Shared learning for shared futures: Challenging narratives and norms underpinning child-first approaches to education in emergencies

Abstract Despite communities in emergency situations expressing the desire and need for education beyond schooling to support the learning needs of adults and youth, the focus tends to remain on providing conventional, school-based education for school-aged children. Taking a decolonial approach to interrogating this prioritisation of schooling in Education in Emergencies (EiE), this article examines prevalent narratives around childhood and challenges the dominance of child-first EiE at the exclusion of adult, youth and whole-community approaches. Following the lead of critical EiE scholars, the author applies decolonial and postcolonial theory to understanding the centrality of children and childhood across academic literature, industry reports and publicly available policy and programme documents of EiE bodies, despite a broader focus on “children, youth and adults” such as in the definition and framework of the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE). By critiquing globalised notions of the lifespan and dominant norms and narratives around child and adult roles, this conceptual work asserts that limitations to support for adult and youth education are not purely financial or logistic but also deeply normative. A shift in focus towards intergenerational and whole-life approaches to EiE creates opportunities for a more transformative form of education and learning which harnesses vast knowledges and lived experiences. Such a shift has implications for policy and programming, with the potential to impact well-being and health, employment and further educational prospects, family and community cohesion and, more broadly, to facilitate relevant pluralistic (diverse) learning opportunities which emerge from and benefit communities.