“Education is Like Light. The Opposite is Darkness.”: Education and female youth in displacement in South Sudan and the Kurdistan region of Iraq

This briefing paper analyses education for female youth in the context of displacement, particularly the influence of gender norms, community perceptions, and family attitudes on adolescent girls’ to access education. It considers the role of marital status and motherhood on schooling experience, educational interruption and attainment, and aspirations for education and beyond. It presents the unique challenges faced by female youth living with intellectual, emotional, and physical disabilities. It also unpacks some of the factors that facilitate adolescent girls’ access to education in displacement and provides several examples of positive deviance. The paper closes with a series of recommendations for humanitarians to support female youth with educational attainment in displacement contexts.