Gender equity and social justice for refugees in Jordan : how programs offering educational and employment opportunities can promote social justice for marginalised groups

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Email address: lucyharris295@yahoo.co.uk Date Submitted: 17/06/2018

GENDER EQUITY AND SOCIAL

JUSTICE FOR REFUGEES IN

JORDAN

How programs offering educational and

employment opportunities can promote social

justice for marginalised groups

Lucy Harris - 11432993

Jordan faces an issue of high youth unemployment, particularly amongst women, which has been exacerbated by the influx of Syrian refugees. This issue is related higher education, which has a differing impact on an individual’s employment prospects depending on gender and refugee status. There is academic need to examine how difficulties within employment and education are problems of social justice for women and refugees. I have conceptualised social justice using Nancy Fraser’s three-dimensional framework, but specifically adapted it for the context of gender and refugees within the fields of education and employment. The objective of this research is to study the educational and employment opportunities provided by the ‘Improving Employment Opportunities’ (IEO) and ‘Higher Education for Syrians’ (HES) programs, currently being run by the NGO ‘SPARK’ in Jordan to see how they promote and increase social justice for these groups. Interviews and focus groups were conducted with participants of these SPARK projects, and secondary quantitative data was collected from SPARK. The main findings were that firstly, across all three dimensions, SPARK has taken some steps in increasing justice for their participants. However, the benefits of their programs are not fully equitably distributed, due in part to their failure to recognise the unique difficulties that some of their participants face on the grounds of gender or refugee status. Additionally, while in some cases SPARK succeeds in acting as the participants advocate, they need to go farther in providing them with adequate representation in decision making. There is a theoretical implication that distributive and recognitional injustice are locked in a cyclical interaction, with adequate representation the only way to interrupt this cycle.

Supervisor: Anke van Dam

Second Reader: Winny Koster

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Chapter One: Introduction

In this thesis, I will be exploring how gender equity within programs to promote youth education and employment in Jordan can be conceptualised through the lens of social justice. I will be researching this within the specific contexts of programs implemented by the Dutch NGO ‘SPARK’ and will focus on how the concepts of gender equity and social justice intersect with the issue of the ongoing refugee crisis in Jordan.

Conceptualising gender equity as a form of social justice is not a new concept either in academic literature or practical application. The systematic, far reaching, and long-lasting subjugation of women worldwide within the patriarchal system has long been challenged on the grounds that it is unjust to treat half the world’s population as second-class citizens. Formally describing this gendered injustice within specific justice frameworks is a newer practice. In the past few decades, understanding of the systematic nature of gender injustice has deepened beyond more simplistic notions of ‘women’s right’s’ to include a broader understanding of gender as a socially constructed concept which defines people’s roles, behaviour, and presentation within society, as well as their hierarchical position. As understanding of this has increased, so too has the difficulties in reforming systems on any scale to make them more just and equitable to people of all genders.

One of the most challenging regions in the world for gender justice is the Middle East, where the traditional and conservative culture has maintained a patriarchal system with gender roles that are enforced to varying degrees depending on country and region. According to the Gender Gap Report published by the World Economic Forum, of the 16 lowest scoring countries for gender equity, 10 are in the Middle East (WEF, 2017).

This region (and the world at large) is also currently in the midst of the greatest refugee crisis in recent history. Around the world, it is estimated that there are approximately 65.6 million people who have been displaced from their homes due to conflict or persecution (UNHCR, 2017). This crisis has been exacerbated in the Middle East in the last few years since the onset of the Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011 as a result of the Arab Spring. Since then, approximately 11 million Syrian people have been forced to leave their homes, with the majority (6.6 million) displaced within Syria. Of the 5 million that have left the country, the majority are in the surrounding nations of Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey (UNHCR, 2017).

The forced displacement of this many people has had many consequences, from the individual to the international level. For the refugees themselves, they face the challenges of dispossession and disenfranchisement. Given the loss of material resources and reliable income, many have been left without the means to support themselves, and must therefore rely on the support of the host nation and the international community. This has had knock-on effects on the destination countries, particularly on low or middle-income countries which often struggle to support large refugee populations, a problem which is exacerbated when these populations grow in a very short time-frame. This crisis has also tested the resilience of the international community, which has been forced to take action to provide financial support for the response to the refugee movement, as well as faced increased pressure for more high-income countries to accept a greater share of refugees to reduce the burden on countries neighbouring Syria.

This ongoing crisis has led many to fears of a ‘lost generation’ for Syria – the war combined with the forced displacement has severely disrupted the lives of the population in ways that will have long term repercussions. Most significantly, there are fears that there will not be enough educated people left to rebuild Syria once the war is over (Butler, 2015). One of the main drivers of this fear is the difficulty

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in providing education and employment to the millions of refugees who have left Syria (Deane, 2016). This effect is in fact felt across many generations.

This problem is exacerbated for female refugees, who as well as facing the barriers that come with being a refugee, also face barriers associated with institutionalised and cultural sexism. In contexts where resources and opportunities are scarce, it is women and girls who are often on the losing end of trade-offs.

These issues; the issues of gender inequity within refugee communities, the broader marginalisation of women and refugees within the societies of host countries, and the difficulties of providing education and employment to these groups, can all be related to ideas of social justice. As defined by Nancy Fraser (2005, p. 73), social justice can be thought of as ‘social arrangements that permit all to participate as peers in social life’. Under this definition, women, refugees, and female refugees in particular, are marginalised groups who are the victims of various forms of injustice that take the form of social arrangements that prevent them from participating on par with their peers in society. Education and employment, meanwhile, are often conceptualised as tools for enhancing social justice, tools that are frequently denied to marginalised groups (such as women and refugees) who, due to their circumstances, are being denied access to quality education from childhood through to young adulthood, as well as employment.

In this context, many NGO’s and other organisations are stepping in to ease the pressures felt by host nations by providing education and employment opportunities to women and refugees. In these endeavours, there is great potential to utilise education and employment to enhance various forms of social justice, including gender equity, however this requires an approach that is conscious of these concepts, and the links between them. Therefore, there is need to study these links, as well as how educational and employment initiatives in these communities can be tailored to best promote gender equity and social justice. This will be the primary aim of my research – to explore the various injustices these groups are subject to, how these injustices are currently being combatted by educational and employment opportunities, and how these opportunities can be improved for the future in this regard. This is particularly important with regard to the current global development agenda as outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals. This research will have most relevance to Goal 5: ‘Gender Equality’ but will also have links with Goal 4: ‘Quality Education’, Goal 8: ‘Decent Work and Economic Growth’, and Goal 16: ‘Peace and Justice, Strong Institutions’ (SDG’s, 2015).

