http://hdl.handle.net/2451/39641 2026-04-11T04:20:29Z http://hdl.handle.net/2451/40722 Title: Editorial Note: JEiE Volume 2 Authors: Board, Editorial 2016-12-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2451/39659 Title: School-Based Intervention in Ongoing Crisis: Lessons from a Psychosocial and Trauma-Focused Approach in Gaza Schools Authors: Schultz, Jon-Håkon; Marshall, Laura; Norheim, Helen; Al-Shanti, Karam Abstract: It is a complex challenge to design education in emergencies responses that meet local needs, are sensitive to local culture, build on international guidelines for best practice, and use research-based methods. This paper presents lessons learned from the implementation of the Better Learning Program, a school-based response in Gaza that combined psychosocial and trauma-focused approaches, and discusses how international guidelines were incorporated. The Better Learning Program intervention was designed as a partially manualized, multi-level approach to help teachers, school counselors, and parents empower schoolchildren with strategies for calming and self-regulation. The stepwise approach first targeted all pupils, then pupils who reported having nightmares and sleep disturbances. The goal was to help these students regain lost learning capacity and strengthen resilience within the school community. The intervention was implemented in 40 schools over two and a half years, with a target group of 35,000 pupils. Teachers and school counselors reported that the combined psychosocial and trauma-focused approach was compatible with their educational perspectives. The approach appeared to enable teachers to be more proactive when teaching pupils affected by war. This paper concludes with reflections and lessons learned. 2016-12-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2451/39658 Title: A School Under Fire: The Fog of Educational Practice in War Authors: Jervis, Kathe Abstract: This article explores a little-known footnote in the history of the U.S. military occupation in Iraq. In mid-2007, when the war in Iraq was at its height, the author accepted a job to document the beginnings of a school designed and operated by the U.S. military in Iraq. Although this school was in many ways like any other, every aspect ultimately was conditioned by its singular context: it was a school for Iraqi juveniles captured in war. The author documented the situation of the teenage detainees attending this school run by the U.S. military, and described their educational program. Data collection included both semi-structured and informal conversations with the detainees, their teachers, their guards, and those in the military hierarchy who made decisions about the school and its curriculum; the author also conducted extended classroom observations. Document analysis included school schedules, students’ written work and artwork, and assessments. The author gathered information to inform decision-makers about elements missing from the school program, to raise questions about texts and materials, and to offer ideas as the school developed. This article, which is adapted from the field notes the author maintained as part of her assignment, raises questions about the role of the U.S. military in providing education to detained Iraqi juveniles and describes daily life in school. 2016-12-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2451/39657 Title: Finding a Way Forward: Conceptualizing Sustainability in Afghanistan's Community-Based Schools Authors: Bellino, Michelle J.; Faizi, Bibi-Zuhra; Mehta, Nirali Abstract: Community-based educational (CBE) models have gained recognition across diverse contexts for closing access gaps, leveraging local assets, and shaping cost-effective and culturally relevant educational opportunities in marginalized communities. In protracted conflict contexts such as Afghanistan, CBE compensates for weak state capacity by cultivating community engagement and support. This article considers the impact of CBE in the voices of Afghanistan’s educational and community stakeholders, gained through interviews and observations with parents, teachers, students, educational officers, and school shuras (councils) across eight communities in two provinces. Against a backdrop of continued insecurity, resource shortages, and uncertain projections for future government and NGO support, conceptions of sustainability emerge as salient but poorly defined, and as lacking common understanding among stakeholders about the purposes and long-term prospects of CBE. We argue that the success of CBE models depends on how various actors define sustainability and what it is the model is seeking to sustain. The study underscores three dimensions of sustainability: (1) self-reported changed attitudes toward education, (2) decisions about student transitions from community to government schools, and (3) emergent indicators of community ownership over CBE. Across these measures of sustainable attitudes, actions, and community arrangements, quality education is positioned as a mechanism for long-term community commitment. However, increased community interest and capacity to sustain CBE is at odds with the current policy approach, which anticipates the eventual handover of all community-based schools to the government. 2016-12-01T00:00:00Z