Equity and learning on Thai/Myanmar borders: civil societies' work with Myanmar refugees and migrants on education for democracy, peace & reconciliation

• In Event: A focus on community: Civil society and non-formal approaches to education and peacebuilding for crisis-affected learners

Proposal

Research Team Members: Alex McCormick, Tejendra Pherali, Tin Zar, Naing Win, Lawi Chan, Gregory Tyrosvoutis, Peter Grunawalt, Daniel Couch, Chawin Pongpajon, Iris Thiri Su

We present on an initial phase of research in which we engaged in a process of co-design and initial mapping and workshops between the educational NGO Inclusive Education Foundation (InEd), located in Mae Sot, on the Thai - Myanmar border, the Sydney School of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney and University College London’s Institute of Education. Our international team, with members at varying stages of advocacy and scholarly careers, has engaged remotely and in person with civil society organisations and development partners in Mae Sot to understand the dynamics of multi-level governance in education and migrant and refugee learners. By design, particular career and skill development-related benefits extend to our early career and NGO partner colleagues as we each lean and navigate a substantive process of co-design.

We tie these inquiries to global, regional and national agendas around the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 on quality education, SDG 5 on gendered inequalities, SDG16 on addressing peace, justice and strong institutions and SGD17 on partnerships, employing frameworks based in literature and applied research work that centre critical, decolonial analysis, focused on a broader conception of sustainability and engaging with dynamics of policy formation, power and political economy. We engage with and map refugee and migrant communities' struggle for democracy, peace and reconciliation.

In relation to CIES 2025, our aims are to analyse policies, processes and effects of humanitarian and development work in education aimed at Myanmar refugee and migrant communities in the Thai / Myanmar border. We have built our cross-national partnership using digital approaches combined with in-person exchanges. In this pilot project, a key aim is to design an ongoing plan of work, in which we draw on our comparative skills and strengths to systematise the knowledge about a range of restrictive and enabling factors concerned with educational struggles of displaced Myanmar communities in Thailand and develop a longer-term learning and research partnership. The longer-term partnership will continue to include a combination of digital and in-person practices, that reflect the complexities of education and partnerships in our times.


Selected Resources

Andreotti, V. (2011). (Towards) decoloniality and diversality in global citizenship education. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 9(3-4), 381-397. doi:10.1080/14767724.2011.605323.
Bajaj, M. (2019). Conceptualising critical peace education for conflict settings. Education and Conflict Review, 2, 65–69.

INEE Conflict Sensitive Education – explore and watch. https://inee.org/collections/conflict-sensitive-education

Mignolo, W., & Tlostanova, M. (2006). Theorizing from the borders: Shifting to geo- and body- politics of knowledge. European Journal of Social Theory, 9(2), 205-221. doi:10.1177/1368431006063333.

Pherali, T. J. (2016). Education: Cultural reproduction, revolution and peacebuilding in conflict-affected societies. The Palgrave Handbook of Disciplinary and Regional Approaches to Peace, 193–205. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-40761-0_15

Rinehart, G. and Tyrosvoutis, G. (2023). ‘Designed for disruption: Lessons learned from teacher education in Myanmar and its borderlands’, Education and Conflict Review, 4, pp.19-28

Robertson, S. & Dale, R. (2015). Towards a ‘critical cultural political economy’ account of the globalising of education. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 13(1), 149-170.

Shah, R., Paulson, J., & Couch, D. (2020). The Rise of Resilience in Education in Emergencies. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 14(3), 303–326. https://doi.org/10.1080/17502977.2019.1694390

Authors

• Alexandra McCormick, University of Sydney

• Tejendra Pherali, UCL Institute of Education

• Greg Tyrosvoutis, The Inclusive Education Foundation