Developing conflict resolution skills among pre-primary children: Views and practices of naturalized refugee parents and teachers in Tanzania

Abstract

This study examined parents and teachers’ strategies to develop conflict resolution skills among naturalized refugee pre-primary children in Tanzania. A total of 8 school principals, 18 teachers, and 15 parents – by then serving in the Parent-School Association – were selected on the virtue of their positions. Findings revealed that pre-primary stakeholders preferred adult intervention, religious and vocational lessons, and establishing children’s government as strategies to develop conflict resolution skills. However, there was no specific strategy suggested by the existing curriculum documents. It was reported that poor parent–school relationship, lack of curriculum guidelines, poverty, and poor mastery of Kiswahili – the language of instruction – were the main challenges in developing naturalized former refugee children’s conflict resolution skills. These findings underline that, given the benefit associated with pre-primary education for children form disadvantaged backgrounds, and in order to ensure naturalized refugee children are developing to their fullest potentials and integrated into a host society, deliberate efforts are much needed to devising appropriate strategies to develop naturalized refugee children’s constructive conflict resolution skills.

The role of home learning environments and socioeconomic status in children’s learning in Tanzania: A comparison study of naturalized refugee, rural majority, and urban majority population groups

“…This is not surprising given their existing contexts—rural and former refugees, which required them to settle down first as Tanzanian citizens before focusing on other aspects of their lives. Given the importance of parenting and parental preparedness on children’s learning and development (Heckman, 2011), and parents’ traumatic past experiences as refugees (Murphy et al, 2018; Ndijuye, 2019), it is critically important to prepare these new parents both socially and financially.…”

“…The impacts are reported to be more deleterious to children who live in rural communities and who experience persisting poverty during the early years of their life (Bradshaw, 2002;Shonkoff and Phillips, 2000). Children who live in rural communities from immigrant and naturalized refugee groups are likely to be double-disadvantaged, compared with their local counterparts (Koury and Votriba-Drzal, 2014;Kuch, 2017;Ndijuye andRao, 2018, 2019).…”

STEM starts early: Views and beliefs of early childhood education stakeholders in Tanzania

“…Although Tanzania has demonstrated significant efforts to improve early childhood education (MoEVT, 2015;Mtahabwa, 2009Mtahabwa, , 2010Ndijuye and Rao, 2018;Tandika and Ndijuye, 2019a), there is sufficient evidence that more effort is needed to improve this education sub-sector in general and science learning in particular. Overall, most early childhood stakeholders in Tanzania have limited understanding of what constitutes best practices in early childhood education and the benefits therefrom (Mtahabwa, 2014;Ndijuye, 2019). In this broad context, it is not surprising to find plans and activities targeted to strengthen scientific dispositions in young children less promising.…”

“…They were trained as primary school teachers -were not even trained to serve early grades children. A growing body of empirical evidences indicates that in most developing countries with limited educational resources, quality of teachers complemented with supportive home learning environment, is a single most important factor in enhancing children's development and learning (Aboud and Hossain, 2010;Melhuish et al, 2008;Ndijuye, 2019). Teacher quality becomes more critical at the foundational pre-primary level, especially for fundamental fields such as STEM (Lauwerier and Akkari, 2015;Tandika and Ndijuye, 2019a).…”

Towards Global Peace and Sustainability: Role of Education in Peace-Building in the Great Lakes Region of Sub-Saharan Africa

“…A number of donors have developed tools and approaches to political economy analysis [61,62] and these have been reviewed by various stakeholders. These build on early work by DFID on 'drivers of change' and approaches such as the Government of the Netherlands, Strategic Governance and Corruption Analysis (SCAGA) [63]. However, there are very few examples in the literature of these being applied to the education sector or in post-conflict environments, although the European Commission is currently reviewing how political economy analysis can inform its programming in education.…”