The Institute of Development Studies is leading two research projects on education in contexts of violent conflict, BRiCE and REALISE. The BRiCE research project is a partnership between IDS and the Institut Supérieur Pédagogique de Bukavu (ISP Bukavu), and part of a larger education consortium led by Save the Children and funded by the European Union’s Directorate General for International Partnerships, Building Resilience in Crisis through Education (BRiCE). At IDS, the BRiCE project is led by Dr Gauthier Marchais and Deborah West.
This research project aims at understanding the role of education systems in providing a ‘safe learning environment’ in conflict-affected and fragile regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Niger, with a particular focus on the role of teachers. Long overlooked, the role of teachers has been the object of renewed attention in the education literature, but there is still limited analysis of the constraints they face and the role they play in fragile and conflict-affected contexts.
The research project has four inter-related research objectives:
- Understanding violence against teachers. The project explores the determinants of teachers’ exposure to violence, in particular the relationship between teacher’s social role in polarised societies and their exposure to violence. The project also explores how teachers’ exposure to violence influences their professional trajectories, capacity to teach and well-being.
- Assessing project effects. The project seeks to provide insight on two components of the BRiCE education programme, Teacher Professional Development (TPD) and Improving Learning Environments Together (ILET), and their adaptation to conflict-affected contexts.
- Understanding the role of teachers in children’s educational outcomes. The project also seeks to assess how teachers’ exposure to violence, well-being and capacity to teach influences student’s cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes in contexts of acute polarisation.
- Building on teachers’ professional and practical knowledge of fragile conflict-affected contexts. Teachers working in conflict-affected contexts develop a wealth of knowledge on how to deal with the penetration of dynamics of violent conflict in the school environment. The project seeks to ascertain how this knowledge can be better incorporated in educational policy and projects.
The project uses a mixed-methods approach which combines quantitative and qualitative methods, and builds on the fields of the research team, which include economics, education research, conflict research, linguistics and governance. The quantitative component uses innovative recall methods to explore exposure to violence, and adopts a comprehensive definition of learning – combining literacy, numeracy, soft skills and personality development. The qualitative approach combines in person interviews with education actors in fragile and conflict-affected contexts, and analysis of teaching curriculum and pedagogies.
The project’s central outputs, and related outputs, will be made available on this page in both French and English.
Partners:
The research project is part of a larger education consortium, Building Resilience in Crisis through Education (BRiCE), funded by the European Union’s Directorate General for International Partnerships and implemented by Save the Children in the DRC (province of South Kivu), and Niger (regions of Diffa and Zinder). The European Union is funding four consortiums of this type as part of the BRiCE programme.
The research project is a partnership between IDS and the Institut Supérieur Pédagogique de Bukavu (ISP Bukavu) based in Bukavu, DRC. ISP Bukavu is one of the leading centres for research on education and teacher training centres in the DRC. It is also a leading centre for research on the dynamics of violent conflict in eastern provinces of the DRC.
Key contacts
