The role of culture in scaling early childhood development in emergencies: evidence from the Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

• In Event: Part 2: A systems approach to equity at scale in early childhood development in emergencies: challenges, opportunities, and new directions

Proposal

Early childhood development (ECD) in emergencies is distinguished from ECD in other settings in several ways. First, multiple systems interact, including the humanitarian, host government, and international NGO and funder systems. Second, in the context of migration at least two cultures interact in dynamic and unpredictable ways. This presentation will focus on the second factor, outlining ways in which culture affects scaling of ECD in emergencies (ECDiE).
First, a conceptual framework will be presented on how cultural factors may affect scaling of ECD. This framework draws on macro-level theories of the impact of societal change on cultural change, but applies them to the specific instance of ECDiE. Second, evidence for different types of cultural change will be presented from ongoing, mixed-methods research on ECD, learning and play among the Rohingya in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, who represent one of the largest displacements of a specific cultural, linguistic and indigenous group in recent years.
Methods
With a variety of national and local partners, we conducted a series of pilot studies with over 300 Rohingya families (caregivers and their young children, ages 0-5), using a variety of methods including semi-structured interviews, free-listing, rapid ethnographic assessment, as well as survey methods with mothers, fathers and young children. These focused on themes such as well-being, daily functioning, mental health, children’s experiences of play, caregivers’ perceptions of play, and changing dynamics and contextual factors in the Cox’s Bazar camps.
Findings
We find evidence for several types of cultural change that have implications for large-scale implementation of services beyond the case of the Rohingya. Two are language and participation of displaced communities.
1) Language matters. We have found evidence of rapid growth of multilingual capacity among the Rohingya, and intentional deployment of local dialects of Bangla alongside the Rohingya language in their daily interactions in the camps. However, the language of research and intervention is still dominated by local Bangla dialects of non-Rohingya NGO staff, which overlap only partially with the Rohingya language. When two or more languages interact in new ways in large-scale ECD implementation, many nuances can be lost. We describe methods (e.g. free-listing to understand functioning, mental health and socialization) and evidence that address these gaps.
2) Participation of displaced communities matters. The direct participation of the Rohingya in the development of culturally grounded programming represents a challenge for humanitarian systems, which often enter a new crisis context from a country’s capital or from global contexts. The continuous integration of the capacities of the displaced population, whether cultural, sociopolitical, or governance related, can be challenging. In our data we find evidence of adaptation and strengths among the Rohingya in the community contexts of play; in informal livelihoods and income-generation activities; and in areas important to ECD programming such as gender, household roles and decision making, network communication, and (not least) changing understandings of the period of early childhood in development. Each of these is discussed in terms of implications for large-scale implementation that places culture at the center ECD in crisis contexts.

Author

• Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Global TIES for Children, New York University