In this insightful brief, we delve into the transformative power of the Core Practice approach—a beacon of hope for educators working in challenging environments. The Core Practice framework introduces evidence-based, high-impact teaching techniques that promise not only to enhance student learning outcomes but also to provide a practical, coherent, and adaptable solution for teacher professional development.

Relatively little research has addressed whether conceptual frameworks of early learning generalize across different national contexts. This article reports on a cross-country measurement invariance analysis of the International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA). The IDELA is a direct assessment tool for 3- to 6-year-old children, intended to measure Early Literacy, Early Numeracy, Motor, and Social-Emotional development. Its generalizability is evaluated using samples from 5 countries: Afghanistan (N = 2,629); Bolivia (N = 480); Ethiopia (N = 682); Uganda (N = 504); and Vietnam (N = 675). The 4-domain model of the IDELA was supported in each country, although the domains were highly correlated. Measurement invariance analysis revealed that most IDELA items do not provide a basis for comparing children’s development over the 5 countries. This research supports the use of the IDELA for program evaluation and within-country monitoring purposes, but cautions against its use for international comparisons. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)

What can be done to improve learning outcomes for the millions of children growing up in conflict-affected societies and enrolled in under-resourced school systems? How can the global community safeguard the right of every child, including those in crisis settings, to a quality education and position them to heal, learn and thrive? What are the best interventions that achieve the greatest outcomes for the most children in humanitarian contexts?

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.

During school year 2016-2017, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) delivered Healing Classrooms remedial tutoring programming and additional low-cost, targeted Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) (SEL) interventions to children in Diffa, a region in Niger affected by recurrent Boko Haram attacks. We found that, after twenty-two weeks of program implementation, access to Healing Classrooms tutoring significantly improved students’ reading and math skills, and adding targeted SEL interventions to Healing Classrooms tutoring improved children’s overall school grades. However, we found little evidence of direct impacts of the additional targeted SEL strategies on children’s social-emotional outcomes.

With support from Dubai Cares during the school year 2016-2017, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) delivered Learning in a Healing Classroom remedial tutoring programming to support local and internally displaced Nigerien children and refugee Nigerian children’s learning outcomes and retention in public schools in Niger. We found that, after twenty-two weeks of program implementation, (1) access to Healing Classrooms programming significantly improved students’ reading and math skills, and (2) adding low-cost, targeted Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) interventions to Healing Classrooms improved students’ overall school grades as well.

Despite increased investment in early childhood care and education (ECCE) globally, little is known about its effectiveness in low-income countries. Using kernel exact matching within a national sample of 1,623 Zambian 6-year-olds, we test the associations between ECCE participation and seven domains of children's school readiness. We find ECCE participation to be significantly and positively predictive of children's receptive vocabulary, letter naming, reasoning, fine motor, executive function, and task performance skills (d = 0.20 − 0.65). Although ECCE predicted better outcomes across program types and dosage levels, associations between ECCE participation and school readiness were descriptively if not significantly larger for children attending nonprofit (versus governmental or private) programs and for those attending ECCE between three and five hours per day (versus those attending less than three or six or more hours per day). Implications of these findings, particularly for the 68% of Zambian children who remain out of ECCE, are 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.

Improving children's learning and development in conflict-affected countries is critically important for breaking the intergenerational transmission of violence and poverty. Yet there is currently a stunning lack of rigorous evidence as to whether and how programs to improve learning and development in conflict-affected countries actually work to bolster children's academic learning and socioemotional development. This study tests a theory of change derived from the fields of developmental psychopathology and social ecology about how a school-based universal socioemotional learning program, the International Rescue Committee's Learning to Read in a Healing Classroom (LRHC), impacts children's learning and development. The study was implemented in three conflict-affected provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and employed a cluster-randomized waitlist control design to estimate impact. Using multilevel structural equation modeling techniques, we found support for the central pathways in the LRHC theory of change. Specifically, we found that LRHC differentially impacted dimensions of the quality of the school and classroom environment at the end of the first year of the intervention, and that in turn these dimensions of quality were differentially associated with child academic and socioemotional outcomes. Future implications and directions are discussed.