Published Research and Studies

Effectiveness of a community-led shared book reading intervention in Syrian refugee children: a randomised controlled trial

A recent study published in Scientific Reports magazine assessed the impact of the “We Love Reading” (WLR) program—a community-led shared book reading program, developed in Jordan and implemented by the Taghyeer Foundation, led by Prof. Rana Dajani. It was designed to promote children’s love of reading, empower participants to become changemakers in their communities, the study assessed the impact of the program on Syrian refugee children in Jordan. Conducted as a pre-registered, wait-listed randomized controlled trial (AEARCTR-0006523), the study involved 322 mother–child dyads, with children aged 4–8. The trial measured the program’s impact on children’s literacy, attitudes toward reading, and family relationships.

Data were collected at two points: before the intervention (baseline, T1: Feb–May 2021) and immediately after (endline, T2: May–August 2021), approximately 3.5 months apart. The study revealed that mothers reported a slight improvement in their children’s attitudes toward reading, with the difference approaching statistical significance (p = 0.046, η² = 0.013).

Regarding family relationships, the study found that mothers in both the treatment and control groups reported improved spousal relationship quality. However, the control group experienced greater improvements (F = 4.83, p = 0.029, η² = 0.019). Additionally, the treatment group experienced a reduction in father-mother involvement compared to the control group (F = 6.57, p = 0.011, η² = 0.033).

In conclusion, the study shows that the We Love Reading program shows promise in improving mother-reported attitudes toward reading but did not lead to significant changes in children’s literacy, their own attitudes toward reading, or overall family relationships. To enhance the effectiveness of literacy programs, more interactive or intensive approaches may be needed. Further research is necessary to fully understand how shared book reading programs can best support the development of displaced children.

The study was funded by British Academy and Jacobs Foundation (CRISP Fellowship).

And it’s done by authors from the following institutions: Trinity College Dublin, Medair, The Hashemite University, Centre for Women’s Studies, Queen Mary University of London, Taghyeer, University of York.

The authors:  Kristin Hadfield, Mays Al-Hamad, Rana Dajani, Amal El Kharouf, Julia Michalek, Lina Qtaishat, Sophie von Stumm & Isabelle Mareschal .

Volunteer programs, empowerment, and life satisfaction in Jordan: mapping local knowledge and systems change to inform public policy and science diplomacy

Rana Dajani

Lina Qtaishat

Catherine Panter-Brick

Jannik Joseph Eggerman

Honey Thomas

Praveen Kumar

A recent collaborative study conducted by Yale University, the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), and Taghyeer sheds light on the nuanced perceptions of empowerment and life satisfaction among Syrian and Jordanian women residing in Amman, Jordan. The research, which focused on the transformative effects of empowerment programs, particularly the We Love Reading program, underscores the significance of incorporating local knowledge and lived experiences to gauge the true impact of such programs.

Utilizing fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) sessions, a participatory approach allowing for the visualization and measurement of participants’ understanding and causal logic, the study engaged 37 women in exploring their conceptions of empowerment and life satisfaction. Through this process, the women articulated diverse dimensions of empowerment, encompassing cultural, financial, psychological, and social aspects. Similarly, life satisfaction was described as rooted in contentment, acceptance, and fulfillment, often derived from faith and gratitude for life’s blessings.

The participants identified various factors influencing empowerment and life satisfaction, establishing both positive and negative connections among them. Tangible elements like financial stability and family support, as well as abstract concepts such as self-confidence, were considered significant factors. By assigning relative weights to these connections, ranging from -1 to +1, the women provided insights into the relative importance of each factor.

The study revealed that volunteering, particularly through the We Love Reading program, played a crucial role in enhancing women’s psychological and cultural empowerment. By participating in this program, women gained opportunities to educate themselves and actively contribute to their communities, fostering a sense of agency and fulfillment. Additionally, improvements in education, employment, and financial resources were found to positively impact women’s empowerment and overall life satisfaction.

