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MENDENHALL ET AL. Second, the language of instruction and curriculum followed in refugee settings frequently compound the challenges for teachers of refugees who have limited training and qualifications. Departing from historical approaches that featured parallel systems of refugee education, the new UNHCR Education Strategy emphasizes integrating refugees into national systems “where possible and appropriate and as guided by on-going consultation with refugees” (UNHCR 2012, 8). When refugee students are integrated into national systems, they follow the curriculum and language of instruction of the host country. This can be similar to their own, as with Iraqis in Jordan (Bulbul 2008), or dramatically different, as with Congolese in Uganda (Dryden-Peterson 2010). Decisions about language and curriculum, which are both political and practical, impact the kinds of support refugee students need from their teachers. Moreover, the language of instruction and curriculum are new and unfamiliar for refugee teachers, and both national and refugee teachers often have not fully developed the competence to help their students negotiate these linguistic and curricular transitions. Despite clear aspirations to provide refugees with a quality education, the limited data available point to a lack of learning in refugee settings (Dryden- Peterson 2011). We therefore focus here on teachers’ instructional practices as a means of understanding what constitutes quality education in refugee settings, and to identify mechanisms that may bring improvement. TEACHER- AND LEARNER-CENTERED PEDAGOGY AND ACTIVE LEARNING Teaching practice tends to fall along a continuum that ranges from primarily teacher-centered to primarily learner-centered instruction. While teacher- and learner-centered approaches are often used categorically, it is more accurate to pose them as points on a continuum that teachers move across with greater or lesser ease, depending on both the task at hand and their education, training, and experience (Barrett and Tikly 2010; Schweisfurth 2013). Teacher-centered strategies, such as direct instruction, are important educational tools. They primarily transfer information through a lecture format, giving pupils a less active role (Schweisfurth 2013). In contrast, learner-centered pedagogy is rooted in a constructivist theory of knowledge, which assumes that knowledge emerges through learners’ interactions and experiences and by reflecting on prior knowledge (du Plessis and Muzaffar 2010). Learner-centered pedagogy assumes that pupils learn best when they are actively engaged in the curriculum through inquiry and discovery, and when their interests form the foundation on which the 96 Journal on Education in Emergencies
QUALITY EDUCATION FOR REFUGEES IN KENYA curriculum is built (Paris and Combs 2006). Learner-centered pedagogy began to be widely adopted as part of policy reforms to improve educational quality in Africa following the 1990 Education for All conference and the subsequent 2000 World Education Forum, which produced the Dakar Framework for Action. Since the 1990s, educational reforms in sub-Saharan Africa have flourished, including strong elements of learner-centered pedagogy (see Vavrus and Bartlett 2013 for a discussion). Despite the evidence that learner-centered pedagogy improves student learning (Hattie 2009; Darling-Hammond and Bransford 2005), research has identified a number of common challenges countries face in its implementation. Based on a review of more than 70 studies of learner-centered pedagogy conducted globally, including in Africa, Schweisfurth (2011, 2013) synthesized key implementation challenges: the nature, expectations, and timing of reform; material and human resources; the lack of alignment across pedagogical preparation, curricula, and examination and inspection systems; and social and cultural conditions. Thus, while pedagogical approaches that incorporate more learner-centered strategies when feasible are thought to promote learning, and therefore to increase educational quality, such approaches are hampered by a lack of material resources and of teachers who are prepared to engage them (see also Mtika and Gates 2010; Schweisfurth 2015). The challenges that stem from material and human resources, as well as social and cultural conditions, may be particularly heightened in refugee contexts. In this article, we adopt an approach to learning that draws directly from four key sources: Robin Alexander’s (2001, 2008) research-based notion of dialogic teaching, a review of learning literature conducted by Dan Wagner and colleagues in preparation for the Learning Metrics Task Force discussions (Wagner et al. 2012), Schweisfurth’s nuanced discussion of learner-centered education, and Understanding by Design, the popular learning-focused curriculum design approach by Wiggins and McTighe (2005). Alexander’s dialogic teaching is rooted in the principle that communication-based learning must be collective, reciprocal, supportive, cumulative, and purposeful. Dialogic pedagogy draws from key repertoires of strategies and techniques, which depend on the learning task. In dialogic classrooms, teachers may engage in traditional forms of “teaching talk,” such as lecture and recitation, but they also employ techniques for discussion and scaffolded dialogue. Dialogic classrooms also feature “learning talk,” in which pupils not only answer set questions but also explain, analyze, evaluate, discuss, argue, and (notably) develop and pose their own questions. Alexander’s framework is consistent with the review of the learning literature conducted by Wagner and October 2015 97
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VOLUME 1 NUMBER 1 OCTOBER 2015 JOUR
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JOURNAL ON EDUCATION IN EMERGENCIES
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BURDE power to guarantee the right
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BURDE ISSUES AND CONTENTS The journ
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BURDE Since the late 1990s, IRC has
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BURDE The authors note that working
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“WHETHER AND HOW?” HISTORY EDUC
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PAULSON children should be taught t
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PAULSON I conducted English languag
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PAULSON and Stammer 2013; Torsti 20
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PAULSON enquiry-based approach to t
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PAULSON The history of recent confl
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PAULSON (2004) explain that “pain
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PAULSON internal conflict in contem
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PAULSON context” (King 2014, 137)
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PAULSON In Israel, new history text
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PAULSON In addition to these positi
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PAULSON Controversy, Protest, and P
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PAULSON APPENDIX Analysis Author(s)
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PAULSON REFERENCES Ahonen, Sirkka.
