Refugee Teachers, Pedagogy and Professional Development: The Pursuit of Quality Education in UNRWA, Jordan.

Quality, although detailed as vital, is not clearly defined in refugee education literature. Teacher Professional Development (TPD), largely considered central to quality education, is similarly under-represented and under-researched in these settings. This thesis argues that quality education and TPD should be contextual and participatory in their development.
In this mixed method case study of the United Nations Refugee and Works Agency (UNRWA), pedagogy, composed of ideas/discourse and practice, is used as a framework to consider quality education and TPD. This explores the organisation’s Education Reform Strategy (ERS) and the impact of TPD on teachers and their classroom practice. The findings highlight the absence of teacher participation and the limited contextualisation of policy that do not respond to the realities of schools and the community in this refugee setting. The challenging physical and social context is also highlighted as influencing teachers’ engagement with TPD and their classroom practices. While some change in teachers’ classroom practice can be observed since participation in the SBTD Programme, teachers’ pedagogy as ideas/discourse around the use of classroom practices for specific purposes is revealed. A lack of theoretical understanding around the use of more child-centred practice is also highlighted.
Policy and systems discourse that do not interact with teachers’ everyday realities have limited influence. The significance of policies that interact with teacher practices, however, demonstrates the need for these to be developed in a participatory way and fully contextualised. Broader implications and conclusions of these findings focus on the Capability Approach, demonstrating that teachers have awareness of training and development needs, even in more complex settings. Teacher identity factors such as gender, tenure and reasons for teaching are also highlighted as considerations necessary for TPD. These findings build on quality education and TPD literature with specific focus on a refugee context.