Blog Series – Migration, Education and Development

Elaine Chase and Amy North

In 2022 we launched a new optional module within the Education and International Development cluster of programmes on Migration, Education and Development, which was accompanied by the publication of a new open access edited volume Education, Migration and Development: Critical Perspectives in a Moving World (Bloomsbury).  The aim of the module is to introduce students to a range of critical and interdisciplinary perspectives on the education-migration-development nexus.

Building on research within CEID on education, migration and (im)mobility, the module explores how migration, education and development processes intersect across a range of local, national, regional and global contexts and are shaped by wider dynamics of globalisation, uneven development, conflict and inequality. It looks at some of the multiple – and often intersecting – causes of migration and reasons that people migrate both internationally and internally (including, for example, forced migration and displacement, migration for educational or economic advancement, internal migration, seasonal labour migration, the movement of nomadic and pastoralist groups), and considers how these processes, often entailing movement of resources and ideas as well as people, interact with education and development in complex ways.

A key focus of the module is on understanding the implications of migration for education systems, practices, and the experiences and wellbeing of learners in both sending and receiving countries and communities. This entails paying attention both to how migrants engage with and experience processes of inclusion or exclusion within education, and also to experiences of immobility, and the impact that migration has for those who stay behind. This includes, for example, consideration of the impact of remittances and the role of the diaspora in supporting (or undermining) processes of education and development in their communities of origin; looking critically at debates around the so-called ‘brain-drain’ and the impact of outward teacher migration in low-income contexts; examining how migration may shape educational aspirations among young people in communities of high outward mobility; and exploring the implications of rural-urban migration for ‘left-behind’ children.

For the module assessment, students are asked to write a two-part assignment which includes (i)a 3500-word essay focusing on the interconnections between migration, education and international development in relation to a context of their choosing; and (ii) an accompanying public-facing blog piece of up to 1500 words, which engages with key ideas from the assignment topic, and presents them in a blog format for academic and non-academic audiences.

This series presents some of the best blog pieces written by students on the module 2021-2022.  These all offer insightful and creative ways of engaging with the education-migration-development nexus, highlight some of the diverse spaces and media through which the nexus can be explored (including film, literature, museums, language, and the arts more broadly), and shed light on how the nexus can play out in a range of different global contexts.