The Impact of Population-Level Disruptions to Education on Young People With Diverse Minority Backgrounds

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About this Research Topic

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Background

Young people with diverse minority backgrounds (e.g., race, ethnicity, sex, gender, (dis)ability, religion, linguistics, poverty, and class) are exposed to complex systemic disadvantages. Marginalized young people are likely to face negative outcomes in life such as social exclusion, discrimination, racial and ethnic conflict, poor mental health, and well-being. As seen in recent and current global crises, such risks of facing multiple systemic disadvantages disproportionately increase for these young people as a result of population-level disruptions to welfare (e.g., economic crisis, pandemic, war, and conflicts).

This Research Topic particularly focuses on population-level disruptions to education. It aims to explore the impact of wider disruptions to education on young people with diverse minority backgrounds, as well as on their family and school environment. During difficult times (e.g., Covid 19 pandemic, global economic crises, the war in Ukraine), educational settings (e.g., schools and institutions) face unprecedented challenges in providing a psychologically and physically safe environment. Creating, maintaining, and improving a positive environment is strongly associated with addressing such systemic barriers. Available empirical work has studied existing systemic inequalities and barriers (e.g., ambiguous school policies on asylum seekers and refugee children’s education). However, more empirically driven literature is needed to identify evidence-based practices that challenge existing inequalities and create system change in education settings which will eventually help educators to be equipped with the mechanisms to support young people’s mental health and wellbeing, and in turn, educational outcomes (e.g., higher educational aspiration).

This Research Topic welcomes scientific contributions, including original research (observational design, interventional design), systematic review or meta-analysis, case studies, theoretical reflections, and perspectives on challenging systemic barriers during population-level disruptions to education for everyone but especially for young people with diverse minority backgrounds. Challenging systemic barriers will empower young people facing multiple disadvantages by building their capacity and the capacity of their environment. Addressing these issues requires inter- and transdisciplinary and comparative approaches to research.

We welcome evidence-based studies, including but not limited to:

-Studies focusing on ways of maximizing opportunities for positive, collectively owned transformations during or as a result of disruptions to education.

-Studies identifying the perspectives of students, parents, and school staff about how a school system can best support individual and/or collective recovery

-Interdisciplinary research (education, social work, psychiatry, psychology, counseling psychology, public health, sociology, social policy, anthropology) that reflects and explores the complex nature of facing multiple and systemic disadvantages in the context of major disruptions to education and wider society.

-Intervention studies that investigate early interventions and/or sustainable practices for systems around young people facing multiple and systemic disadvantages.

-Studies exploring cross-contextual similarities and differences in effectiveness and sustainability of system change practices across different cultural and/or educational system contexts.

-Studies examining the effectiveness of co-production in educational settings and wider systems

-Studies evidence-based investigating of young people’s mental health and well-being in schools and other educational settings

-Studies investigating the role of family-based and/or community-based interventions on educational experiences.

Keywords: diverse minority, disruptions to education, global crises, educational settings, systemic barriers

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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