Refugee Encampment, School-aged Pregnancy and Motherhood: A Visual Critical Ethnography of Refugee Girls’ Educational Disruptions, Agency, and Resilience at Dzaleka Refugee Camp

Pempho Chinkondenji

Forced displacement often disrupts access to essential resources, and for girls living in refugee camps, limited reproductive health services and heightened exposure to gendered vulnerabilities can increase the risk of adolescent pregnancy. Unfortunately, adolescent refugee girls who are pregnant or parenting during their school years often navigate layered forms of exclusion, including social stigma within camps and unwelcoming school environments. This study critically examines how African refugee girls at Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi navigate the intersecting experiences of schooling, adolescent pregnancy, and motherhood within conditions of encampment. By employing a visual critical ethnography that draws from Afrocentric perspectives, the study centers on the voices and perspectives of these young women, highlighting their resilience, agency, and the complexities of their educational journeys. In this study, I blend participatory-social justice methods and ethnographic modes of inquiry by bringing together photovoice and critical ethnography. This approach enables pregnant and mothering refugee girls to actively document and share their experiences in ways that disrupt the status quo and facilitate social change. The findings contribute to the global discourse on inclusive education by challenging dominant practices that perpetuate the pushout of pregnant and mothering refugee girls from school. Methodologically, the study offers educational researchers a framework for centering refugee girls' voices and agency to understand the complexities of girls' education in international contexts.

About Pempho Chinkondenji

Pempho Chinkondenji is an Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations and Research at the University of North Dakota. Her research is situated in the field of comparative and international education and broadly examines structural inequalities within educational policies and practices, with emphasis on African and African diaspora communities. More specifically, Dr. Chinkondenji's research lies at the intersection of education, gender justice, student pregnancy, refugee education, and forced displacement. Grounded in African onto-epistemologies, her scholarship draws from African feminisms, Ubuntu, and post/de-colonial thought to interrogate gender and power dynamics in international education. Dr. Chinkondenji's forthcoming book (2025), Drop-out, Push-out, or Walk-out?, centers on issues of social justice and equity for pregnant learners and school-aged mothers in international contexts, critically challenging dominant notions of studenthood and motherhood within and beyond educational spaces. Her research has been published in leading journals, including Gender and Education (2022), The Journal of Negro Education (2022), Journal of Black Studies (2024), Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education (2025), and Comparative Education Review (2025), among others. She has received various awards, including the 2024 Gail P. Kelly Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation and the 2024 Joyce Cain Award for Distinguished Research on People of African Descent, both conferred by the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES). Dr. Chinkondenji earned her Ph.D. in International Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, an M.A. in Cross-cultural and International Education from Bowling Green State University, and a B.A. in Mass Communication from African Bible College.