To nurture changemakers, the “We Love Reading” program trains men and women in communities to read aloud to children in their neighborhoods. It also provides online training to foster a culture of reading for pleasure globally. There are thousands of “We Love Reading” ambassadors in 71 countries worldwide.

This research builds upon previous findings that highlighted the positive effects of the We Love Reading program on women’s well-being and social networks. The research team, including Rana Dajani, Lina Qutaishat, Catherine Panter-Brick, Honey Thomas, Jannik Eggerman, and Praveen Kumar, expressed their pleasure in working on this impactful project.

Father Involvement and Child Development: A Prospective Study of Syrian Refugee Families

Researchers:

Kristin Hadfield

Majd Al-Soleiti

Rana Dajani

Isabelle Mareschal

Catherine Panter-Brick

A recent study delving into Syrian refugee families with young children sheds light on an intriguing yet concerning aspect of parental dynamics. the research found that fathers in these families often perceived themselves as deeply involved parents, contrary to their wives’ perspectives.

Published in the Journal of Child and Family Studies, the study uncovered a significant correlation between spousal disagreement over paternal involvement and developmental shortfalls in children’s social and emotional learning (SEL). Interestingly, the level of actual fatherly engagement had no discernible impact on these outcomes.

The findings underscore the critical role of family dynamics in shaping children’s well-being during forced displacement. Disagreement between spouses over caregiving roles not only strained maternal mental health but also detrimentally affected children’s SEL, crucial for effective coping and learning.

The study’s implications extend beyond Syrian refugee families, suggesting that interventions targeting parental communication and caregiving negotiation could significantly enhance children’s mental health and social-emotional development. This insight holds promise for supporting families navigating stressful circumstances, fostering healthier environments for children’s growth and well-being.

Jannik J. Eggerman: Yale University, USA

Rana Dajani: Hashemite University, MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Praveen Kumar: School of Social Work, Boston College, USA

Susannah Chui: School of Business, The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Lina Qtaishat: Taghyeer Organization

Amal El Kharouf: University of Jordan

Catherine Panter-Brick: Conflict, Resilience, and Health Program, Yale University, USA

In response to large-scale refugee crises, frameworks for development assistance have promoted women’s empowerment, wellbeing, and social inclusion. A productive research agenda lies in analyzing social networks: it is unknown how women structure their social ties within refugee and host communities, and whether social networks matter for their sense of empowerment and wellbeing. In 2022, we surveyed Syrian refugee (n = 106) and Jordanian (n = 109) women from poor households across five neighborhoods in Amman. We implemented a standard network survey instrument (PERSNET) to assess network structure and composition. We tested associations with six measures (PE, MRS, MTL, Cantril, PWB, MSPSS) of psychological empowerment and wellbeing. We then conducted participatory network mapping (Net-Map) to assess local meanings of empowerment and visually map the pathways between social actors, community-based work, and psychological outcomes. Survey data show that networks were highly homogeneous, smaller for Syrians than Jordanians (p = 0.0001), and smaller for women in very poor households (p < 0.0001). As network size increased, so did levels of psychological empowerment (p = 0.02), motivation to lead (p = 0.007) and perceived social support (p = 0.001). Notably, as networks became increasingly kin-based, empowerment levels decreased (p = 0.003). Networks were more diverse for community volunteers, who named fewer female, married, and kin-based peers (p ≤ 0.05), and reported higher levels of resourcefulness (p = 0.01) and psychological wellbeing (p = 0.002). Qualitative data show that women, who described empowerment as “ability” and “proof of existence,” drew upon volunteering work to diversify their networks outside the home. Such evidence matters for development initiatives that build programs for women to work, learn, and socially interact. We conclude that expanding opportunities for volunteer work is one way of diversifying social networks and empowering urban poor women. Our research helps better understand how women can be supported to diversify their social ties, take community leadership roles, and respond to social change.

