Pedagogies of Refusal: How Gazan Educators Resist the Collapse of Higher Education During War

• In Event: Virtual Poster Session
  In Virtual iPresentation Only: SIG-Critical Peace Education Virtual Poster Session

Abstract

This study explores how educators in Gaza are refusing the collapse of their higher education system amid conditions of war, siege, and military occupation. Rather than merely adapting, Gazan universities and faculty engage in pedagogical and institutional acts of refusal, resisting erasure and the normalization of crisis. Grounded in anti-colonial theory, abolitionist pedagogy, and refusal studies, this research analyzes public-facing documentation, educational policies, and media testimonies to trace how teaching becomes a form of political defiance. The study reframes crisis education not as coping, but as insurgent knowledge production, a refusal to vanish. In doing so, it highlights how Palestinian educators maintain education as a frontline of resistance and futurity.

Author

• Stephanie Robinson, University of North Texas