Gender, migration and non-formal learning for women and adolescent girls

Processes of international migration and displacement are highly gendered. Who migrates, and how they experience migration and displacement, is affected by gender norms and relations in both in countries of origin and countries of settlement, the gendered dynamics of conflict and violence, and the gendered nature of global and local labour markets. These gendered dynamics of migration both affect and are affected by education in often complex ways, as education may both facilitate processes of migration, and be enabled or limited by them, and as gendered engagements with education prior to and during migration and settlement may have a significant influenced on how these processes are experienced.

This paper is concerned with exploring this gender-migration- education nexus through a focus on the educational engagements and experiences of migrant and refugee women and adolescent girls. It first considers the wider body of research that has explored the relationship between gender, migration and displacement, particularly in relation to the experiences of migrant women and girls, before drawing out some of the key conceptual ideas from this, considering their implications for education, and presenting a conceptual diagram to represent this relationship. It then focuses more specifically on experiences of non-formal education for women and adolescent girls in refugee contexts and in host countries. Finally it identifies a number of key issues and recommendations emerging from this research.