Teachers as agents of change: Positive discipline for inclusive classrooms in Kakuma Refugee Camp

• In Event: The pathways to inclusivity through schools, teachers, and students in conflict-affected settings: cases of Kenya and Lebanon

Proposal

Despite the international community’s call to ensure inclusive education for all, many children remain marginalised (UNESCO 1994; UNESCO 2005; UNESCO 2017). Among the most marginalised are refugee children who experience exclusion at global, national, and community levels. Refugee youth are five times more likely to be out of school than their non-refugee peers, and those who do access schools are likely to spend their entire academic career displaced (Mendenhall, Russell, and Buckner 2017; UNHCR 2016). Some of the causes for exclusion amidst displacement include but are not limited to the ‘discursive invisibility of refugees in policy and research’ (Taylor and Sidhu 2012, 42), lack of political will and xenophobic attitudes within host countries, poor institutional capacity within the education sector, and lack of teacher professional development at the school level (Mendenhall, Russell, and Buckner 2017). Further, displacement, crisis, and conflict harm the psychosocial well-being of affected children, and exposure to violence and chronic stress at a young age can lead to poor developmental outcomes in the immediate and long-term future (Breen et al. 2015; National Scientific Council on the Developing Child 2010; Betancourt and Khan 2008; Nicolai and Triplehorn 2003).

The disciplinary practices of teachers, many of whom are refugees themselves, may be one factor that further exacerbates or diminishes exclusion within schools and classrooms. Harsh practices such as corporal punishment have the propensity to isolate students and impact their learning negatively (Gershoff 2017; Ogando Portela and Pells 2015). To further understand this phenomenon, we draw on qualitative data collected between 2015-2017 in Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, including 114 semi-structured interviews and extensive feedback gathered during teacher training workshops. This paper examines the micro-level disciplinary practices among teachers that promote or impede inclusion of refugee children. Additionally, it highlights the role that continuous professional development plays in making positive changes to teachers’ beliefs and practices. Our findings reinforce the need to provide relevant, sustained teacher professional development opportunities, particularly in crisis contexts (Burns and Lawrie 2015). The authors argue that providing a safe space for reflection and discussion on corporal punishment and positive discipline is pertinent to reducing negative practices and stress the key role teachers play in creating such environments for honest dialogue. Further, efforts to change disciplinary practices must be relevant to the teaching environment both in terms of process and content. Key to this is the involvement of teachers themselves. Despite the lack of training and support in many of these contexts, teachers bring immense knowledge and experiences that need to be integrated into all phases of a programme, ranging from design, development, implementation, to monitoring and evaluation activities for projects that will directly (or indirectly) affect them. Therefore, we must acknowledge the crucial role of teachers as agents of change in providing safe and inclusive learning environment in crisis contexts. However, we must be mindful to not overburden teachers in these efforts; efforts to make classrooms, schools and communities safe, inclusive environments for children affected by displacement, crisis and conflict warrant collaboration across myriad actors.

Authors

• Danielle Falk, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Lauren Bowden, Teachers College, Columbia University