My own interest in this topic arises from a dual interest in the longstanding issue of gender justice and the more topical concern of the refugee crisis. Although both groups face different difficulties, which are rooted in different processes, the suggestion that both problems can be conceptualised under the banner of social justice is of interest to me, and, in my view, speaks to the elegance of Fraser’s framework. My hope for this research is that it will enhance the academic understanding of how this framework should be adapted for these contexts, and (if necessary) how the framework can be altered or updated to account for any discrepancies.

To these ends then, my primary research question shall be “From a social justice perspective, how has the NGO ‘SPARK’ supported gender equity for refugees through their programs in Jordan?” The second chapter of this thesis shall contain my theoretical framework, in which I shall outline Nancy Fraser’s framework for justice and adapt it for my own research. My third chapter will be my methodology, in which I discuss how I conceptualised and operationalised my research questions, the methods I used and how I ensured my research was ethical and of good quality. In the fourth chapter, I shall provide some background and context to the country, area, and programs I will be researching. My fifth and

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sixth chapters will be dedicated to analysis of my data relating to the programs and social justice in the contexts of education and employment respectively. My seventh and final chapter will contain my discussion and conclusions, in which I shall answer the research questions, discuss what this implies for the theory, and provide recommendations both for policy and for future study.

Chapter Two: Theoretical Framework

Social justice as a concept has been extensively discussed in the academic world for decades by many notable scholars. In this chapter I will draw and comment upon the works of these scholars, particularly the work of the feminist scholar Nancy Fraser, to form a framework for analysing social justice within the context of education and employment for young people, particularly women and refugees. I shall start by introducing Fraser’s framework, as well as some other commentaries on justice. I will then discuss in depth the three dimensions of injustice, and for each dimension discuss how it can be adapted for the specific subjects and contexts of injustice on which I am focussing. Nancy Fraser defines a necessary and sufficient condition of justice as being ‘parity of participation’ (Fraser, 2005, p.73) – a singular normative principle which requires social arrangements that permit all to participate as peers (i.e. as equals) in social life. This requires the dismantling of institutionalized obstacles that prevent some from participating on par with others. As will be discussed, these obstacles can be economic, cultural or political in nature. In Fraser’s conceptualisation, all three are interconnected, but all three have some autonomy vis a vis the others – i.e. one cannot be reduced to a secondary effect of one of the others.

In Fraser’s framework, there are three dimensions to justice: redistribution, recognition and representation. Distributive injustice is socioeconomic, rooted in the political-economic structure of society, examples of which can include exploitation and marginalization of labour, as well as depravation of an adequate material standard of living. Recognition (or the lack thereof), is rooted in cultural and symbolic patterns of communication and interpretation. Injustice in this form can take the form of cultural domination (being subject to patterns of interpretation alien to one’s own culture), invisibility in the dominant culture, and disrespect (in the form of discrimination based on stereotypical public representations) (Fraser, 1995, p.70-71). Representation is concerned with how people are represented in the ordinary political sphere – whether they can participate politically, to what extent they can influence the decisions that affect them, what recourse they have to make claims of injustice and how the claims are handled. It is also concerned with the frame in which claims of justice are considered (Fraser, 2005, p.76-77).

During this thesis, I will be referring to the ‘subjects’ of these three dimensions of injustice. What I mean by the ‘subject’ of injustice needs to be clarified. The subjects of injustice can be thought of as the people to whom injustice is done. They are the ‘victims’ of injustice, a word I avoid using due to its potentially degrading connotations. Also, of note is that I use ‘subject’ to refer to both marginalised group that experience injustice based on a shared group identity, as well as individuals within those groups. So, for example I may say ‘women are subject to injustice’ or ‘a woman is a subject of injustice (based on her gender). In this thesis, the subjects of injustice I will be focussing on are women and refugees, both as groups and as individuals within those groups.

Injustice affects people across many societal processes and interactions, but I will be focussing on how injustice operates within the specific contexts of education and employment. I will discuss the three dimensions of (in)justice using Fraser’s (and other scholars) conceptualisations, and also define how these dimensions operate in these specific contexts for these specific groups.

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2.1 Redistribution

Fraser conceptualised redistribution as being ‘rooted in the political-economic structure of society’ (Fraser, 1995, p.70). As indicated above, distributive injustice is concerned with the unequal distribution of material resources in society, which results in socio-economic exploitation, marginalisation, and depravation. The subjects of this analysis are classified into ‘classes or class-like collectivities, which are defined economically by a distinctive relation to the market or the means of production’ (Fraser & Honneth, 2003, p.14)

There are many analytical accounts of the injustice and inequality prevalent in global resource distribution. Most notably Marx’s writings on the inequality of distribution between capitalists and the labour they exploited. These days, calls for redistribution usually advocate for redistribution from the Global North to South and from rich to poor (Fraser, 2001, p.21), or take the form of reparations for historical injustice (Verdeja, 2006).

Redistribution is primarily a material, quantitative concept. It can be measured by how much a person has of something compared to another person. In the next sections, I shall discuss how the subjects of injustice relevant to my research experience distributive injustice in a general sense, and then move on to how this is relevant in the specific contexts of education and employment.

2.1.1 The Subjects of Distributive Injustice

The inequitable distribution of the world’s resources between men and women is one of the cornerstones of the continued patriarchal global landscape. There is no nation on Earth where women on average have more wealth than men. Globally, men on average own more property and earn more income everywhere.

For redistributive gender justice, what must be challenged is the gendered character of the political economy. Within the economic structure of society, gender functions similarly to class in how they differentiate the workforce and determine the division of labour. Central to this is ‘the fundamental division between paid "productive" labour and unpaid "reproductive" and domestic labour, assigning women primary responsibility for the latter’ (Fraser, 2007, p.26). It also causes division in the paid labour market, with higher paying, professional occupations on one side, and lower paying service occupations on the other. Other forms of distributive injustice arise from the inability of women in many parts of the world to own or inherit property, or any other form of capital. Women generate a significant proportion of the world’s wealth but are able to have only a limited control over it. Thus, there is distributive justice that is rooted in gender.

