This new project with Maria Grazia Imperiale as PI will investigate the role of informal language educators working in refugee settings in Lebanon and Jordan, and pilot ways of co-creating professional development with the language educators themselves, nurturing agency. It will support educators in examining and articulating their vision for refugee language education through providing connections and opportunities for discussion with refugees and those working with refugees in their own and other contexts, including host communities. 

The language learning needs of refugees in Jordan and Lebanon are supported by teachers in formal, non-formal and informal settings. Teacher development can be lacking or inconsistent, particularly for teachers in informal contexts, even though informal education is key to education in emergency, when formal education is disrupted. These teachers are often working through initiatives run by local or international NGOs which are timebound and donor-dependent, and may be in a transitory position themselves, resulting in lack of continuity and shared learning, and in few opportunities to have a say in how they develop as teachers and achieve their aspirations or to contribute to longer-term planning.

This is a key challenge in refugee education and for education in contexts of emergency and crisis more widely. 

This pilot will allow to: 

(a) collect pilot data on the scope and nature of local challenges in Lebanon and Jordan; 

(b) explore new ways of co-creating teacher professional development through participatory and decolonising approaches which strengthen educators’ agency and identity; and, 

(c) establish relationships in Lebanon and Jordan that will help to ensure collaboration and co-creation of knowledge with Global South partners working in challenging contexts. 

The project is funded internally within the University of Glasgow through the Glasgow Centre for International Development small grants scheme with £19,761 from January to June 2023.

Once more congratulations to Grazia and her Co-Is, and Dr Giovanna Fassetta and Damian Ross.