Education and Conflict Review
Education and Conflict Review (ECR) is a peer-reviewed journal hosted by the Centre for Education and International Development (CEID) at IOE.

Image courtesy of the Hargeisa Cultural Centre.
Education and Conflict Review (ECR) focuses on debates about education, conflict and international development and aims to provide succinct analyses of social, political, economic and security dimensions in conflict-affected and humanitarian situations. ECR provides a forum for knowledge exchange to build synergies between academics, practitioners and graduate students who are researching and working on educational issues in these environments.
Unlike conventional academic papers, the ECR provides a space for short original contributions (3500-4000 words including references) that draw upon empirical work or present thought-provoking theoretical arguments in the subfield of education and conflict.
Call for papers
Special issue on rigorous reviews on promising policies, programmes and practices in education in conflict-affected and protracted crisis situations
There is a chronic lack of research on how children in conflict-affected contexts and protracted crisis situations learn and develop, and the kinds of policies, programmes and practices that are effective in improving holistic learning outcomes (e.g. academic learning outcomes, socio-emotional learning and mental and physical wellbeing (Masten & Narayan, 2012; UNESCO, 2015; Burde et al., 2023). Practical, methodological and ethical challenges in conducting research in these contexts make it difficult to generate rigorous evidence (Puri et al, 2017). However, in recent years, a growing body of research has emerged in the field (Burde et al, 2023), but the evidence is fragmented and siloed by disciplines, which makes it difficult to assess progress or take stock of what we know. Consequently, policy makers, national education authorities and development partners struggle to make informed decisions about what programmes to be prioritised; how to coordinate development and humanitarian response in the education sector; and most importantly, about where and how to allocate limited funding and resources in the sector to maximise the benefits for learners and educational communities in these challenging environments.
Based on what is generally reported, low education outcomes are often explained in terms of a lack of cost-effective technical solutions, so the key to solving them is typically seen in terms of developing solutions. This approach insufficiently considers the political economy dynamics, deeply rooted structural inequalities and incoherence in education system operations, often hindering proper implementation of available solutions. Local stakeholders and evidence users typically learn about research studies at the dissemination stage. The majority of research in conflict-affected settings are needs assessments. A greater variety of evidence, particularly around implementation, impact and cost-effectiveness of the solutions is needed to inform policy and practice.
This special issue will bring together rigorous evidence reviews, focusing on a broad range of educational research in conflict and protracted crisis settings. The papers will focus on, but not limited to implementation and effectiveness research in the following areas:
- Including refugees in the national education systems,
- Teacher wellbeing, professional development & accreditation,
- Improving foundational learning outcomes for children in education in conflict and crisis settings,
- Socioemotional learning, mental health and wellbeing,
- Education for equity, peace and social cohesion,
- Addressing the educational needs of most marginalised children in conflict and crisis settings, such as girls and children with disabilities,
- System preparedness and ensuring continuity of education at times of natural disasters and pandemics,
- Financing education in contexts of mass displacement.
Submission Guidelines
Interested author(s) should submit a proposal for their paper (500 words max) to: educationandconflictreview@gmail.com
- Submission deadline for proposals: 5 February 2025
- Decisions on proposals: 20 February 2025
- Full paper length: 3500-4000 words (including a 150-word abstract and references)
- Submission deadline for full papers: 30 April 2025
- Citation: The Harvard Referencing Style
Papers must not have been published or be under review in any other journal.
Special issues

Teaching and teachers in conflict-affected settings during COVID-19
Issue 4

Rebuilding Syrian higher education for a stable future
Issue 3

Theories and conceptual frameworks in education, conflict and peacebuilding
Issue 2

Education, Peace and Development in Somali Society
Issue 1
Individual articles
Issue 4: Teaching and teachers in conflict-affected settings during COVID-19
- Teachers' gendered experiences of the global health crisis: The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on teacher well-being during school closures
- Designed for disruption: Lessons learned from teacher education in Myanmar and its borderlands
- Challenges for the government school teachers during COVID-19 and tribal conflicts/feuds in Shikarpur district, Sindh, Pakistan
- The critical role of refugee teachers in the COVID-19 education response: Supporting their continued professional contributions and leadership in displacement and durable solutions
- Educating students in the gender-conflict-COVID-19 intersection
- Education policy-making in South Africa during COVID-19
- Ensuring effective teacher management in refugee settings in the COVID-19 era: A Ugandan case study of policy and practice
- Teaching experiences in contexts of conflict and cultural diversity during the COVID-19 pandemic: The case of a public school in Bogotá
- Hybrid higher education innovation for Syrian refugee learners: Reflections on an embedded community-based research CoMOOC
- Teaching in conflict-affected settings during the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya
- 'We have dealt with this situation randomly': A peer ethnographic approach with teachers in refugee settings in the age of COVID-19
Issue 3: Rebuilding Syrian higher education for a stable future
- My life as a second-class human being: Experiences of a refugee academic
- Syrian higher education and social capital in times of conflict
- Building solidarity through comparative lived experiences of post-conflict: Reflections on two days of dialogue
- Academic socialisation through collaboration: Textual interventions in supporting exiled scholars' academic literacies development
- Higher education and Syrian refugees' navigation of economic, social and political constraints in exile
- The survival of universities in contested territories: Findings from two roundtable discussions on institutions in the North West of Syria
- Lessons from an evolving model to support higher education in countries affected by conflict
- Rebuilding higher education in Northern Syria
- Supporting peacebuilding in Syria through universities: The role of cultural heritage
- Agricultural knowledge from academy to farming communities: The role of higher education in enhancing food security in Syria
- The effect of the Syrian crisis on electricity supply and the household life in North-West Syria: a university-based study
Issue 2: Theories and conceptual frameworks in education, conflict and peacebuilding
- Education and conflict: Emergence, growth and diversification of the field
- Societal security and education in deeply divided societies
- Analysing donor conceptualisations of state fragility
- The need for contextualisation in the analysis of curriculum content in conflict
- Evidence hungry, theory light: Education and conflict, SDG16, and aspirations for peace and justice
- Horizontal inequalities and conflict: Education as a separate dimension of horizontal inequalities
- Paulo Freire and critical consciousness in conflict-affected contexts
- Refugee education: Backward design to enable futures
- Education, conflict, peace-building and critical realism
- Achieving educational rights and justice in conflict-affected contexts
- Conceptualising critical peace education for conflict settings
- The '4 Rs' as a tool for critical policy analysis of the education sector in conflict affected states
- Education and violent extremism: Insights from complexity theory
- Education in emergencies: 'What works' revisited
Issue 1: Education, Peace and Development in Somali Society
- Democracy in Somaliland
- Higher education partnerships for peace and development
- Somali diaspora and homeland relations
- Looking for the real refugee crisis: Researching Somali displacement near and far
- Somalia stability: Hostage to local, regional and distant actors
- Going on Tahriib: Young Somalis and the risky journey to Europe