Kristin Hadfield: Trinity College Dublin, International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA)
Mays Al-Hamad: Taghyeer Organization
Rinad Bakhti: Queen Mary University of London

Rana Dajani: Hashemite University, MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Amal El Kharouf: University of Jordan
Julia Michalek: Queen Mary University of London

Joana Mukunzi: University of Ottawa
Lina Qtaishat: Taghyeer Organization
Tanvi Sethi: London Business School MBA

Sophie von Stumm: University of York
Isabelle Mareschal: Queen Mary University

Refugee children often face disruptions to their education before and during displacement. However, little is known about either levels or predictors of refugee children’s literacy or about their attitudes toward reading in low- or middle-income countries. To address this, we conducted in-home literacy assessments using the Holistic Assessment of Learning and Development Outcomes with 322 Syrian refugee mother-child dyads who lived in Jordan (child age range 4-8 years, M = 6.32 years, 50% female). Overall, the children had quite low levels of literacy, although they indicated a strong enthusiasm for reading. Child age, maternal education, and maternal ability to read all predicted child literacy, although maternal literacy predicted it only among children enrolled in school. Among those enrolled in school (64.9% of the total sample, 88.7% of those aged ≥ 6), students attending hybrid classes had better literacy than those attending either solely in-person or solely online, although the frequency of school attendance did not predict literacy. A less consistent pattern emerged for predicting children’s attitudes toward reading. Our results suggest an urgent need to improve literacy skills among refugee children in Jordan, as well as a need for validated measures of attitudes toward reading for use with Arabic-speaking youth.

Julia Michalek: Queen Mary University of London
Matteo Lisi: Royal Holloway University of London
Nicola Binetti: Queen Mary University of London

International School for Advanced Studies
(SISSA), Trieste, Italy
Sumeyye Ozkaya: Queen Mary University of London
Kristin Hadfield: Trinity College Dublin, International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA)
Rana Dajani: Hashemite University
Isabelle Mareschal: Queen Mary University of London

Experiences of war and displacement can have profound effects on children’s affective development and mental health, although the mechanism(s) underlying these effects remain unknown. This study investigated the link between early adversity and attention to affective stimuli using a free-viewing eye-tracking paradigm with Syrian refugee (n = 31, Mage = 9.55, 12 female) and Jordanian non-refugee (n = 55, Mage = 9.98, 30 female) children living in Jordan (March 2020). Questionnaires assessed PTSD, anxiety/depression, insecurity, distress, and trauma. Refugee children showed greater initial avoidance of angry and happy faces compared to non-refugee children, and higher trauma exposure was linked to increased sustained attention to angry stimuli. These findings suggest that war-related trauma may have differential effects on the early and later stages of affective processing in refugee children.

Catherine Panter-Brick: Yale University
Rana Dajani: Hashemite University, University of Richmond
Dima Hamadmad: Department of Research and Development, Taghyeer Organization
Kristin Hadfield: Trinity College Dublin

Humanitarian research with Syrian refugees can be difficult to conduct in person, due to COVID-19 containment, security, and logistics issues. We assessed whether the online implementation of a brief, culturally grounded resilience measure would yield reliable responses for use with children and adolescents in the Middle East region. We implemented an online survey screening for socio-economic status, insecurity, prosocial behavior, and resilience (using the Child Youth Resilience Measure, CYRM) with 119 Syrian refugees (14–18 years old; 74 male, 45 female) living in Jordan. Responses were compared with in-person data, available for a separate cohort of 324 Syrian refugees, previously sampled in Jordan with the same survey instruments. The online CYRM produced reliable and valid responses, as shown by analyses of internal reliability, convergent and divergent validity, and 7-day test-retest consistency. We reflect on the logistic, ethical, and methodological challenges of online surveys, and suggest ways to plan and execute online research in hard-to-reach, crisis-affected communities.