The material depravation of refugees worldwide arises as a result of both their circumstances in leaving their home and the situation they find themselves in when they arrive at their destination. Most of the time, refugees can’t transfer whatever material capital or wealth they may have previously had when they move from one place to another – they are dispossessed of their homes and often most of their material possessions when they leave their country, and so end up with few material resources when they arrive at their destination. This state of material depravation is often enhanced for female refugees, particularly those with children, or those without a male relative to support them. In addition to this, the circumstances they find themselves in when they arrive at their destination often maintain and exacerbate this state of depravation. The majority of the world’s refugees are in developing countries, whose governments can’t afford to provide them with even their basic needs of housing and food. Hence why a significant number of refugees in the Middle East live in camps (Newman, 2018, p.1), which are primarily funded by the UNHCR and various NGO’s. Also, many of them have no way to lift themselves out of this state of material depravation, even if they were able,

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as many countries that host refugees do not allow them to work. Even in the countries that do, refugees struggle to find employment due to stigma, or prioritisation of the needs of local people. Even when they do find employment, it is often under exploitative conditions. This problem is again exacerbated for female refugees, who experience multiple forms of discrimination (Knappert, 2018, p.62). Thus, they are trapped in systems which maintain their material depravation, marginalisation, or exploitation, thus they suffer from clear distributional injustice.

2.1.2 The Inequitable Distribution of Education and Employment

Education can be conceptualised in many ways, but in one way it can be considered a material resource that is distributed among people in society. In education, a system with just distribution would firstly involve everyone having equal access. This is purely a quantitative question of parity (Chisamya, 2012), ensuring that no-one is denied access to any level of education on the basis of gender or because they are a refugee. If this is the case, then the proportions of people in all levels of education should be representative of the entire population. I.e. the proportion of men and women should be 50/50, and there shouldn’t be a lower proportion of refugees in education in any given population than there are refugees in that population. Anything otherwise could suggest that women and refugees are being denied education (which may be considered a material resource) purely on these grounds. This equal access must hold for different levels of education and different forms of education.

Just distribution of education is not simply about access however, but also about outcomes. If education can be considered a resource, then the various output’s (or benefits) for individuals as a result of that education may also be considered a resource, which must also be distributed equitably if the system is just. It is not enough that everyone is receiving education equally, but everyone must be benefiting equally as well. When considering just redistribution in the context of education therefore, they are two things to consider: access and benefit.

Similarly, for employment, justice requires that that there is equal access to all forms of employment, and equal outcomes as a result of that employment. We can consider outcomes in this case to be a question of compensation, as well as any additional benefits that employment may bring. Given that both women and refugees are under many circumstances denied access to employment, or denied equal compensation within it, these conditions are important for justice for both these groups. Again, in just system, both access to employment and the benefits of employment must be equitably distributed in society, irrespective of a person’s gender or refugee status.

Therefore, for my purposes, redistribution for women and refugees in the contexts of education and employment is concerned with the access that these people have to both as well as the benefits that that they may experience from them. It is concerned with how access and outcomes are distributed, how these vary from person to person (or from group to group) and how they may be denied or reduced specifically because of someone’s gender, or because they are a refugee.

2.2 Recognition

“To be misrecognized, in my view, is not simply to be thought ill of, looked down on, or devalued in others’ conscious attitudes or mental beliefs. It is rather to be denied the status of a full partner in social interaction and prevented from participating as a peer in social life— not as a consequence of a distributive inequity (such as failing to receive one’s fair share of resources or ‘primary goods’), but rather as a consequence of institutionalized patterns of interpretation and evaluation that constitute one as comparatively unworthy of respect or esteem.” (Fraser, 1998a, p.141)

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According to Fraser, struggles for recognition, which include many of today’s movements for equality of race, gender, sexuality and ethnicity are based on the ‘recognition of hitherto denied identities’ (Fraser, 2000, p.107). The subjects of (in)justice in this analysis are ‘defined […] by relations of recognition, they are distinguished by the lesser esteem, honour, and prestige they enjoy relative to other groups in society’ (Fraser & Honneth, 2003, p.15).

However, Fraser had two key criticisms of ‘identity politics’ – the banner under which many of these struggles for recognition fall. First, she criticised the displacement of redistributive concerns in favour of struggles for recognition. She argued that due to the rise of neoliberalism, and the corresponding assault on egalitarianism or any form of ‘feasible socialism’, the role of movements based on equitable distribution of wealth and resources had been greatly reduced. As a result of this ongoing era of neoliberalism, economic inequality had greatly increased, highlighting the continuing need for justice based on redistribution. Therefore, insofar as struggles for recognition marginalise, eclipse, and displace redistributive concerns, Fraser called this the ‘problem of displacement’. She argued that this may lead to greater economic inequality in the long run (Fraser, 2000, p.108).

Secondly, she criticised the tendency to ‘simplify and reify’ group identities instead of promoting respectful multi-cultural interaction. She argued that this encouraged separatism, intolerance, chauvinism, patriarchalism, and authoritarianism. She referred to this as the ‘problem of reification’ and argued that at the extreme it may lead to human rights violations and increasing the tensions and antagonisms it claims to be opposed to (Fraser, 2000, p.108).

Despite these criticisms, she still felt that struggles for recognition were crucial for justice: “Not all forms of recognition politics are equally pernicious: some represent genuinely emancipatory responses to serious injustices that cannot be remedied by redistribution alone. Culture, moreover, is a legitimate, even necessary, terrain of struggle, a site of injustice in its own right and deeply imbricated with economic inequality. Properly conceived, struggles for recognition can aid the redistribution of power and wealth and can promote interaction and cooperation across gulfs of difference.” (Fraser, 2000, p.108-109)

Fraser’s conceptualisation of recognition therefore was one that could both be integrated with struggles for redistribution, and also accommodate diverse social identities without advocating separation and reification. Again, I shall now discuss how misrecognition of women and refugees affects them generally, before discussing how it affects them within education and employment.

