“My teachers make me feel alive”: the contribution of student-teacher relationships to student well-being in accelerated education programmes in South Sudan and Uganda

ABSTRACT

Student-teacher relationships are a key element of schooling that affect students’ well-being. This is especially true in conflict-affected contexts. However, there is little research on which dimensions of the relationship are most important for student well-being in such contexts, and even fewer studies deploying cross-country methodology. This study addresses that gap by drawing from multi-site comparative case studies including interviews with 75 students from multiple schools in displacement settings in South Sudan and Uganda during four field visits in 2019. We identify four salient dimensions of student-teacher relationships that are associated with student well-being in both countries. The first dimension is teachers’ fulfilment of expectations related to their role as educators. The second is how teachers expressed and enacted care for learners. The third dimension is how teachers and learners expressed respect for each other. The fourth dimension is how comfortable learners felt in seeking help from their teachers.

KEYWORDS:

• Well-being
• Teacher-Student relationships
• refugee
• conflict
• pupil perspectives

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the learners who shared their time, perspectives, and expertise with us. We would also like to thank the support of the organizations involved in the consortium implementing the accelerated education programme, especially Oxfam and AVSI. This manuscript has benefited from the feedback of colleagues at the Comparative and International Education Society; the World Education Research Association; and Teachers College, Columbia University. Finally, we thank two anonymous reviewers who provided insightful comments that improved this manuscript. This work was supported by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Partnerships under contract HUM/2017/393-866-10901. The first author also received support from the National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. All names are pseudonyms to protect participants’ identities.

2. Fourth if Venezuela is included.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development [HUM/2017/393-866-10901].