Protecting children in a situation of ongoing conflict: Is resilience sufficient as the end product? Ritesh Shah School of Critical Studies in Education, The University of Auckland, Faculty of Education, Private Bag 92601, Symonds St, Auckland 1150, New Zealand article info Article history: Received 30 December 2014 Received in revised form 26 May 2015 Accepted 2 June 2015 Keywords: Education Resilience Psychosocial support Occupied Palestinian Territory conflict Emergency response abstract Modern day conflict presents a unique challenge to the disaster response and humanitarian community. Different to many disasters, conflict manifests itself over a protracted period, with varying levels of se- verity and no clear beginning or end. Increasingly children are the victims of such conflict, with their basic rights threatened. Education systems are increasingly vulnerable to attack either through direct violence and intimidation inflicted on children or teachers, or indirectly through the destruction of schooling infrastructure, the loss of school personnel, or restrictions on the movement of civilians and goods. While education has historically remained the ‘poor cousin’ within a humanitarian response package, it is increasingly acknowledged that high demand for education exists in conflict-affected si- tuations. In recent years, attempts have been made to merge the education in emergencies and disaster risk/response communities. As greater attention and research inquiry is made into how education can promote resilience and protection to children affected by conflict, and respond effectively to the trauma, a critical exploration of how resilience is understood and acted upon in such settings is needed. This paper, using the case study of Gaza Strip within the Occupied Palestinian Territories, suggests that while programmatic interventions focussed on supporting the resilience of children and the institutional networks of support on which these children rely may deliver short-term benefits, a restoration of the status quo or the effective adjustment of these individuals and institutions to a new state of normalcy may be ineffective and counter-productive in the medium to long-term. & 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In times of human created and natural disasters, education is acknowledged as playing a pivotal role in protecting individuals, communities and entire societies from the consequences of such emergencies. Resources have been directed at supporting and/or strengthening formal and informal educational programmes which are better able to respond to crises, protect children from risk, and prevent future crises from arising. Actors such as the World Bank, the International Network of Education in Emergen- cies (INEE) [8] and UNICEF all perceive such planning and support to be key to minimising future risks to the education system, and to it being able to maintain function during an emergency, with- stand shocks, and protect children from the vulnerabilities of conflict. Under the banner of supporting resilience, then, education is positioned as a means to support the construction of individuals, communities and societies who are able to operate in a more adaptive, responsive and flexible way in situations of instability and crises. The dominant construction of resilience, however, is focussed on maintaining education’s function in emergency si- tuations, and ensuring that education does not hasten or worsen existing conflicts under the guise of education doing “no further harm” [4]. It is this view of resilience that is critically scrutinised in this paper, in the belief that education should and can do more. This paper specifically explores how the concept of resilience was perceived within two education interventions in Palestine— the Better Learning Programme (BLP), supported by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and the Eye to the Future Programme (E2F), administered by CARE International. Palestine’s long standing conflict with Israel has led to increasing economic and social iso- lation and growing strain on the education sector’s ability to de- liver an accessible, equitable and quality learning experience to all. These factors are perceived to be key factors driving youth dis- enfranchisement and their turn towards extremism. In response, donors have focussed efforts in recent years on supporting chil- dren to be resilient (i.e. adapt) to the shocks created by the on- going conflict, and ensure that the education system can act to support the resilience of these individuals. Through a review of the key outcomes of the programmes, familiar to the author because of his role as the external evaluator of each of them, the paper Contents lists available at ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijdrr International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2015.06.003 2212-4209/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. E-mail address: r.shah@auckland.ac.nz Please cite this article as: R. Shah, Protecting children in a situation of ongoing conflict: Is resilience sufficient as the end product? International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2015.06.003i International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction ∎ (∎∎∎∎) ∎∎∎–∎∎∎