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.

Science is the most useful when it catalyzes change. In this tool, we provide actionable recommendations and guidance on how to best support education in emergencies, to get the evidence into the capable hands of the education stakeholders.

Refugee children face a constellation of risks in their home country, when they're on the move, and after they arrive in host countries. Our research with Syrian refugee children in Lebanon adds to a growing body of evidence that such experiences of adversity can impact the foundational cognitive and behavioral skills that forecast later learning. The most consistent risk for later learning challenges we identified among Syrian refugee children enrolled in Lebanese public school was being older than expected for the grade in which they were placed, what we call "age for grade." Syrian refugee children who were older than expected for their grade level had poorer executive functioning, behavioral regulation, literacy, and numeracy skills than children who were a typical age for their grade.

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. Children's executive function and behavioral regulation, but not internalizing symptoms, partially mediated the relations between risk factors and academic outcomes.

During school year 2016-2017, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) delivered Learning in a Healing Classroom after-school programming to support Syrian refugee children’s learning outcomes and retention in Lebanese public schools. We found that access to Healing Classrooms programming significantly improved students’ reading and math skills, as well as reduced the likelihood of interpreting interactions with peers as hostile in intent, after the first four months of program implementation.

The Rapid Assessment of Cognitive and Emotional Regulation (RACER) is a tablet-based assessment tool for children that measures executive function (EF) skills. Instructions that are brief and visually presented; game-like tasks are designed to easily engage children regardless of literacy level and variable test administration settings. RACER measures inhibitory control and working memory. This study presents the theoretical rationale and empirical evidence for tablet-based assessments of EF, the process of administering the RACER assessments. The current sample consists of students in Lebanon (N=1900) and Niger (N=850). The results indicate that individual differences in EF can be assessed by the RACER tablet tasks. Specifically, we demonstrate that EF scores are associated in expected ways with age and that tasks function similarly to what has been observed in high-income countries. The feasibility and utility for researchers, practitioners, and clinicians, of this cognitive assessment tool is discussed.

We present here as the overarching “promising practice” a research-practice partnership dedicated to iterative cycles of action and research. In 2016-2017, the IRC delivered non-formal retention-focused tutoring support, also known as remedial programming, to 6,400 children enrolled in public schools in Lebanon and Niger using its Learning in a Healing Classroom (LIHC) program. LIHC is an evidence-based approach to providing reading and math courses in safe and supportive learning environments. Sites were additionally randomized to embed low-cost, targeted social-emotional learning (SEL) interventions into the curriculum. TIES/ NYU then conducted a site-randomized trial to provide the first rigorous evidence of whether and how non-formal, SEL-based retention support education programs can bolster refugee children’s ability to succeed in formal education systems, as well as some of the first evidence globally on how targeted SEL practices can be embedded in curriculum to support children’s holistic learning and development. We share the lessons learned from both the interventions and from the partnership, focusing on the work in Lebanon.