Effects in Post-Conflict West Africa of Teacher Training for Refugee Women

Citation:

Shepler, Susan, and Sharyn Routh. 2012. “Effects in Post-Conflict West Africa of Teacher Training for Refugee Women.” Gender & Education 24 (4): 429–41. doi:10.1080/09540253.2012.674493.

Authors: Susan Shepler, Sharyn Routh

Abstract:

This article draws data from an innovative research project tracing former refugee teachers who received teacher training from the International Rescue Committee (IRC) over a 17-year-long education programme in refugee camps in Guinea (1991–2008). The research traced repatriated refugee teachers who had returned to their homes in Sierra Leone and Liberia in an effort to determine the effects of the training they received – particularly whether they were still working as teachers in their post-repatriation lives, or whether they had made use of their training in other ways. Although the research in question focused on all of the former IRC teachers who the research team could trace, the present paper is about the female teachers and their specific situations. Focusing on the women’s responses yields the gender-specific conclusions about structural barriers to institutional and societal changes in conflict and post-conflict settings.

Keywords: refugee, teacher, education, Africa, gender

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Forced Migration, Refugees, Education, Gender, Women, Girls, Gendered Power Relations, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Liberia, Sierra Leone

Year: 2012