Developing and Implementing a Transformational Education Intervention in a Humanitarian Crisis Context

Community-led, shared book-reading interventions can improve early childhood development and reduce inequity. One such programme, We Love Reading (WLR), was implemented in Jordan in response to the Syrian refugee crisis and involves mothers reading stories to children. This research project will examine the potentially transformative nature of WLR, by (a) evaluating WLR qualitatively and quantitatively and (b) interviewing the people who developed and implemented WLR (WLR Ambassadors, women trained in WLR, children who took part) to create a toolkit for effectively developing and implementing non-formal education resources elsewhere.

To address the first aim, a grounded theory analysis of interviews with stakeholders (i.e. parents, children) will be conducted, along with a quantitative randomised controlled trial with Syrian refugee women and children. This will allow for an understanding of how an education intervention may impact children’s educational trajectories during war and displacement, and how effectively interventions can be implemented in other humanitarian crisis contexts.

Research team: Dr Isabelle Mareschal, Queen Mary University of London; Dr Kristin Hadfield, Queen Mary University of London; Professor Amal Alkharouf, University of Jordan; Professor Sophie von Stumm, University of York