2.2.1 Misrecognition of Women and Refugees

For women, the issue of recognition is one of pervasive patterns of cultural interpretation and evaluation which result in status differentiation based on gender. Specifically, institutionalised ‘androcentrism’ results in a difference in the perceived value of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ traits, privileging the former over the latter. This has far reaching effects in all sections of society, from law to government policy, professional practices, popular culture and the interactions of everyday life. (Fraser, 2007, p.26)

“As a result, women suffer gender-specific forms of status subordination, including sexual harassment, sexual assault, and domestic violence; trivializing, objectifying, and demeaning stereotypical depictions in the media; disparagement in everyday life; exclusion or marginalization in public spheres and deliberative bodies; and denial of the full rights and equal protections of citizenship.” (Fraser, 2007, p.26)

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For refugees, cultural injustices arise as a result of the social stigmas that surround them, as well as from their status as a minority group within their destination. These stigmas are often rooted in the cultural patterns of racism and ethnonationalism. Being removed from their own culture, they are forced to suffer the interpretation of a culture alien to their own – i.e. cultural domination. This can lead to invisibility within the dominant culture, as well as discrimination based on stereotypical and inaccurate public representations (Keddie, 2011). It also leads to the homogenisation of refugees’ cultural identities and a rejection of any elements from these identities which do not fit within established dominant narratives. In the West for example, the growing discourse around terrorism being intrinsically linked with migration from the Arab world has led to prejudice and fear towards refugees seeking asylum, particularly in European nations. The counterargument to this discourse often involves emphasising the vulnerable, helpless, and destitute nature of refugees to illicit sympathy. Refugees therefore, through these discourses, are transformed into objects to be feared, or objects to be pitied (Chouliaraki, 2017). It is my observation that there is a gendered dimension to this fear/pity dichotomy, with refugee men being more likely to be associated with the former, and refugee women with the latter. In a more global trend, refugees are stereotyped as a burden on their host nations, as lazy, or as people who are ‘taking all the jobs’ or other opportunities away from local people. As a vulnerable population, they are a convenient scapegoat for people in power to direct blame towards for any number of woes. Thus, this misrecognition leads to social stigmas, which result in specific challenges that refugees must overcome to succeed in their host nation – challenges which their local counterparts do not face.

2.2.2 Recognitional Injustice within Education and Employment

Misrecognition involves being subject to patterns of interpretation alien to your own, which leads to domination, invisibility, disrespect, and discrimination, which results in subjects of injustice who experience less esteem, honour and prestige in society than their more privileged counterparts. This results in obstacles that these subjects of injustice must face which their counterparts do not. Thus, these obstacles prevent these subjects from participating on par with the rest of society.

Education is one of the primary tools by which misrecognition can be combatted, in that it can be used to discourage discriminatory narratives about marginalised groups, and also allow members of these groups to rise above these patterns of interpretation (Keddie, 2011). However, the injustice of misrecognition provides obstacles to people within the context of education, most notably within how these difficulties affect people’s access to education, and the benefits they gain from education. In other words, the obstacles that subjects of injustice face as a result of misrecognition, directly affect how the material benefits of education are distributed. This is a clear example of how redistribution and recognition are intrinsically linked, as in this case unjust patterns of interpretation result in unjust distribution of resources. The opposite is also true, as being deprived of the material benefits of education can also reinforce pre-existing or create new patterns of interpretation that result in discrimination and obstacles for marginalised groups.

Misrecognition also leads to injustice in the context of employment. For women, they are subject to androcentric, patriarchal worldviews which determine their roles within the labour market, if they are permitted any roles at all. As previously discussed, these roles are often lower status, or are subsequently perceived as being lower status due to their association with femininity. The perceived status of different roles has an effect on distribution of wealth as well, given that jobs of lower perceived status usually pay less income, which provides another intrinsic link between these two forms of injustice. And vice versa, women’s inability to generate their own income results in their dependence on male breadwinners which reinforces those androcentric gender roles.

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Combatting the injustice of misrecognition within these contexts and for these subjects therefore requires that the stereotypes and difficulties that people face on the basis of gender or refugee status are acknowledged, and that steps are taken to remove, overcome, or otherwise lessen the impact of these obstacles.

2.3 Representation

Fraser added a third dimension of (in)justice to her framework – the political dimension of representation – in response to the growing redundancy of what she calls the ‘Keynesian-Westphalian frame’ (Fraser, 2005, p.69). This frame assumed that issues of justice could be dealt with at the national level. This assumption is invalid in today’s era of globalisation, in which social and economic process spill over state boundaries. Justice then, requires that people are able to make justice claims on appropriate levels – from local to international, and that they are adequately represented in the decision-making which affects them.

As things stand in the current global climate, people can be profoundly and negatively affected by decisions taken outside their national boundaries, which they accordingly have no power to influence. Many social and economic processes spill over state boundaries, and decisions that are made in one nation – by governments, transnational corporations, international investors, and international governmental and non-governmental organisations – can have profound effects on the citizens of another. In addition, public opinion is becoming increasingly transnational, fuelled by the rise of the internet and global mass media, which has resulted in an increasing perceived vulnerability to transnational forces.

It is in this context that Fraser argues for the inclusion of the third dimension of justice. The key to political justice is representation, with misrepresentation being the corresponding dimension of injustice. Fraser describes different levels of misrepresentation. ‘Ordinary-political’ misrepresentation is concerned with political decisions that deny certain people the chance to participate fully, whereas ‘misframing’, involves drawing the boundaries in which justice concerns are played out in such a way as is ineffective in dealing with those concerns. It is this second level of misrepresentation that has been highlighted by the rise of globalisation, as it has demonstrated the failure of the nation state in matters of justice and led to many who are the victims of injustice being unable to challenge the forces that oppress them. It forces people to make justice claims in the domestic political spaces of relatively powerless states, which shields and disguises the influence of offshore actors as well as the governance structures of the global economy, which ‘set exploitative terms of interaction’ (Fraser, 2005, p.78) but are then exempt from democratic control. Thus, in the global era, it is vital that justice comes with representation, with victims of injustice given not just adequate representation in ordinary political sphere’s, but also able to make justice claims in the appropriate frame – national or transnational.

2.3.1 Representation of Marginalised Groups

For representation, there is a gendered structure to ordinary political misrepresentation, in which women are denied equal political voice in decision making, either through lack of political power (being denied the vote for instance) or through lack of adequate female representation within the relevant frame. In the vast majority of countries worldwide, there are fewer female political representatives or parliamentarians, a trend which is consistent across all levels of government. However, even outside of government, women are underrepresented in many positions of power. In the media, in the management of international corporations, in state leaders/diplomats, and in international NGO’s, men tend to outnumber women in these roles (Taliento & Madgavkar, 2016).

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In my view, this lack of representation for women has the effect firstly of preventing women’s concerns from being heard and advocated for. Secondly, it prevents the unique perspective of women to be considered in decision-making, as well as denies women a voice in those decisions. Women are therefore more likely to find themselves the subjects of other forms of injustice, because they are unable to prevent, alter, or even call attention to the systematic issues of misrecognition or marginalisation that affect them.

