Teacher Agency in Conflict-Affected Countries

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Developing Teacher Agency and Leadership

Abstract

During armed conflict and forced displacement, teachers attend to trauma-affected children’s physical, cognitive, and psychosocial well-being. They also negotiate their professional identity and agency during and after conflicts that are often deeply ideological in nature. This paper synthesizes the findings on teacher agency from a review of literature on teachers working in conflict-affected environments. Of the 43 empirical, peer-reviewed English-language studies of teachers in conflict-affected developing countries published since 2010, ten studies problematize teachers’ agency and activism. They elucidate the complex, at times contradictory, role of teachers’ agency in war and conflict-affected environments. I thus argue for teacher preparation to address how the nature of modern conflict influences and is influenced by teacher identity, ideologies, and experience with violence.

Author

• Kiruba Murugaiah, Boston College