Spanning a decade, the war in Syria (2011-present) has prompted mass displacement on an unprecedented scale. The conflict has displaced over 5.5 million people to date, largely to neighboring countries. With approximately half of all Syria refugees under the age of 18 and an estimated 1.2 million school-age Syria refugee children in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt, the Syria crisis has been a catalyst for partnership-based interventions in education.

Since 2011, various arrangements of partnerships between organizations have been established to respond to the Syrian refugee crisis in education, combining the funds and technical expertise of multilateral agencies, bilateral donors, civil society organizations, companies, philanthropies, governments, and local implementers. Notably, private sector actors—including businesses, philanthropies, religious entities, and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs)—have taken an increasingly visible role. Partnership-based initiatives have resulted in a range of activities, situated at the global, national, and local levels, and reflect a transnational mass proliferation of actor engagement in the education of Syria refugees.

The refugee crisis in Lebanon represents just one emergency the country has faced in recent years. A year after the 2018 parliamentary elections, the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio was the third highest in the world, with unemployment increasing. In October of 2019, protests escalated throughout the country after the government implemented new taxes on citizens who were already suffering from the start of an economic downturn. Frustration grew over lack of government accountability. This led to bank and school closures across the country for weeks at a time while citizens suffered from continued electricity cuts and water and food shortages. Following the 2019 protests, Lebanon saw a 400% increase in food prices and a severe deterioration of the economy.

The COVID-19 pandemic compounded Lebanon’s ongoing political and economic crises. Many children had already been out of school in late 2019 because of the protests, and the outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020 resulted in country-wide school closures. Children in Lebanon only received between 12 and 18 weeks of schooling during the 2019-2020 academic year, versus the expected 31 to 33 weeks; meanwhile, 45 percent of Syrian refugee children in Lebanon were out of school entirely during this period.

On August 4, 2020, a blast described as one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history detonated in Beirut port, killing over 200 people and injuring more than 6500. The Beirut Port blast devastated a 6 mile radius of Beirut, damaging 94 public schools; 132 private schools; 22 public technical and vocational education and training facilities; and 20 buildings of the Lebanese University, the only public university in Lebanon.

Our study spanned these multiple compounding crises, offering a lens to understand how narratives and practices in education in emergencies take shape in the context of crisis upon crisis.