Refugees similarly find themselves in situations where they have little or no political voice, a problem that is compounded when there are few people in their destination country willing to speak on their behalf. Refugees rely on international law to grant them protection, which often doesn’t go far enough, or is not enforced properly. Therefore, when they are victims of injustice, they have few avenues to make their claims. When the reason they have been forced to leave their home is down to factors external to their home nation, it is a key example of the break-down of the Keynesian-Westphalian frame, as discussed by Fraser (2005), in which people have no say in the decisions that ultimately affect their lives dramatically. As observed by Cuthill (2016):

“To become a refugee is both the consequence of colonial, political and global reconstitutions and conﬂict but refugees are accorded no political voice on the global stage.” (Cuthill, 2016, p.216)

In addition, scenarios of injustice involving refugees are usually examples of intersection of frames, given that they are impacted by global forces that lead to the destabilising of regions as well as affect general global attitudes towards refugees, transnational forces which leads to the destabilisation of nations, and national and local forces which determine the racialised discourse that refugees will enter (Keddie, 2011, p.1297).

2.3.2 Representation in Education and Employment

Representation is conceptualised by Nancy Fraser to as political, ensuring that people have adequate representation within the various scales of government. However, I would argue that representation is necessary in any system where there is a hierarchical form of governance. In education for example, those who are receiving the education must have recourse to bring their concerns to an advocate to speak on their behalf. This is a parallel to ordinary political representation, whereby marginalised groups must have recourse to bring justice claims to an appropriate party, who can influence their circumstances. And just as people must have power and voice in the decisions that affect them in government, so too they should have that ability in other contexts, such as education.

Representation within employment is essential to prevent exploitation and denial of rights. For women, who are often less accustomed to negotiating and fighting on their own behalf, and so struggle to act as their own representative, they require an advocate to ensure they are not being taken advantage of by employers. Similarly, for refugees, who often do not have legal recourse to fall back on, they require an advocate to act on their behalf to hold employers accountable. In the West, and particularly in Europe, the traditional form of representation within employment has been trade unions. In parts of the world where these are less common or less powerful however, other parties must step in if marginalised groups such as women and refugees are to have adequate representation within employment.

Therefore, in this context and for these subjects, adequate representation requires that the participants have power in the decision-making which affects them, as well as recourse to make justice claims through an advocate.

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2.4 Research Questions

Primary Research Question:

“From a social justice perspective, how has the NGO ‘SPARK’ supported gender equity for refugees through their programs in Jordan?”

Sub Questions:

1. How do the IEO and HES programs redistribute the material benefits of education and employment to achieve distributive equality for women and refugees, and how can this be improved?

2. In what ways do the IEO and HES programs recognise the unique context, needs and difficulties of women and refugees in Jordan, and how do they help them overcome these difficulties in education and employment?

3. How do SPARK act as an advocate to provide women and refugees on the IEO and HES programs with adequate representation, and how can this be improved?

Chapter Three: Methodology

3.1 Conceptualisation

I have conceptualised gender equity as a facet under the wider umbrella of social justice, and thus conceptualised and operationalised gender equity using the three dimensions of social justice as described in Fraser’s framework. I have done the same for social justice for refugees, another facet of social justice as a whole. For both of these facets of social justice, I will operationalise them within the specific concepts of education and employment.

Social justice (in the context of education and employment) is a process in which a marginalised group benefits from material redistribution of the benefits of education and employment, receives recognition of and assistance for the unique difficulties that arise relating to their marginalised state, and, have an advocate to both represent them in decision making and address their justice concerns. As has been discussed, the relevant marginalised groups in this case are women on the IEO and HES programs run by SPARK, who are marginalised on the basis of their gender, refugees on these same programs, who are marginalised on the grounds of their refugee status, and in particular refugee women, who experience the intersection of injustice based on both their gender and their nationality.

3.2 Operationalisation

I have operationalised justice for women and refugees through the lens of Fraser’s framework, by taking the dimensions of redistribution, recognition and representation and operationalising them in this context. Each of these dimensions has associated variables, and indicators which I have used to measure these variables.

Concepts Dimensions Variables Indicators/Questions

Social Justice Redistribution Access Proportion of men and

women on program Proportion of men and women on different majors

Proportion of men and women on different degree types

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Outcomes (Benefits) How are benefits of the program distributed among men and women How are benefits of the program distributed among Syrians and Jordanians

What does the

distribution of benefits mean for their future opportunities? Recognition Acknowledgment of

their specific difficulties

How does the program overcome specific barriers women and refugees face within their education

How does the program overcome specific barriers women and refugees face in finding a job?

Representation Control in decision making

How much control do women and refugees have in decision making on the design and implementation of the program

Advocate for their concerns

In what ways do SPARK take the concerns of women and refugees into account

3.3 Research Design

The research took place over a period of nine weeks in and around Amman, Jordan, during which time I had access to SPARK, their records and resources, as well as the participating students and interns. For this research I adopted a mixed methods approach, as using a combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods allowed for the different requirements of measuring different dimensions. In cases where different methods were used for the same dimension, it also allowed for the triangulation of data to ensure accuracy and consistency.

3.4 Unit of Analysis

The main unit of analysis within this research was the students and interns who are participating or have participated in the ‘Improving Employment Opportunities’ (IEO) and ‘Higher Education for Syrians’ (HES) programs currently being run by SPARK through various higher education institutions and workplaces in Amman. By studying and comparing the experiences of participants of different genders and nationalities I hope to determine whether and how the courses are enhancing justice for and equity between students.

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3.5 Methods of Data Collection

3.5.1 Quantitative Methods

Of the three dimensions of social justice that I have operationalised in section 3.2 above, the one that most benefits from quantitative methods of measurement is redistribution which, given that it is, in my research, concerned primarily with the material benefits of education and employment (such as access and compensation), can be more easily understood by using numeric indicators in part. Quantitative methods are useful for finding patterns and relationships in data. In this case, I was looking at the relationship between gender and/or refugees status and various indicators for the material benefits of the scholarships and internships offered by the program. To this end, I collected secondary data from SPARK, relating to the students, their participation and performance in the courses and their later success regarding employment. The data for the HES program came from the Student Information System (SIS) and the data for the IEO program came from information dashboards, both of which SPARK agreed to grant me access to for analytic purposes. This data will be primarily used to answer the first sub-question, regarding material redistribution.

