The Routledge International Handbook of Schooling in Times of Crisis

Naomi Barnes, Stewart Riddle, Bridget Hughes, Joanne Hughes, Brian Beabout

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2026
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040659465
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This Handbook brings together diverse international perspectives on the ways in which contemporary schooling and school communities can respond to crises, including natural disasters, pandemics, economic and social upheaval, war, crime and conflict. It is imperative for education policymakers, leaders, teachers, students and community members to understand the important role that schools can play in building community resilience during times of crisis.

The book provides a rich array of empirical and conceptual tools developed by researchers working in international contexts with schools and communities across six continents to build resilience, mitigation and adaptation strategies for multiple different crises. There are three main themes. The first consists of nuanced definitions and conceptual tools for schooling and crisis. The second details multiple accounts of schooling and crisis across different contexts and challenges. The final presents a detailed set of practical strategies for education policymakers, school leaders, teachers, students and communities to consider adapting to their own contexts.

Easy to navigate and engaging for the reader, this Handbook will be of interest to educational researchers, including higher degree research students, working with communities in diverse contexts across the globe.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Contributors
• 1 Schooling in times of crisis: The urgent need for new concepts, policies and practices in a rapidly changing world
• 2 Education in the loop: Schooling as a cycle of capital and the conditions for crisis
• 3 School communities and policy responses in England in a time of polycrisis
• 4 Towards creating safe schools in war zones: A framework for educational leaders
• 5 Online learning and the social construction of the global education crisis during COVID-19
• 6 Education for, about and through natural disasters: Teacher professional development for bushfires
• 7 Written on the student body: Tension between policy and safeguarding in education
• 8 Responding to Australia’s domestic and family violence crisis: Whole-of-school responses to supporting children and young people’s resilience and recovery
• 9 Australian (anti-Asian) racism as education crisis
• 10 Counter-hegemonic public pedagogies from the south: Stories of resistance-based education practices from Chile and Brazil in times of environmental and other crises
• 11 An ‘integrated’ future?: Opportunities and challenges for integrated education in post-agreement Northern Ireland
• 12 Renewal: A crisis communication framework for educational contexts
• 13 Schools of the Anthropocene: ‘Untimely’ meditations in the context of crisis
• 14 The role of storytelling, schooling, and community in times of crisis
• 15 Children’s voices through literature
• 16 Small schools as community pillars of strength
• 17 There’s everything to see here: A healing praxis framework for acute crises
• 18 Teachers’ work in a polycrisis: Teacher workload and COVID-19
• 19 Responding to multiple economic and political crises: The Zimbabwean education system response
• 20 Hope and everyday agency in the Anthropocene: Cultivating the capacity to stay in rural Australia
• 21 Schools for peacebuilding: School and community resilience in rural Colombia during and after the internal armed conflict
• 22 Teachers’ social media networks: Lost connections weaken crisis responsiveness
• 23 The university’s third mission: Academic service and community resilience in Afghanistan
• 24 The school–community interface during times of crisis: Mediating and remediating a ‘youth crime crisis’
• 25 A school community resilient to socio-natural phenomena in Puerto Rico: An alternative response to the crisis
• 26 Crisis and the role of schooling: Perspectives of Australian high school students
• 27 Care, memory, and educational responsibility in a post-conflict context
• 28 Supporting rural schools in Thailand to be resilient in the face of complexity and crisis
• 29 How international student communities were already prepared for crises
• 30 Teaching through turbulence: Experiences of social studies teachers navigating curriculum standards, community expectations, and controversial current events
• 31 Dāk (letters) from an archive of the pandemic: On disobediences in the artistic practices
• 32 Schooling in times of disaster: Principals as crisis leaders
• 33 Educational leadership in a crisis event: The experience of retired principals
• 34 The challenges Tanzanian schools face when tackling disruption to learning for vulnerable pupils during the cost-of-living crisis
• 35 The role of Australian, New Zealand and Fijian school leaders in building community resilience for a century of crises
• 36 Trailblazing through turmoil: Exploring crisis management policy and governance of high school principals in Nepal
• 37 ‘Leading with strength’: The role of schools in the recovery of disaster-affected communities
• 38 School leadership and ‘empowerment’ during crisis: Understanding relationships within and beyond school walls
• 39 From lost voices to safe spaces: A survivor-teacher’s journey through schooling in crisis
• Index