In reflecting upon a decade of research at NYU Global TIES aimed at supporting children's holistic development within contexts of conflict and crisis, this white paper encapsulates our collective learnings from working with a network of actors in low- and middle-income and conflict affected contexts who aim to understand what works, how, and for whom. The goal of this paper is to distill insights from the diverse perspectives and experiences of dedicated researchers, inspire action, and provide recommendations for a future distinguished by inclusive and impactful outcomes.

The Holistic Learning Assessment System (HOLAS) Bank is a curated inventory of educational tools/assessments and relevant monitoring and evaluation (M&E) resources designed for use and/or implemented in Colombia and Peru.

Despite widespread enthusiasm for remedial education programming with refugee populations, there is little rigorous evidence on how to design and implement such programs. We employ a cluster-randomized design of non-equivalent treatment groups to test the impact of access to two types of program enhancement: longer program duration and the addition of skilltargeted social and emotional learning (SEL) activities for Syrian refugees enrolled in Lebanese public schools. We find that, compared to 10 weeks of programming, 26 weeks marginally increases students’ literacy skills (ES = 0.04) and significantly improves behavioral regulation (ES = 0.31), but students reported less positive perceptions of their public school environment (ES= −0.83 to −0.89) and remedial tutoring site (ES= −0.15 to −0.24). We also find that the addition of skill-targeted SEL activities to 26 weeks of programming results in higher student reports of school-related stress compared to programming without skill-targeted activities (ES = 0.21). Implications for program and policy are discussed.

New York University’s Global TIES for Children and afikra are pleased to announce the launch of "Inside the Arab Classroom," a new podcast series that explores education traditions and innovations within Arabic-speaking nations. The series tells stories from inside Arab classrooms - from how Arabic literacy is taught to who decides what constitutes ‘good citizens’ - and aims to provoke curiosity among learners of all ages and in all contexts about the challenges to and opportunities for learning and thriving in Arab classrooms.

The purpose of this product is to summarize and showcase the achievements on communication of the evidence and lessons learned from the 3EA E-Cubed project. In sum, we generated 59 total communications products across 12 different formats targeting diverse audiences. These products are presented in 12 different formats, to cater to these diverse audiences and maximize the reach and impact, ranging from academic journals, policy briefs, and datasets to press releases, blogs, webinars, interactive online tools, and more.

En esta nota conceptual se describen los marcos, conceptos y métodos del proyecto en el que NYU Global TIES for Children (NYU-TIES) y la Universidad de los Andes están trabajando para fortalecer los sistemas de monitoreo y evaluación de aprendizaje holístico en Colombia y Perú (mayores receptores de familias de refugiados y migrantes venezolanos).

This concept note describes the frameworks, concepts and methods of the project in which NYU Global TIES for Children (NYU-TIES) and the Universidad de los Andes are working to strengthen holistic learning monitoring and evaluation systems in Colombia and Peru (main recipients of Venezuelan refugee and migrant families).

This document outlines the work done by NYU Global TIES to strengthen social and emotional skills and well-being assessment in Lebanon and Peru during the COVID-19 pandemic. It explains the frameworks and concepts, and outlines next steps in those countries.

This report is intended to be a living framework for thinking and talking about distance education interventions, beginning in low- and middle-income (LMIC) and humanitarian contexts and expanding over time to include distance education interventions designed for high-income contexts.

Refugee children face significant adversities that can threaten critical developmental processes and hamper learning outcomes. This study examines how post-migration risk factors at the community, household, and individual level experienced by primary school-aged Syrian refugee children in Lebanon (N = 448, Age M = 9.08, SD = 1.90) are associated with cognitive, emotional, and behavioral developmental processes as well as literacy and numeracy performance. We identified several risk factors, including attending a lower grade than their age-expected grade level, that uniquely predict Syrian refugee children's developmental processes and academic outcomes.

Despite substantial cross-national interest in remedial programming as a way to support low-achieving students, evidence of its effectiveness is rare, particularly in low-income and/or crisis-affected contexts. In this article, we present experimental evidence of the impact of a remedial tutoring program on academic outcomes from a two-level randomized trial of two treatments in Niger: school randomization testing the impact of skill-targeted SEL activities and within-school student-level randomization testing the impact of access to remedial tutoring.

An accompanying interactive infographic to the working paper #1 from the Education Research in Conflict and Protracted Crisis (ERICC) Research Programme Consortium. This paper outlines the theoretical framework governing the studies to be deployed throughout the Consortium's lifetime.

Working paper #1 from the Education Research in Conflict and Protracted Crisis (ERICC) Research Programme Consortium. This paper outlines the theoretical framework governing the studies to be deployed throughout the Consortium's lifetime.

In response to the influx of some 488,000 Syrian refugee children since 2011, international and local NGOs working in Lebanon have provided formal and non-formal education services designed to promote both children’s academic skills and their social and emotional learning (SEL) skills. However, the majority of SEL-related frameworks and materials used are typically grounded in theory and research from western, educated, industrialized, rich, democracies (WEIRD), which are not always coherent or aligned with Lebanese societal cultures and norms. Towards the goal of generating contextually meaningful evidence to guide program and policy decision-making in Lebanon, our research-practice-policy partnership has engaged in a rigorous, multi-method, iterative process to develop and contextualize an SEL framework for children in Lebanese primary schools. In this paper, we will describe the process of engaging experts in education, psycho-social support, and SEL from the Government of Lebanon, World Learning, Harvard’s EASEL Lab, and NYU Global TIES to empirically code existing frameworks and identify priority SEL constructs. We will reflect on the development of systemic and transformative relationships across partners as a means toward contextualization, and conclude by sharing a first version of a National SEL Framework for Lebanon.

In many countries, the outbreak of COVID-19 compounded crises vulnerable populations are facing. Children are among the most vulnerable, due to the potential for adverse impacts on emerging neurobiological, cognitive, social, emotional, and physiological developmental systems. That is why now more than ever, coherent, timely, and cost-effective policy responses are needed to support children’s remarkable capacities for resilience. But the ability to develop meaningful policy responses is predicated upon education systems’ own capacities for rapidly generating and using evidence on how children, caregivers, teachers, and principals are doing and what they are experiencing. In this brief, we share efforts NYU-TIES has taken in collaboration with government agencies in Lebanon and Peru and with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Lebanon to strengthen education systems’ capacity for assessing social and emotional skills and well-being among host-country and refugee populations.