3.5.2 Qualitative Methods

In line with the necessity to study the participant’s individual experiences, qualitative methods were also used. This allowed me the opportunity to ‘see through their eyes’ to an extent, in that it provided me with a deeper understanding of participants’ experiences, perspectives, and context. This understanding was necessary to analyse the dimensions of social justice, all three of which exist within a socio-economic and political context. Because of their qualitative character, the dimensions of recognition and representation in particular cannot be understood using simply numeric indicators. I used several different qualitative methods which permitted me to approach the situation from multiple angles – I intended for the interviews to provide people’s individual perspectives, while I hoped the focus groups would encourage discussion and allow groups to generate and present their collective opinions.

Semi-Structured Interviews

I used semi structured interviews to probe into participants’ individual experiences, opinions, and standpoints relating to the program. I went into them with a prepared interview guide, with planned topics to cover and some pre-prepared questions based on my indicators operationalised above, but during the interview I allowed it to take different directions based on the responses, which left the option open for more spontaneous and/or unexpected perspectives and opinions to be discussed. As I cannot speak Arabic, a translator was present to communicate between myself and the interviewees. I conducted a total of 20 interviews while I was there. 2 of the interviewees were employees of SPARK – the heads of the IEO and HES programs. Of the 18 remaining, 5 were interns on the IEO program, 11 were students on the IEO program, and 2 were students on the HES program. In total, there were 5 males and 15 females.

Focus Group Discussions

I also conducted focus group discussions to acquire group perspectives on the program. By generating discussion among the participants, I hoped to get a sense of how they as a group formed a shared perspective. I conducted three focus groups in total, one with all women (Syrian and Jordanian), one with all men (Syrian and Jordanian) and one mixed (all Syrian). The female and mixed focus groups consisted of six participants each, while the male one had five. This was an ideal number to have a diversity of viewpoints but not too many conflicting voices. I wanted a focus group consisting of only women so as to provide them a safe space to discuss their views without a male presence. Similarly, I hoped that having an all-male focus group would encourage them to be honest. I also wanted a mixed

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group so as to examine the relational aspects of male and female behaviour and perspectives. I also wanted at least one all-Syrian group, so as to encourage to speak without a Jordanian presence. As with the interviews, a translator was used for all focus groups. The information I collected in interviews and focus groups will be used to answer all three sub-questions.

3.6 Sampling Strategy

When choosing participants for my interviews, I sampled primarily based on convenience – I interviewed only those people who were both willing and able to talk to me. However, through SPARK, which provided access to these participants, I was able to control whether the people I interviewed were male or female and, to a lesser degree, whether they were Syrian or Jordanian. Therefore, I was able to choose a proportion of male to female students most suitable to my research.

3.7 Methods of Data Analysis

3.7.1 Quantitative

Firstly, I will perform a quantitative analysis on the data provided to me by SPARK to determine how gender affects a student’s access to various forms and levels of education. I will calculate the proportions of men and women not only on the program as a whole, but also see how this varies across different degree types and majors.

I will be using the quantitative analysis software SPSS to determine whether these proportions are significant. In this way, I will be able to assess how access to various forms of education is distributed according to gender, and how skewed this distribution is.

3.7.2 Qualitative

I will begin my qualitative analysis by fully transcribing all the interviews, focus groups, and observation notes (with the help of a translator). I will code these transcripts using software such as Atlas.ti, which will help in handling such a large amount of data. I will start by open coding – choosing codes based purely on what patterns present themselves in the text. I will then continue using axial coding to link different codes together to form groups and sub groups, then with selective coding I can relate the information back to my research question by forming categories out of the groups which are relevant to answering the research question.

3.8 Limitations and Barriers

During the course of my research, I encountered several difficulties and limitations which served as obstacles to the research as I had envisioned it. The first issue was an issue with interpreters. I knew beforehand that I would require an interpreter for all my interviews, given that I do not speak Arabic and most of my interviewees did not speak English. I was concerned that a significant portion of my data would come to me via a third party, as I couldn’t be sure that information wouldn’t get lost or altered in translation. I was also concerned that the presence of another person would also affect what and how much information participants were willing to share. I wanted to reduce the effects of this limitation, firstly by using just one interpreter, so that there would be a consistency of interview style, and by discussing the research in depth with the interpreter before we began the interviews, so that they could understand what the goals of the research are and be an active participant. In addition, I wanted to have a second translator look over the transcripts of the interviews to cross reference and check the translation is accurate. Finally, to ensure the comfort of the female participants, I wanted to make sure that my translator was a woman.

Unfortunately, due to scheduling conflicts, I was unable to maintain using the same interpreter across all my interviews, and in fact ended up using four different interpreters on separate occasions. This resulted in having an inconsistency in my data collection technique, and it is difficult to say how this

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may have affected the results. Furthermore, the use of different interpreters meant I was unable to have one person who functioned as a close partner in my research, as I had hoped for. However, with every interpreter I used in interviews I was able to meet them beforehand, so I was able to assess their capability and inform them of the goals of the research. In that regard, I hope that I avoided any significant distortion in the translation as a result of using varying third parties to communicate through.

Another difficulty that arose part-way through the interview process was how I should present myself to participants with regard to the organisation. While I was there, SPARK functioned as my gatekeeper, but given that I wanted to encourage my interviewees to be honest about SPARK, I presented myself as an independent researcher. However, this caused some confusion among interviewees, who did not understand why I was there if I had no connection to SPARK. I therefore subsequently presented myself slightly more informatively, explaining that I was doing research on behalf of myself and SPARK, whilst still emphasising the anonymity of participants responses so as to encourage openness and honesty.

3.9 Ethics

When conducting my research, there were six key areas of concern when ensuring that my work was ethical – informed consent, voluntary participation, confidentiality, participant safety, dissemination of research findings, and trust.

Firstly, in ensuring consent and voluntary participation, all of the participants were young people over the age of 18, so were able to consent on their own behalf. As SPARK were approaching the participants on my behalf, I asked them to make it clear that their participation was completely voluntary.

For confidentiality, I have removed any information that could be used to identify individuals and have printed no names with the quotes I have used. In addition, when looking over any secondary data that has been provided by SPARK, I have only requested data that can be quantitively analysed to demonstrate general patterns, I have not asked for sensitive or specific individual data. A promise of confidentiality was made before every interview, and all transcripts and audio recordings have been stored digitally and password protected.

