JEiE-Vol2.indd December 2016 5 EDITORIAL NOTE Editorial Board We are pleased to announce the second issue of the Journal on Education in Emergencies (JEiE). This issue features articles that analyze educational programs for marginalized and vulnerable populations living in a wide range of circumstances of crisis or conflict, and that examine resilience as a response to these emergency settings. Given the recent increase in hate crimes in the U.S. and much of Europe, the rise of misogyny and racism around the globe, and growing fears of refugees, “outsiders,” and those who appear different from the mainstream, the importance of research focused on marginalization and on efforts to bridge social divides takes on a heightened sense of urgency. Although all of the articles in this issue were written before the recent voter upheavals in the U.K. and the U.S., many of the ideas they address speak to these divides—as the field of education in emergencies has always attempted to do. Paradoxically for educators working and writing in the field of education in emergencies, despite the surge of hostility toward immigrants and refugees in the past several years, we also have seen an exponential increase in attention to education in countries affected by conflict. This has brought new actors to focus on these issues (e.g., Gordon Brown, Erna Solberg, Malala Yousefzai) and new efforts to promote education in these contexts. Although this attention provides an important opening for JEiE, it simultaneously underscores the tension between internationalizing initiatives like the journal on the one hand, and the national, inward-looking responses from those who feel left out of the global economy and citizenry on the other. Most of the populations described in the articles in this issue live on the edge of the globalized world, where they face inequity, social marginalization, and violence, in both conflict-affected rural villages in Afghanistan and the urban metropolis of Delhi, India. Although JEiE sits squarely on the side of international cooperation and collective action, it also speaks to the concerns and challenges faced by marginalized populations who may be left out of unequal economic arrangements or be left on the sidelines by intensifying global communications and interconnectedness. We hope the articles in this issue will help us move forward collectively to increase support for the marginalized populations living in conflict or crisis anywhere, Journal on Education in Emergencies6 EDITORIAL BOARD and to understand factors that may promote their participation and sense of belonging in society. In the following, we provide a brief overview of the fall 2016 issue of JEiE and a short comment on what we hope this work will achieve. FALL 2016 ISSUE OVERVIEW JEiE features theoretical or empirical research articles that address key questions that have been raised by emergency education programs or are related to populations living in crisis, and they contribute to the evidence and the advancement of knowledge on EiE. The field notes are often written by practitioners or hybrid practitioner-researcher teams who are working with or studying the work of an implementing partner. They address innovative or unusual approaches, progress, and challenges in designing, implementing, and evaluating EiE programs or initiatives, and may include critical reflections about questions that these initiatives raise. This issue of JEiE contains five articles (three research articles and two field notes) and three book reviews that cover a range of regions, scholarly and policy topics, and types of research design. The first research article, “Finding a Way Forward: Conceptualizing Sustainability in Afghanistan’s Community-Based Schools,” explores issues critical to the sustainability of community-based education (CBE) in Afghanistan. As authors Michelle Bellino, Zuhra Faizi, and Nirali Mehta note, CBE models “have gained recognition across diverse contexts for closing access gaps, leveraging local assets, and shaping cost-effective and culturally relevant educational opportunities in marginalized communities” (p. 11). One key reason to promote CBE is to ensure that marginalized rural communities, and especially the girls who live in them, are able to access the kind of educational opportunities that are more readily available to economically advantaged urban populations. However, remaining questions about the sustainability of CBE threaten to undermine its purpose and long-term prospects. The authors conducted interviews and observations with parents, teachers, students, educational officers, and school shuras (management committees) across eight communities in two of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, which enabled them to hear directly from local community members about their experiences with and perceptions of CBE. The authors argue that “the success of CBE models depends on how various actors define sustainability and what it is the model is seeking to sustain . . . [I]ncreased community interest and capacity to sustain CBE is at odds with the