Education for marginalised or displaced populations has become one of the most urgent and complex challenges of the twenty‑first century. Around the world, millions of people experience barriers to learning due to conflict, forced migration, statelessness, poverty, discrimination, or systemic exclusion. These barriers intersect with global inequalities, humanitarian crises, climate‑induced displacement, and political instability, raising profound questions about rights, justice, and the role of education in fostering resilience and social transformation.
Recent scholarship has highlighted how educational systems often reproduce structural inequalities, even as they are positioned as tools for empowerment and development. Research on refugee education, inclusive schooling, non‑formal learning, and community‑based pedagogies has shown the diverse ways in which marginalised groups navigate, resist, and reshape educational spaces. At the same time, international organisations, NGOs, and states deploy competing models of educational provision ranging from emergency schooling to digital learning platforms, each carrying its own assumptions about citizenship, belonging, and the purpose of education.
Education is not only a fundamental human right; it is also a political arena in which identities, futures, and power relations are negotiated. For displaced and marginalised populations, access to education can determine livelihood opportunities, social integration, and political recognition. Yet educational interventions can also reinforce dependency, cultural erasure, or exclusion when they fail to account for local knowledge, agency, and lived experience. Understanding these dynamics is essential for addressing global inequalities and imagining more just and sustainable educational futures.
This Collection invites critical, interdisciplinary contributions that examine the politics, practices, and possibilities of education for marginalised or displaced populations. We welcome empirical, theoretical, and methodological work from education studies, sociology, anthropology, political science, development studies, migration studies, human geography, history, and related fields. By bringing diverse perspectives together, the collection aims to interrogate dominant paradigms, amplify marginalised voices, and explore transformative approaches to educational justice.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Educational access, equity, and rights for refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced persons
- Schooling and social inclusion for ethnic, linguistic, or religious minorities
- The role of international organisations, NGOs, and humanitarian actors in shaping educational provision
- Community‑based, indigenous, or non‑formal educational practices
- Digital learning, remote education, and technological inequalities
- Education in conflict zones, fragile states, and protracted displacement contexts
- Gender, disability, and intersectional barriers to education
- Curriculum, language policy, and cultural identity in marginalised communities
- The politics of accreditation, certification, and recognition of prior learning
- Youth agency, aspirations, and resistance within constrained educational environments
- Historical perspectives on exclusion, segregation, and educational reform
- Climate change, mobility, and the future of education for displaced populations
We particularly encourage submissions that foreground the experiences and knowledge of marginalised communities, challenge dominant policy frameworks, or propose innovative pathways toward inclusive and equitable education systems.
Editors
Submitting a paper for consideration
To submit your manuscript for consideration at Humanities & Social Sciences Communications as part of this Collection, please follow the steps detailed on this page. On the first page of our online submission system, please select your article type from the drop down menu. When on the “details” tab, you will be presented with the option to select which Collection your article should be submitted to. Authors should also express their interest in the Collection in their cover letter.
Please ensure that your manuscript is submitted before midnight GMT on the listed deadline date. The submission system will close at exactly 00:00 GMT on the following day, so late submissions cannot be accepted.
Accepted papers are published on a rolling basis as soon as they are ready.