For participant safety, I made sure that student’s agreement to participate in interviews in which they may discuss sensitive issues relating to their status as part of a marginalised group did not in any way leave them vulnerable to violence or negative repercussions. I accomplished this through ensuring that all interviews took place in a secure location, in private, where only myself, my interpreter and the interviewees were present. I also made sure that this location was a location they were familiar with and did not have to go out of their way to travel to.

To secure the participants’ trust, I was transparent in my interview and research process by offering to share my audio recordings and interview transcripts with the interviewees, giving them the chance to review and alter their responses if they wished. I was careful not to make any promises to the participants that I would not be able to keep or give them the wrong impression about why I was there.

When disseminating research findings, I will be sharing my finding with SPARK, in the hope that it will lead to a constructive policy on ensuring social justice and gender equality for student refugees. It is my hope that this will allow me to ‘give something back’, and that I will not be the only beneficiary of this research. In addition, I hope that my decision to focus on the students’ perspectives will allow me to amplify the voices of an under represented and under recognised group.

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There are additional ethical concerns I have considered relating to the role of the researcher, particularly around imbalanced power relations. Although I was mainly speaking with people around my own age, it is still possible that unintended power relations may have compelled participants to answer questions they didn’t want to answer, or answer in ways that are socially accepted and not what they really think. As I was using SPARK as a gatekeeper to these students and interns, it is possible I was seen as their representative, and as SPARK is the organisation providing internships and scholarships to these participants, this may have discouraged them from giving completely honest answers about the projects. In addition, as I had a translator in the room when conducting interviews, I don’t know how the participants may have reacted to them. Even just the physical presence of having two people interviewing against one interviewee may have caused a distortion in the responses. In conclusion, when considering my own role as a researcher, I must remember that I could not interact with the object of research without in some way affecting it – I could not have been a completely ‘neutral’ actor in this situation. I must take into account issues of ethics, potential imbalances of power, and my own biases, all of which could have affected the situation and the research I have done.

3.10 Quality Criteria

There are several criteria I have used to assess the quality of my research and identify weaknesses. These criteria include internal and external reliability, as well as internal and external validity. In assessing my research with respect to these criteria, I hope to determine how useful these findings will be in the long run, and how research in this area can be improved in the future.

3.10.1 Reliability

Reliability is concerned with the consistency of measures, as it is only with consistency that researchers can be sure that findings are accurate. This consistency can be observed in two ways, through internal or external reliability.

External reliability is concerned with whether the study can be replicated by other scholars after the fact. My research involved collecting pre-existing secondary quantitative data from the organisation SPARK as well as collecting primary qualitative data by conducting interviews and focus groups. With respect to the quantitative data, any subsequent researchers would either collect the same data (possibly updated) from SPARK or they could collect their own primary quantitative data. Either way, the data and any subsequent analysis can be easily replicated and is likely to yield very similar results. For the qualitative data, the findings would be slightly harder to replicate, as it would require interviewing the same participants, whose names are protected due to anonymity concerns. However, different interviewees could be drawn from the same general pool of participants, and while the responses would most likely be different, it is likely that the same general findings could be drawn. For internal reliability, it is necessary that in cases where there is more than one observer, different members of the research team agree in their observations and findings. For my research, there was another researcher who was studying the same projects and a similar topic but with a different perspective. Therefore, while we could compare very general findings, we could not use each other as source for internal reliability as our more specific findings/results were different, due to our different focusses. While I had no official secondary researchers, I did have interpreters in all of my interviews, and after many of the interviews we would discuss the participants responses and found that we had similar perceptions. So, insofar as interpreters could be considered reliable secondary researchers, my research had some degree of internal reliability. However, without an official secondary researcher, this internal reliability is limited in scope. This therefore is a weakness of my research.

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3.10.2 Validity

Validity is concerned with how successful the indicators, data, and research are at measuring the relevant concept. Thus, it is an assessment of the research’s usefulness, and this requires both internal and external validity.

For a study to have internal validity, there must be a good match between the empirical observations and the relevant theory. In the case of my research, consistent with Nancy Fraser’s framework, I was studying the economic, cultural, and political obstacles to participatory parity that women, particularly refugee women, face on the programs offered by SPARK. I found examples of all three forms of injustice, therefore, I argue that my findings match well with the theory, and that my research has internal validity.

In order to have external validity, the finding must be generalisable across a range of social settings. My research was based on the study of programmes run by a particular organisation for a particular demographic of unemployed young people in Jordan. Therefore, some of my findings may be limited to just this social setting. However, similar programmes are run by the same organisation in many countries, so it is plausible that the findings could also be generalised to these situations as well, particularly the programmes in the Middle East. Even more general findings, such as those relating to the gendered structure of the employment market, and the treatment of refugees by host communities, are relevant across an even wider range of social settings. Therefore, I argue that my research has an acceptable degree of external validity.

In conclusion, my research has a fairly high degree of external reliability, as it could be replicated by another scholar reasonably easily but has a low degree of internal reliability due to the lack of any official secondary scholar with whom I could cross check my own observations. Furthermore, my research has an acceptable degree of both internal and external validity, due to there being a fairly strong match between empirical observations and theory, as well as the findings being generalisable to a wider range of social settings. Therefore, my overall assessment of the quality of my research is that it is strong, but could be improved, particularly with regard to internal reliability.

Chapter Four: Background and Context

4.1 History and Culture

Jordan is a country located in the Middle East, bordered by Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Palestine. Aside from a small coastline on the Red Sea to the South, it is mostly landlocked. It has an area of 89,342 km2_{and a population of just under 10 million. The majority of the population is Sunni}

Muslim, with a small Christian minority of between 2 - 6% (Maggiolini, 2016). It is a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy, however unlike other constitutional monarchies, the King of Jordan (King Abdullah II) has considerably more executive and legislative power. Although it is often considered the most stable country in the region, with a high level of human development and an upper middle-income economy, the recent turmoil in the region following the Arab Spring as well as the large recent influx of refugees has disrupted development and economic growth.

What is now the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan gained independence from Britain in 1946. Before this, the country had been called ‘Transjordan’ since its creation in 1921 after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. At that time, all people living within the borders were granted citizenship – a mixture of Bedouins, peasants, and settlers in the larger towns of Amman, Salt, and Ma’an. Thus, ‘Transjordan’ was defined in geographic, as opposed to ethnic, terms (Davis et al, 2017). This is important to note, as the people who may be considered ‘native’ Jordanians today are outnumbered by people (mostly Palestinians) who have migrated to Jordan over the past century.

