Articulations of teacher agency in conflict-affected settings: Research with, for, and by teachers in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

In conflict and displacement-affected contexts teachers are at once nation-builders (Falk, 2023; Henderson, 2025), peacemakers (Halai and Durrani, 2017; Novelli et al., 2017; Sayed and Novelli, 2016;) and targets of attack due to their perceived roles as government functionaries, members of unions, or associates of political resistance groups in divided and fragile settings (FECODE, 2021; Marchais et al., 2024). At the confluence of such realities, teachers are agents of change and victims of violence where the struggle to enact personal and collective aspirations are constrained or enabled by the cultural and political economies in which they work (Brandt and Lopes Cardozo, 2023; Pherali et al., 2020; Marchais et al., 2024).

Focusing on one of the more opaque yet consequential concepts in teacher well-being and professional development research (Adebayo, 2019), this panel reflects on the ways in which teacher agency is conceptualized and how, if at all, it is realized in conflict- and displacement-affected contexts. Teacher agency can be understood as teachers’ capacity to act with professional autonomy and purpose, encompassing their ability to make pedagogical and organizational decisions, navigate systemic constraints, and influence educational outcomes for children and their communities (Beista, et al., 2015; Fernet et al., 2008; Mansfield et al., 2016; Priestley et al., 2021).

We are motivated by a dearth of relevant literature on teacher agency in conflict- and displacement-affected settings. To date, empirical studies have been largely high-income context oriented (Beista et al., 2015; Priestley et al., 2021) and thus reflect the prior and continuing education and career trajectories of teachers within established and well-resourced systems, who—unlike their ‘tentative’ and ‘spontaneous’ teacher colleagues in crisis-affected settings (Kirk and Winthrop, 2007; Mendenhall, 2018)—have considerable agency in their decisions to join and continue in the profession. Knowledge on the extent to which teacher agency is realized in low-income and crisis-affected contexts—while identified as an important element in teacher well-being and motivation to teach (Ring and West, 2015; Tao, 2017)— is comparatively elusive.

In low-income and conflict-affected settings, agency is relational and contextual (Halai and Durrani, 2017; Pherali et al., 2020 ). It is relational in the way that the power (or lack thereof) bestowed upon teachers and their position within operational hierarchies, vis-a-vis other actors in the system, enables or hinders their capacity to act. It is contextual as teachers’ agency is impacted, often negatively, by the challenging circumstances in which they work. Where agency is reduced, the extent to which teachers can make and take decisions that shape their professional well-being and the learning and safety of the children they teach is limited (Adebayo, 2019; Henderson, 2025).

In refugee-hosting settings specifically, where many teachers work without formal recognition, appropriate protections, or adequate compensation (Falk et al., 2019; Henderson, 2025a; Mendenhall et al., 2018), teachers are critical system-level actors and struggle to negotiate their agency within tightly managed and often racialized hierarchies of control (Shah, 2025; Zacharia, 2024). As the presentations in this panel will reveal, refugee teachers and national teachers working in conflict-affected contexts have minimal voice in decision-making relating to their own community’s education, with adverse effects on their well-being and motivation to persist in the profession (Falk et al., 2023; Henderson, 2025b; Marchais et al., 2024; UNESCO, 2024).

Our presentations draw from studies in Bangladesh, Chad, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Myanmar, South Sudan, Uganda, and Zambia. Empirical evidence from our respective research efforts will inform our discussion on how the broader conditions in which teachers work influence their experiences of agency. We are most interested in how teacher agency is understood and operationalized at three levels. At the systems level, this relates to how teacher agency is exercised in policy making and programming decisions. At the school level, we consider how teachers are able to act on curricula and pedagogical decisions in the classroom. And at the individual level, we focus on teachers’ capacity to make decisions within emergent professional careers and in their personal lives at home. Exploring how these levels interact, and reflecting on the implications of our research methods with, for, and by refugee teachers and national teachers on our understanding of teacher agency, we demonstrate the importance of teacher agency in the pursuit of teacher well-being in all contexts. In this way, we aim to solidify the meaning and relevance of teacher agency in settings affected by conflict and displacement.