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PAULSON Freedman, Sarah Warshauer,
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PAULSON Murphy, Karen, and Tony Gal
Page 46 and 47: PAULSON Stover, Eric, and Harvey M.
Page 48 and 49: IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF SCHOOL INT
Page 50 and 51: TORRENTE ET AL. Improving the quali
Page 52 and 53: TORRENTE ET AL. postconflict Guatem
Page 54 and 55: TORRENTE ET AL. Only a handful of r
Page 56 and 57: TORRENTE ET AL. Africa. Teachers li
Page 58 and 59: TORRENTE ET AL. The integrated reso
Page 60 and 61: TORRENTE ET AL. strategy, whereby s
Page 62 and 63: TORRENTE ET AL. Student Sample Stud
Page 64 and 65: TORRENTE ET AL. for children from f
Page 66 and 67: TORRENTE ET AL. subsequently added
Page 68 and 69: TORRENTE ET AL. Characteristics at
Page 70 and 71: TORRENTE ET AL. of students’ gend
Page 72 and 73: TORRENTE ET AL. Table 3: Multilevel
Page 74 and 75: TORRENTE ET AL. Table 4: Three Leve
Page 76 and 77: TORRENTE ET AL. Mental Health Probl
Page 78 and 79: TORRENTE ET AL. Impacts on the Qual
Page 80 and 81: TORRENTE ET AL. Overall, these resu
Page 82 and 83: TORRENTE ET AL. et al. 2012). Colle
Page 84 and 85: TORRENTE ET AL. Burde, Dana, Amy Ka
Page 86 and 87: TORRENTE ET AL. Hagelskamp, Carolin
Page 88 and 89: TORRENTE ET AL. Miller, Kenneth E.
Page 90 and 91: TORRENTE ET AL. Tol, Wietse A., Cor
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Page 94 and 95: MENDENHALL ET AL. northwestern Keny
Page 98 and 99: MENDENHALL ET AL. colleagues, who i
Page 100 and 101: MENDENHALL ET AL. These principles
Page 102 and 103: MENDENHALL ET AL. attend schools se
Page 104 and 105: MENDENHALL ET AL. First, we selecte
Page 106 and 107: MENDENHALL ET AL. science teacher a
Page 108 and 109: MENDENHALL ET AL. There are many ty
Page 110 and 111: MENDENHALL ET AL. at Sud Academy, a
Page 112 and 113: MENDENHALL ET AL. Notably, the teac
Page 114 and 115: MENDENHALL ET AL. The confluence of
Page 116 and 117: MENDENHALL ET AL. New teachers ofte
Page 118 and 119: MENDENHALL ET AL. In our analysis,
Page 120 and 121: MENDENHALL ET AL. The head teacher
Page 122 and 123: MENDENHALL ET AL. particularly in c
Page 124 and 125: MENDENHALL ET AL. Government of Ken
Page 126 and 127: MENDENHALL ET AL. Sieff, Kevin. 201
Page 128 and 129: MENDENHALL ET AL. APPENDIX 1 List o
Page 130 and 131: MENDENHALL ET AL. 4.2 Teacher used
Page 132 and 133: REISMAN AND JANKE INTRODUCTION Usin
Page 134 and 135: REISMAN AND JANKE New challenges ar
Page 136 and 137: REISMAN AND JANKE youth aged 15 to
Page 138 and 139: REISMAN AND JANKE This improved acc
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REISMAN AND JANKE • Accelerate im
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REISMAN AND JANKE takes place; anal
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REISMAN AND JANKE simply does not m
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REISMAN AND JANKE to 9-12 weeks per
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REISMAN AND JANKE Domain 4, Standar
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REISMAN AND JANKE In cases where go
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REISMAN AND JANKE • the costs of
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REISMAN AND JANKE • Where there i
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REISMAN AND JANKE To be useful in t
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REISMAN AND JANKE for what CSE can
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REISMAN AND JANKE Government of Sou
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BOOK REVIEW But King’s third mess
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BOOK REVIEW (Bickmore 1999). The re
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CONTRIBUTORS J. LAWRENCE ABER (la39
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CONTRIBUTORS research has shown tha
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CONTRIBUTORS Homelessness; and she
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