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Last year, the GDP per capita for Jordan was $5,838 (IMF, 2018), and in 2015, the HDI was 0.74 (UNDP, 2016). The Gender Gap Index for Jordan is 0.604 – ranked 135th_{out of 144 countries (WEF, 2017) –}

showing that it can be considered one of the worst countries in the world to be a woman. Jordan scores particularly poorly in the dimensions of economics and politics (in health and education, men and women are much more equal). The poor scores in economics are due to the very low labour force participation and average earned income for women when compared to men. In addition, there are no laws in Jordan preventing discriminatory hiring practices or ensuring equal pay. The poor score in politics is due to the low proportions of women in government – only 15% of Jordan’s parliamentarians, and only 7.1% of people in ministerial positions are women (WEF, 2017).

Although Jordan has a fairly high-income economy, it suffers from high levels of unemployment, particularly youth unemployment. According to the World Bank, the total unemployment rate for the full population was 14.9% in 2017. Other reports have placed the figure higher, with the Jordanian Department of Statistics claiming unemployment reached a 25 year high of 18.2% in 2017. Among youth aged 15-24, the unemployment rate is 39.8%. There is also a significant gender dimension to unemployment. The unemployment rate for all women in Jordan in 2017 was 25%, compared to 12.8% for men. For young people, the female and male unemployment rates jump up to 62.8% and 34.4% respectively (World Bank, 2017).

The causes of this high youth unemployment are varied, but most scholars and economists agree that it is a phenomenon primarily concerned with difficulties in labour market insertion. I.e., the people who face long term employment tend to be young people who have never worked before, rather than people who have left previous employment, who tend to find employment again fairly quickly (Krafft, 2016). A report on unemployment in Jordan in 2005 found that the difficulties young people face in seeking a first job include:

• Little or no career guidance counselling for students and unemployed people • Limited possibilities of finding satisfying work after graduation

• Difficulty in obtaining jobs compatible with qualifications • Low wages and working conditions set by firms

• The gap between graduates’ skills and employers’ needs (which are not clearly expressed) (European Training Foundation, 2005)

The absolute number of women seeking a job is lower than the absolute number of men. However, because the total number of economically active women is much lower than the number of economically active men, the unemployment rate for women is much higher. The only sector in which women tend to outnumber men is education. It is also notable that the economic activity rate (that is the total number of people in the labour force, employed and unemployed) is much greater for unmarried women compared to married women (16% and 8% respectively), indicating that unmarried women have a much greater interest in finding employment. The opposite is true for men – married men are more likely to be economically active than those who are unmarried (European Training Foundation, 2005).

4.2 The Syrian Civil War and Refugee Crisis (2011 – Present)

As a result of the Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011 in the wake of the Arab Spring and has been ongoing ever since, over 5.6 million Syrians have fled the country to escape the violence. Please note, this number is the total number registered with the UNHCR, the actual number may be much greater. Of these, the vast majority have travelled to the surrounding nations of Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey (UNHCR, 2018).

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It is unclear exactly how many refugees there are in Jordan. There are currently over 655,000 Syrian refugees who are registered with the UNHCR in Jordan, however according to a 2015 census, the total number is likely closer to 1.2 million (SPARK, 2017). In addition to this, Jordan also has significant populations of refugees from other countries such as Iraq, Yemen, Sudan and Somalia, which in total, account for another 73,000 registered with the UNHCR (Davis et al, 2017).

Jordan also has a significant established population of Palestinian refugees who have been arriving from the disputed Palestinian territories for decades. There are over 2.1 million Palestinian refugees in Jordan registered with UNRWA. All but around 630,000 of these refugees have been given Jordanian passports and citizenship (Davis et al, 2017). The situation of Palestinian refugees in Jordan is fairly unusual. There is some international debate over whether they qualify as ‘refugees’, as all registered Palestinian refugees who arrived before a certain date were given Jordanian passports and citizenship (this has not been the case for the Syrian refugees, who have arrived more recently). Many have been there for so long, that they have fully integrated themselves into the Jordanian economy and society. Many second or third generation Palestinians describe themselves as Jordanian rather than Palestinian.

Of the refugees registered in Jordan, around 20% live in temporary refugee camps, the largest being Za’atari camp in Northern Jordan, whilst the majority of the remaining 80% live in urban centres in the North, including Amman, Irbid and Zarqa (Al-Qdah, 2017).

Considering Jordan’s total population is 9.8 million people, refugees make up a huge proportion of this number – over 20% according to the 2015 census (Davis et al, 2017). This has had a huge strain on Jordan’s resources and public services. In particular, it has exacerbated the ongoing issues of water scarcity (Baylouny, 2018).

It has also exacerbated Jordan’s ongoing issues of high unemployment, particularly youth unemployment. Whilst refugees are allowed to work in Jordan, provided they have work permits, the kind of jobs they are allowed to have are limited. They are not allowed to hold any public sector or government jobs, for example.

4.3 The SPARK Higher Education for Syrians (HES) and Improving Employment

Opportunities (IEO) programs

It is into this context that SPARK has set up projects in Jordan. SPARK is international NGO with headquarters based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands which works in the field of youth employment, education and entrepreneurship in several countries in Africa, Southeast Europe and the Middle East. Their goal, according to their website is to ‘develop higher education and entrepreneurship to empower young, ambitious people to lead their conflict affected societies into prosperity’. Since its conception, it has created 9826 jobs, 1718 of which have been for women, and given training to a total of 38,705 young people (SPARK, 2017).

SPARK have been operating in Jordan for the last few years, running several projects concerned with the employment of youth, including the ‘Talent Beyond Boundaries’ project, which aims to catalogue refugees with detailed descriptions of their education levels, experience and skills as a database for potential employers, and the ‘Small and Medium Enterprise Growth Programme’ which aims to foster a supportive business environment for entrepreneurial refugees. This research however, will be primarily concerned with the ‘Improving Employment Opportunities’ (IEO) program and the ‘Higher Education for Syrians’ (HES) program, which are being run in collaboration with the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and aims to increase the employability of Syrian, Palestinian and Jordanian youth through the ‘introduction and improvement of entrepreneurship education and mandatory

Gender equity and social justice for refugees in Jordan : how programs offering educational and employment opportunities can promote social justice for marginalised groups