Paul D. Hastings: University of California Davis
Lindsey C. Partington: University of California Davis
Rana Dajani: Hashemite University, Richmond University
Antje von Suchodoletz: New York University Abu Dhabi, New York University Global TIES for Children Research Center

This study of 52 predominantly lower income Jordanian and Syrian families with young children (31 girls; Mage = 53.37 months, SD = 3.53) in Jordan began in 2019, before the pandemic. Families were followed to explore stress physiology, family functioning, and mental health over the first 9 months of the pandemic. Mothers reported less adaptive coping and more negative changes to family life in June 2020 when their children had poorer behavioral self-regulation and more behavior problems, and when families had lower income, in 2019. More negative changes to family life predicted greater hair cortisol concentrations in children in June 2020, and more negative changes and less adaptive coping predicted worse child and mother psychosocial adjustment in December 2020.

The effects of a reading-based intervention on emotion processing in children who have suffered early adversity and war related trauma 2021.

Julia E. Michalek: Queen Mary University of London
Matteo Lisi: University of Essex
Deema Awad: Queen Mary University of London
Kristin Hadfield: Trinity College Dublin
Isabelle Mareschal:Queen Mary University
Rana Dajani: Hashemite University, University of Richmond

Suffering any type of trauma can cause serious issues to children’s mental health, therefore, interventions of any kind are necessary to help with socioemotional and psychological development. According to that, a research has been made to examine the advantages of reading-based intervention in helping children who have suffered early adversity and war-related trauma. The scientists who were responsible for the research used the We Love Reading program as an example to examine the study on the children. Participants were Syrian refugees (n=49) and Jordanian non-refugee children (n=45) aged 7-12 years old (M=8.9, 57% girls) living in Jordan. To measure emotion recognition, children classified the expression in faces morphed between two emotions (happy-sad and fear-anger), while mental health was assessed using survey measures of more complicated expressions. Before the intervention, both groups of children interpreted ambiguous expressions as sad, while there was no clear bias on the fear-anger spectrum. After the intervention, the scientists found changes in Syrian refugee children’s bias in emotion recognition away from sad facial expressions. This shift in the bias was not associated with changes in self-reported mental health symptoms. The results suggest a potential positive role of the reading intervention on affective development, but further research is required to determine the longer-term impacts of the program.

Reading social stories in the community: A promising intervention for promoting children’s environmental knowledge and behavior in Jordan 2017. 

Randa Ali Mahasneh:Qatar University
Michael H. Romanowski:Qatar University
Rana Dajani: Hashemite University

Traditionally, education in various forms has been used as a tool to change values and behavior in children regarding the environment. These study reports findings from the We Love Reading Program that utilizes the reading of Social Stories in various communities in Jordan to address the environmental problems of Jordan. Results indicated the effectiveness of this informal educational intervention showing a significant increase in children’s knowledge about environmental issues and a positive change in behavior related to electricity and water consumption and littering, as reported by parents. The authors provide several recommendations on how Social Stories and appropriate curriculum can be used in schools and community to create awareness in students regarding environmental issues.

We Love Reading – a women’s literacy program in the Arab world 2017.

Rana Dajani: Hashemite University
Abdullah Awad: Cambridge University

Older women who are readers feel a sense of fulfillment that they are serving their communities, and have something to offer. They become wise advisors in the leadership role they assume in the neighborhood. Youth have come up with innovative projects for literacy and reading, such as libraries on buses and reading clubs in villages. The WLR model has been adopted by ACEV the Mother Child Education Foundation in Turkey within their program of women literacy. They are using reading stories as a way of educating illiterate mothers. In Mexico, the model has been adopted by indigenous populations as a way to preserve
the oral heritage and pride of the local communities, as well as increase school enrollment. The model has been implemented by more developed countries to encourage literacy among immigrant communities and by refugee communities allowing for a constructive outlet to conditions of impoverishment. The model spread through word of mouth, social media and lectures.
The women who have been involved in WLR have developed into empowered women who have gained respect of their community members, not only among females but, importantly, among the males in their community. Trained women from refugee camps reported that the men of the neighborhood encourage them in their role as leaders of the libraries. Mosques clerics open their doors to women to manage and administer
the read-aloud sessions with joy and pride and donate funds to buy books. Alone in Jordan WLR has trained 2000 women, created 1200 libraries and directly
impacted 15,000 children (of which 60% are girls) and indirectly reached another 50,000 individuals (January 2016). The overall impact on the development of society is immeasurable.
In an evaluation done by the Hashemite University, The WLR program showed an 84% increase in leadership skills among the volunteers (unpublished data).