current policy approach, which anticipates the eventual handover of all community-based schools to the government” (p. 11). This article speaks to the December 2016 7 EDITORIAL NOTE importance of providing continuous, quality education to marginalized rural communities—not only in Afghanistan but around the world. In the next research article, “Will you send your daughter to school? Norms, Violence, and Girls’ Education in Uruzgan, Afghanistan,” authors Dana Burde and Jehanzaib Khan continue the focus on Afghanistan in this issue. They use survey data and complementary qualitative interview data to explore why parents choose to send their boys and girls to school in Uruzgan, Afghanistan; what prevents them from doing so; and what kinds of normative tensions emerge as they face these decisions. The authors share three significant findings: First, that parents who send both sons and daughters to school are more likely to prioritize the value of education. Second, that parents who report experiencing or having personal knowledge of a higher number of attacks against education are less likely to send their children to school. Finally, the authors note that “normative struggles over girls’ education take place primarily within the local community and society rather than between foreign organizations and the local population” (p. 42). Regardless of their own level of education and, in some cases, whether or not their children attend school, both men and women in these Afghan villages cite tenets of Islam as a key motivation for educating girls as well as boys. The authors conclude that the greater challenge for aid workers is therefore pragmatic (ensuring security) rather than normative (diffusing beliefs about the appropriateness of education). The last research article in this issue, “Resilience of LGBTQIA Students on Delhi Campuses” by Anjali Krishan, Apurva Rastogi, and Suneeta Singh, assesses the impact of a recent law that re-criminalized homosexuality in India. The article describes how this law has affected lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, queer, intersex, and asexual/ally (LGBTQIA) communities on college campuses in Delhi and explores students’ resilience—a common framework used to understand coping mechanisms during crisis. As the authors note, the Indian LGBTQIA community “moved overnight from an era of cautious optimism into one in which homophobia is legally sanctioned” (p. 83), thus propelling them into a state of crisis. The law renewed LGBTQIA community members’ vulnerability to discrimination, exclusion, and threats of physical violence. The authors examine how the law has affected university students on Delhi campuses as they face legal and social persecution. They show how, although “protective and promotive resilience strategies” (p. 81) help them cope, these students still struggle to gain acceptance of their LGBTQIA identity within a context of fear of persecution and abuse. Through qualitative interviews, focus groups, and survey research, the authors identify strategies that can lead to positive, lasting social change. Journal on Education in Emergencies8 EDITORIAL BOARD The first field note in this issue of JEiE is taken from ethnographic observations conducted during what seems to some an unfortunate moment in U.S. history— the military occupation of Iraq. The article, “A School Under Fire: The Fog of Educational Practice in War” by Kathe Jervis, presents her account of studying an unusual school and her observations of this little-known footnote in the history of the U.S. military occupation in Iraq. In mid-2007, when the war in Iraq was at its height, the author accepted a job documenting the beginnings of a school designed and operated by the U.S. military in Iraq for Iraqi juveniles captured in war. The author was tasked with (1) documenting the situation of the approximately 900 teenage Iraqi detainees in this school run by the U.S. military, and (2) describing their educational program and leisure-time activities. Data collection included both semi-structured and informal conversations with the detainees, their teachers and guards, other soldiers with whom they came in contact, and those in the military hierarchy who made decisions about the curriculum, as well as extended observations of the students’ daily life in school. The author’s aim was to note elements missing from the program, raise questions about texts and materials, and offer ideas to decision-makers as the school developed. The article is adapted from the field notes and interview data the author maintained as part of this assignment. In addition to raising “questions about the role of the U.S. military in providing education to detained Iraqi juveniles,” the article offers a detailed description of daily life in the school (p. 115). In the second field note, “School-Based Intervention in Ongoing Crisis: Lessons Learned from Implementing a Combined Psychosocial and Trauma-Focused Approach in Gaza Schools,” authors Jon-Hakon Schultz, Laura Marshall, Helen Norheim, and Karam Al-Shanti describe an effort to address the