Understanding the Dimensions of Conflict & Crisis

Perhaps now more than at any other time in recent history children are seeking schooling amid uncertainty (Nicolai et al., 2015; UNICEF, 2021). To date, nearly 120 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes (UNHCR, 2023a), and compounded crises – including global health pandemics, climate-induced disasters, economic shocks, and wars, to name a few – disrupt the provision of education and adversely affect learners and teachers alike (Education Cannot Wait, 2023; UNHCR, 2023b). Amid such insecurity, education can provide protection for children in their day-to-day lives, while also building social foundations towards long-term goals of sustainable development and peace (Aguilar & Retamal 2009; Arega, 2023; Jordans, Pigott, & Tol, 2016; Nicolai & Triplehorn, 2003; Pherali, 2019, 2022; Tol et al., 2013; Winthrop & Kirk, 2008). Yet, multidimensional challenges hinder efforts to deliver quality, inclusive education in these settings, with many children and youth struggling to attend, progress, learn, and thrive in formal and nonformal schools (Ghaffer-Kucher, 2018; Mendenhall et al., Forthcoming; Sommers & Nasrallah, 2024).

Exacerbating these challenges is the lack of a coherent body of evidence on what has worked, how, and for whom to improve education outcomes in conflict and protracted crisis settings (Kim et al., 2024a). While there have been several rigorous or systematic reviews with the aim of synthesising educational interventions in these settings (Aber et al., 2021; Burde et al., 2019; Deitz et al., 2021; Diazgranados Ferráns et al., 2024; Lasater et al., 2022), significant gaps remain regarding how children learn while their communities are caught in the middle of complex crises that frequently disrupt teaching and learning. Further, disparate descriptions of conflict and crisis limit analytical comparisons of educational systems; reforms, programmes and practices; drivers of learning and development; and individual and societal outcomes across diverse conflict and crisis contexts.

To effectively identify not only what is likely to work, but also how, for whom, at what cost, and under what conditions, it is critical to better understand the characteristics of different conflict-affected and crisis settings. The Education Research in Conflict and Protracted Crisis (ERICC) programme has thus developed the Dimensions of Conflict & Crisis to characterise the settings within which educational conditions are shaped and policies and programmes are designed to improve access, quality, and continuity of education in order to support children’s learning and development. Understanding these dimensions will enable researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners to ask contextually relevant questions on the nature of conflict and crisis; develop policies and programmes that are conflict- and crisis-sensitive; and adapt educational responses when the contexts of conflict and crisis change over time.

There are four key dimensions that characterise the conflict and crises within which educational conditions are shaped, and policies and programmes are designed to improve access, quality, and continuity of education in order to support children’s learning and development:

1. Types of conflict and crisis: compounded crises or polycrisis, armed conflict and violence, climate-induced and environmental disasters, forced displacement, economic crisis and shocks, health epidemics and pandemics, governance and political crisis
2. Phases of conflict and crisis: onset/development, protracted/chronic, recovery/reconstruction
3. Scales of conflict and crisis: intensity (low, medium, high), centralisation (localised, regional, national, international)
4. Stakeholders of conflict and crisis: agents (those leading or managing the crisis and/or response), those affected by the crisis