The Education of Refugees with Sensory Impairments in Lebanon

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The proposed project explores the educational experiences of refugees with sensory impairments in Lebanon, building on findings and networks from my MPhil research. Refugees with disabilities face compounded exclusions, and are marginalised in both research and practice. In Lebanon, these experiences are particularly underexplored, and sensory impairments are the least studied disability in the region. Despite myriad exclusions, the MPhil research highlighted how refugees with disabilities are adopting resilient methods to resist their marginalisation, and how NGOs are the primary spaces through which they advocate for their rights. In education research, though, these positive experiences are largely unseen, and in practice, refugees with disabilities are left to fend for themselves. The study proposes to explore the overlooked exclusions refugees with disabilities face; how they are enacted; how they are overcome; and the particular role of NGOs in this landscape. It proposes the phenomenological methodology of portraiture, a participatory, in-depth, ethnographic-style method, with approximately 25 refugees with sensory impairments and three NGOs. Besides sharing the unheard stories of refugees with sensory impairments in Lebanon, it proposes to extract valuable lessons from a resilient group of learners; to propose how they can best be supported; and ultimately, to enhance the visibility, understanding, and experiences of refugees with sensory impairments in Lebanon.