Outline

Education is increasingly recognised as an integral component of responding to a refugee crisis. Over the past two decades, this has been accompanied by a proliferation of research, publications and discussion, highlighting issues of access to schooling and, more recently, higher education for refugees. Yet despite these developments, including a shift towards integrating refugee children in the national education systems of host countries, current debates around 'education for refugees' are frequently delinked from wider theories and policies relating to education inequalities and education justice. The humanitarian framing of 'education for refugees' implicitly disconnects it from the inherently developmental nature of education, while the agendas of donor countries and host states are often contradictory in the context of anti-immigration policies, discriminatory laws and the social and economic marginalisation of refugees .

This topic looks at the following questions:

What are the barriers to education for refugees and how to dismantle them?
Why is it important to link the issues concerning refugee education to wider theories and strategies for education justice?
How can a political economy approach uncover the politics of education aid for refugees?

Lectures

Dr Mai Abu Moghli and Dr Maha Shuayb, from the Center for Lebanese Studies, reflect on the growing field of education for refugees and situate it within the wider discourse of Education in Emergencies.

Open access publications

Exceptional and futureless humanitarian education of Syrian refugees in Lebanon: Prospects for shifting the lens
Citation: Brun, C., & Shuayb, M. (2020). Exceptional and Futureless Humanitarian Education of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon: Prospects for Shifting the Lens . Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 36(2), 20–30.

Reflection on the Education of Refugee Children: Beyond Reification and Emergency
Citation: Shuayb, M., & Crul, M. (2020). Reflection on the Education of Refugee Children: Beyond Reification and Emergency. Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees, 36(2), 3-8.

Invisible Barriers: Factors Influencing Syrian Refugee Youth in Continuing their Education in Lebanon
Citation: Shuayb, M., Hammoud, M., Al Samhoury, O. & Durgham, N. (2020). Invisible Barriers: Factors Influencing Syrian Refugee Youth in Continuing their Education in Lebanon. Jusoor.

Higher education in the context of mass displacement: Towards sustainable solutions for refugees
Citation: Pherali, T., & Abu Moghli, M. (2019). Higher education in the context of mass displacement: Towards sustainable solutions for refugees. Journal of Refugee Studies .

Refugee education: A global review
Citation: Dryden-Peterson, S. (2011) Refugee education: A global review. Geneva: UNHCR, 6- 85.

Reflection and discussion

Further suggested reading

Black, R. (2001) Fifty years of refugee studies: From theory to policy, The International Migration Review, 35(1), 57-78

Bromley, P. and Andina, M. (2010) Standardizing chaos: a neo‐ institutional analysis of the INEE Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies, Chronic Crises and Early Reconstruction, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 40(5), 575-588.

Brun, C., & Shuayb, M. (2020). Exceptional and Futureless Humanitarian Education of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon: Prospects for Shifting the Lens . Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 36(2), 20–30.

Burde, D. (2005) Education in crisis situations: Mapping the field, Washington, D.C.: Creative Associates/Basic Education Support Project, United States Agency for International Development.  

Carrion, D. (2015) Jordan and Syrian Refugees: Avoiding the worst case scenario, Middle East Law and Governance, 7, 319-335

Castles, S. (2003) Towards a sociology of forced migration and social transformation, Sociology, 37(1), 13-34

Chimni, B. S. (2009) The birth of a ‘discipline’: From refugee to forced migration studies, Journal of Refugee Studies, 22(1), 11-29.

Dryden-Peterson, S. (2011) Refugee education: A global review. Geneva: UNHCR, 6- 85.

Epstein, A. (2010) Education refugees, and the spatial politics of childhood vulnerability, Childhood in Africa, 2(1), 16-25.

O’Rourke, J. (2015) Education for Syrian refugees: The failure or second-generation human rights during extraordinary crises, Albany Law Review, 78 (2), 711-738.

Overseas Development Institute (2014) Living on hope, hoping for education: The failed response to the Syrian refugee crisis, Overseas Development Institute: London.

Pherali, T., & Abu Moghli, M. (2019). Higher education in the context of mass displacement: Towards sustainable solutions for refugees. Journal of Refugee Studies .

Richmond, A. H. (1988) Sociological theories of international migration: The case of refugees, Current Sociology, 36(2), 7-25

Shabaneh, G. (2012) Education and identity: The role of UNRWA’s education programmes in the reconstruction of Palestinian nationalism, Journal of Refugee Studies, 25(4), 491-513.

Shuayb, M., & Crul, M. (2020). Reflection on the Education of Refugee Children: Beyond Reification and Emergency. Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees, 36(2), 3-8.

Shuayb, M., Hammoud, M., Al Samhoury, O. & Durgham, N. (2020). Invisible Barriers: Factors Influencing Syrian Refugee Youth in Continuing their Education in Lebanon. Jusoor.

Unangst, L., & de Wit, H. (2021). Refugees and Higher Education: Selected themes and research questions. Working Paper no. 61. March 2021. Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE).

UNHCR (2012) Education Strategy 2012-2016, Geneva: UNHCR, 6-42.

Waters, T. and LeBlanc, K. (2005) Refugees and education: Mass public schooling without a nation‐state, Comparative Education Review, 49(2), 129-147.

Watenpaugh, K.D., A.L. Fricke, and J.R. King. (2014) “The War Follows Them: Syrian University Students and Scholars in Lebanon.” Institute of International Education (IIE).

Zeus, B. (2011) Exploring barriers to higher education in protracted refugee situations: The case of Burmese refugees in Thailand, Journal of Refugee Studies, 24(2), 256-276