multiple priorities that most educators working in countries affected by conflict must consider as they design education in emergencies programs: local needs, local culture, international guidelines for best practice, and research-based methods. To illustrate these key points, the authors present lessons learned from the Better Learning Program—a school-based education in emergencies response in Gaza— that combined psychosocial and trauma-focused approaches while incorporating international guidelines. The intervention was designed as a “multi-level approach to help teachers, school counselors, and parents empower schoolchildren with strategies for calming and self-regulation” (p. 142). The program was carried out with 35,000 students in 40 schools over 2.5 years, the aim being to “regain lost learning capacity and strengthen resilience in the school community” (p. 142). Initially, all pupils received the intervention, but the program later focused December 2016 9 EDITORIAL NOTE only on those who reported having nightmares and sleep disturbances. The field note reflects on both the intervention process and the steps involved in documenting it. To complement these excellent and informative articles and round out the fall issue, we present three book reviews. In the first, reviewer Susan Shepler discusses The Outcast Majority: War, Development, and Youth in Africa by Marc Sommers (2015), published by University of Georgia Press. The book details the large gap between outcast youth in war-affected Africa and the international development enterprise, arguing that supporting these youth requires “an understanding of the marginalization, exclusion, and sense of alienation that so many experience” (p. 157). The second book, reviewed by Elizabeth Buckner, is Arab Dawn: Arab Youth and the Demographic Dividend They Will Bring by Bessma Momani (2015), published by University of Toronto Press. As Buckner notes, Momani describes macro-level changes that are affecting youth in the Arab world, “including globalization, rising education levels, communications technology, urbanization, and neoliberalism” (p. 161). She says the book would be an excellent choice for “an undergraduate class on globalization, youth cultures, or the Middle East,” or would “serve well as a short introduction to those unfamiliar with the region” (p. 161). The third reviewer, Yoby Guindo, examines Education and Empowered Citizenship in Mali by Jaimie Bleck (2015), published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Guindo notes that this book demonstrates that “increased education is correlated with more engaged forms of political participation, such as campaigning for government officials and considering a run for office” (p. 163). Guindo considers Bleck’s arguments well structured, well written, and believes they will likely find a strong audience among academics, as well as those interested in learning more about Mali’s political culture. We are pleased to showcase such a wealth of scholarly work on issues critical to our field, and we hope that each article will stimulate debate and insights into issues facing vulnerable and marginalized populations around the world. Journal on Education in Emergencies10 EDITORIAL BOARD LOOKING TOWARD THE NEXT ISSUE We are excited to continue to support and work with the INEE community and the group of scholars, policy-makers, and practitioners who focus on education in emergencies in their work. While JEiE strives to cover an inclusive array of theories, topics, and regions, we also will occasionally publish an issue that focuses primarily on one region or continent, or on one subject area. For example, our spring 2017 issue will be a special issue on education and peacebuilding. We will likely feature another special issue (topic be announced) in fall 2017. We are fortunate to have an expansive audience via the INEE and our other academic and professional networks, which ensures the extensive dissemination of these critical articles. We invite you to join us in this collective endeavor and urge you to consider submitting your EiE-related studies to JEiE, which we believe will deepen and broaden the power of EiE as a social movement. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you very much to Heddy Lahmann, our tireless managing editor, without whom this issue of JEiE would not have been possible, and to our terrific JEiE interns and technical editors Kylie Garner, Sarah Haroun Sualehi, and Pamela Montalbano. Thanks to New York University for housing the journal and providing a small grant from the International Education program director’s research budget to cover student staff stipends. Thank you, too, to Dean Brooks, Lindsey Fraser, and Peter Transburg at INEE, to our copy editor, Dody Riggs, and to our JEiE designer, Erik Ramirez, and to our many anonymous reviewers who will be acknowledged by name in our subsequent issues. Finally, we wish to note that, as with most journals, JEiE board members and reviewers volunteer their time to read, review, and offer feedback on all articles. Thank you, too, to these colleagues.