Understanding how poverty and inequalities impact on children is the major goal of Young Lives, a unique longitudinal, mixed-methods study. Two cohorts totaling 12,000 children are being tracked since 2001, growing-up in Ethiopia, the state of Andhra Pradesh (AP) India, Peru and Vietnam. Earlier versions of this paper were prepared as Young Lives contribution to a UNICEF/UN Women consultation on the post-2015 Development agenda, (www.worldwewant2015.org/inequalities) and published as Woodhead, Dornan and Murray (2013).

This paper explores the politics of education in countries affected by conflict. Drawing particularly on the Palestinian experience, it looks at the power relations among internal and external actors that shape the curriculum-building process. In the increasingly politicised world of international aid, especially in the Middle East, it challenges the idea that international agencies and donors can take a neutral approach to education. Unlike the other three pillars of humanitarian response – food, health and shelter – education is never neutral, it is intrinsically ideological and political.

No abstract

No abstract