Impact Assessment We Love Reading 2017.

Walaa Aqrabawi: Integrated Services Indigenous Solutions (INTEGRATED)
Sirsa Qursha: Integrated Services Indigenous Solutions (INTEGRATED)
Rula Hiyari: Integrated Services Indigenous Solutions (INTEGRATED)

The assessment showed that WLR is very effective in cultivating the love of reading among children, noted by volunteers, parents and donors alike. WLR is somewhat effective in creating “change makers” in the communities in that a large majority of volunteers reported taking a leadership role in their communities and 80% established a good network. However, less than half (46%) trained other people on reading aloud for children, or took on other initiatives in the community (45%). There is a need to augment volunteers’ leadership potential and encourage them to train and empower other community members in order to better achieve change making outcomes.

SUSTAINABILITY

The WLR model is sustainable to the extent that it is human-centered, relies primarily on volunteers in the local communities (community-based), and is relatively cost-free. The ownership created among volunteers and wide donor base contribute to sustainability. Although almost up to half the WLR volunteers reported to have sustained their libraries, due to lack of clarity in definitions of active libraries/volunteers, it is not possible to draw substantive conclusions about sustainability of libraries among WLR volunteers, giving rise to a need to establish a clear definition of sustainability inclusive of: training date, first session date, frequency and number of read aloud sessions conducted, number of children in attendance. Nevertheless, there is strong evidence that volunteers are willing to continue their libraries, and sustainability could be supported by WLR’s additional attention to provision of additional reading material, addressing challenges to recruitment, problem behavior among children, and follow-up and networking support to volunteers. WLR’s continued attention to volunteers’ desire to belong to a movement larger than the individual could support improved sustainability outcomes.

The impact of the We Love Reading pilot program on the psychosocial health of participating children in Zaatari refugee camp 2014.

Sarah Yazji: Yale University

Catherine Panter-Brick: Yale University

We Love Reading was introduced in Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan through a pilot project in the summer of 2014. A psycho-social study designed by Yale University (USA) was conducted to assess the social and mental state of both the reading ambassadors and the children. The results in the test of resilience showed that the children who were read to had a greater ability to recover and return to a normal state after undergoing difficulties. There are a large number of children in Zaatari camp who are not enrolled in school for various reasons and reading aloud to these children encouraged them to go back to school. In addition, the children learned to love reading and to think and make decisions for themselves.

Of the 26 trained storytellers, 12 were reached, about 40%. The age of the storytellers ranged from 17 years old to mid-40s. All of the readers except 3 that were interviewed already work for IRD or at the IRD center. Of those who already worked for IRD or at the center, many cited their current involvement in similar activities as their reason for attending the training session. Of those who said that this was their first time taking part in this kind of activity, two cited their husbands as the person who informed them about the initial training for the program. Their husbands worked at the IRD centers.
Those who were interviewed did not know the remaining ladies who did not provide any contact information. The remaining ladies did not already work with IRD or partnering NGOs.

Reading about people’s feelings increases empathic concern and generosity in children 2014.

Jean Decety: University of Chicago

Jason M. Cowell: University of Chicago

Rana Dajani: Hashemite University

In 2014, We Love Reading, in collaboration with the University of Chicago (USA), conducted a study measuring the impact of the We Love Reading model on increasing children’s ability to empathize with others. It showed that integrating the values of empathy into children’s stories increased children’s generosity by 100%. In addition, it increased children’s interest in and concern for others. Importantly, the intervention did not affect what is called “affective empathy” or pain sensitivity. These changes were not observed in children who were not read to and who did not participate in the reading sessions.