Our first panelist will synthesize findings from mixed methods research with refugee and national teachers across Southeast Asia (Bangladesh, Myanmar), the Middle East (Jordan), and Sub-Saharan Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Sudan) spanning three International Rescue Committee (IRC) programs: the Education Research in Conflict & Protracted Crises (ERICC) programme (funded by FCDO), and PlayMatters and TeachWell (funded by the LEGO Foundation). Drawing on surveys and interviews with over 2,000 teachers, this paper examines how policies, programs, and working conditions affect teacher well-being and retention, emphasizing the need for holistic, systems-level support.

Our second panelist will reflect on Jigsaw’s participatory and refugee-led research with teachers in Chad, Uganda, and Zambia, where training on research methods is enabling refugee teachers to conduct their own research on teacher agency. The KIX-funded study is led by Jigsaw Education in partnership with UNHCR, and is part of the GERE (Global Evidence for Refugee Education) research initiative. The particular power of this research, in a nexus approach, lies in bringing the voices of refugee and national teachers directly to decision makers, with potential for critical impact on the policies, practice and behaviours that affect teachers’ agency and well-being in crisis contexts.

In Bangladesh, our third panelist will present UNICEF-supported mixed-methods research that identifies how Rohingya refugee teachers’ experiences of agency at the school-level are moderately but significantly associated with their motivation to teach (β: 0.10, p < 0.001). However, as teachers’ own interpretations of the data reveal, gendered differences in how agency manifests in teachers’ professional lives and personal well-being and the mixed associations teachers have with agency complicates our understanding of its importance. Moreover, a profound lack of system-level teacher agency undermines its positive effects at the classroom level, causing Rohingya teachers to reconsider their commitment to the profession.

Our final panelist will present quantitative analysis of large-scale datasets collected by Save the Children across multiple humanitarian contexts over the past five years. Through their common approach to teacher training, Save the Children have collected well-being and teacher competency data from teachers in diverse emergency and protracted settings. This exploratory research empirically examines associations between individual, school, and systems level factors and teacher well-being, and their self-assessment of their own competencies and capacities to make pedagogical, inclusive and student-centred decisions, as key markers of teacher agency. It highlights not only geographic but gendered and disability-related differences in experiences of well-being, school safety, school culture, and teaching efficacy, and their policy and programmatic implications.

Anticipating an audience of established education in emergencies and teacher professional development researchers, policy makers, and practitioners, this panel aims to arrive at a common articulation of teacher agency to advance its meaning and application in our field. Facilitated debate on teachers’ work conditions and the extent to which teachers can exercise agency should both clarify and reinforce the centrality of agency to teachers’ well-being and motivation to teach.

Sub Unit

• Education in Conflict and Emergencies SIG

Organizer

• Christopher Henderson, NORRAG, Geneva Graduate Institute

Chair

• Nikhit D'Sa, University of Notre Dame

Individual Presentations

• Supporting teachers who are refugees to be researchers: Teacher agency, well-being and inclusion - Alison Joyner, Jigsaw Education/Graduate Institute, Geneva

• “We are under so much control, we cannot do anything properly”: Teacher agency and Rohingya refugee teachers’ motivation to teach - Christopher Henderson, NORRAG, Geneva Graduate Institute

• Expanded roles, limited support: Critical research on improving support with teachers in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa - Danielle Lorber Falk, International Rescue Committee (IRC)

• Exploring teacher well-being, competency, and agency in humanitarian contexts: Insights from cross-country quantitative research - Sophie Lashford, Save the Children; Julia Finder Johna, Save the Children

Discussants

• Nikhit D'Sa, University of Notre Dame

• Lydia Namatende-Sakwa, African Population and Health Reserach Center, Nairobi