the availability and perceived usefulness of EiE data.

Highlighting the potential of community-driven nonformal education models to reach displaced students, author Maryam Jillani examines the innovative community mobilization and capacity-building approach that Creative Associates International adopted to provide access to education for more than 80,000 learners in northern Nigeria.

Writing prior to the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, authors Susan Ayari, Agatha J. van Ginkel, Janet Shriberg, Benjamin Gauley, and Sarah Maniates reflect on the partnership between Afghan Children Read and the Afghanistan Ministry of Education to integrate SEL principles into early grade reading curricula for students and into preservice and in-service training for teachers.

Paul O’Keeffe interviews Dieu Merci Luundo, the founder of Vijana Twaweza Youth Club, an internationally recognized, award-winning program Luundo founded to combat climate change and poor nutrition in Kakuma refugee camp. He describes the organization’s accomplishments, growth, and basis in sustainable development and permaculture.

In her review of Making Refuge: Somali Bantu Refugees and Lewiston, Maine, by Catherine Besteman, Kelsey A. Dalrymple underscores for EiE audiences what Besteman writes about the role refugee communities’ histories, values surrounding education, and past cruel and othering experiences in schools play in their resettlement, identity formation, and cultural change.

In her review of Those We Throw Away Are Diamonds: A Refugee’s Search for Home by Mondiant Dogon, with Jenna Krajeski, Elisabeth King shows how Dogon’s first-person account of his life calls into question popular misconceptions about forced migration and refugee life. King says the book is a powerful reminder of why EiE practitioners engage in this work, and of the work that remains.