Journal on Education in Emergencies Volume 8, Number 2
This issue of the Journal on Education in Emergencies (JEiE) offers an in-depth analysis of the unique gendered effects humanitarian emergencies have on boys and girls. It adds to more than two decades of EiE research that demonstrates how conflict and crisis exacerbate existing political, economic, and cultural barriers to education access and widen the gender gap in educational attainment.
Spurred by the commitment G7 leaders made in the Charlevoix Declaration on Quality Education for Girls, Adolescent Girls, and Women in Developing Countries to advance gender equality in education through sex-disaggregated data and evidence-based systems of accountability, this issue brings attention to the role scholarly research can play in improving access to and parity in the quality of education for learners affected by displacement, political fragility, and violence.
JEiE Volume 8, Number 2 includes five research articles, one field note, and three book reviews. The contributing authors reveal new evidence on gender-based violence as experienced by students in high-, middle-, and low-income countries; explore the intersection of race, gender, and displacement as refugee students encounter new learning environments; and interrogate gaps between boys and girls in education access and the learning they reported achieving during the school closures and lockdowns related to COVID-19. Some of the authors trace the effects increased domestic responsibilities and the perceived safety of their host communities have on refugee girls’ ability to access secondary education. They also offer innovative approaches to collecting, disaggregating, and analyzing data on program outcomes in emergency contexts. One of three book reviews in this issue documents the implications for the EiE field of a century-long evolution of what it means to be an educated girl in India and Pakistan. The two other reviews report progress in support for girls’ and refugees’ education, as described in high-level interagency reports and by the facilitators of tertiary education in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp.
The contributing authors share learning from research and field work conducted in varied contexts, including North America, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. This special issue of JEiE ties the crisis of girls’ unequal access to quality education with the worldwide impact of COVID-19 in several ways and brings into stark relief the vulnerabilities of education systems that are simultaneously confronting existing inequalities and novel emergency situations.
The Journal on Education in Emergencies, published by the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.