IREX technical experts in youth, education, and media literacy will share their insights and learnings at this year’s Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) Conference in Minneapolis, MN.

IREX sessions at CIES highlight key technical work including higher education capacity building, teacher workforce/pre-service teacher education, girls' education and empowerment, digital literacy and critical information consumption, youth essential skills/skill measurement, and implementation research.

Join IREXers virtually and in-person for the following sessions:

Equipping Diverse Youth to Thrive: New Insights on Skills Development, Inclusion, and Measurement

Monday, April 18, 6:00 to 7:30 a.m. CDT, Virtual Pajamas Session, VR 110-4

Presenter/Discussant:  Emily Miller

Youth globally need to adapt to the changing nature of work, making the skill of “Learning to Learn”—a skill that enables youth to harness a "growth mindset," learn independently, and adapt to change—especially critical. This presentation will introduce listeners to IREX’s Youth Essential Skills (YES) Toolkit, which prepares young people for the opportunities and challenges of the future by developing crucial soft skills and preparing them to become adaptable learners in a time of rapid change.  We will discuss how the 11 research-backed essential skills honed by this toolkit, particularly Learning to Learn, equip youth to navigate and thrive amidst complex change.

Implementation Research: Opening Doors for New Leadership in Research and Advancing Data for Decision Making

Monday, April 18 – 6:00  to 9:00 a.m. CDT, Virtual Pajamas Session, VR 105

Presenter/Discussant: Brian Batayeh, Monica Salazar Vides, and Chris Ouma

In this interactive, virtual, three-hour workshop, participants will learn about Youth Excel’s Research-to-Change (implementation research) approach and, in small groups, will participate in a research planning exercise using the tools. Participants may bring their own research ideas or may use case studies to learn about the tools.

Using Higher Education Institutional Capacity Assessment to Reduce Barriers to Entry

Monday, April 18 – 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. CDT, Hyatt Regency - Minneapolis, Floor: 2, Greenway A 

Presenter/Discussant: Rebecca Ward and Tom Fenton

Participants will be introduced to, and have opportunity to use, a “Research Management 360” (part of a wider Higher Education Institutional Capacity Assessment Tool) designed to highlight priority areas for investment that support the objective of positioning “Global South” institutions to lead research on issues that affect them.

Media Literacy for Future Journalists: Research Findings and Recommendations

Tuesday, April 19, 9:30 to 11:00 a.m. CDT, Hyatt Regency - Minneapolis, Floor: 2, St. Croix

Presenter/Discussant: Kaspars Ruklis

This poster will highlight the overall achievements of the Media Literacy in the Baltics Program and explore the program’s integration media literacy and critical information engagement as part of university curricula in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.  Using data from monitoring and evaluation results, the poster will illustrate students’ progress throughout their Journalism in the Era of Disinformation course in 2020-21.  The presentation will be widely applicable to CIES participants interested in media literacy, journalism, effective tactics to combat misinformation, responsible digital citizenship and incorporating media literacy into formal university curriculum, as well as measuring impact of these interventions.

Bike racks, apps, and hydroponics: Impacts of the Gender Inclusive Youth Development Program, SHE’S GREAT!

Tuesday, April 19, 9:30 to 11:00 a.m. CDT, Hyatt Regency - Minneapolis, Nicollet D2

Presenter/Discussant: Cai Thomas, Sarah Bever, and Hannah Spiers

IREX will present and examine the impacts of SHE’s GREAT!, a holistic community-based gender responsive program, on 320+ youth aged 13-18 in three countries: the Kyrgyz Republic, Jordan, and Georgia. IREX staff will discuss the program framework and design, and three representatives will explore the unique findings and challenges and unpack the realities of young people in each country.

Building Research Management Capacity to Reduce Barriers to Entry

Tuesday, April 19, 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. CDT, Hyatt Regency - Minneapolis, Floor: 2, Mirage

Presenter/Discussant: Rebecca Ward

IREX will present synthesized data from over 50 UASP participants’ assessments of their universities’ capacity, and qualitative data from participative training workshops, to provide a snapshot of management capacity, threats, and opportunities that impact institutions’ ability to lead research collaborations on issues that impact them. Barriers relating to management of sponsored research, research governance, data management, faculty management, dissemination and visibility, and knowledge and technology transfer will be explored before priority development needs are drawn.

Using a National Perceptions of Teaching Survey to Inform Teacher Education Policy and Practice in Jordan 

Tuesday, April 19, 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. CDT, Hyatt Regency - Minneapolis, Floor: 2, Greenway D

Presenters and affiliations: Rebecca Ward

IREX will share insights on the design and implementation of a nationally representative survey on perceptions of the teaching profession in Jordan, the data arising, and how this is being used to inform teacher education policy and practice.

Youth-led research: Bringing the experiences of diverse youth to the center to advance meaningful inclusion and strengthen sustainability

Wednesday, April 20, 2022, 6:00 to 7:30 a.m. CDT, Virtual Pajamas Session, VR 113

Presenter/Discussant: Zaira Lainez, Tsega Belachew, and Brenda Xum

This panel presentation will explore youth-led research from three interrelated lenses. The first presentation will share Youth Excel’s Intersectional Rapid Gender and Protection Analysis tool alongside a case study of how it was applied in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The second paper compares and contrasts youth perspectives and development practitioner perspectives in uncovering what specific supports youth require for their learning-to-earning journeys. The third presentation explores how youth-led research processes may both reinforce and demolish internalized power differentials between and within groups and the impacts of continuing to silence marginalized groups.

Build media and information literacy competencies at school to safeguard the future of citizenship and democracy

Thursday, April 21, 2022, 9:00 to 10:30 p.m. CDT, Virtual Pajamas Session, VR 110-2

Presenter/Discussant: Katya Vogt

This panel will present and discuss what constitutes today’s media and information literacy education, present evidence that it is an effective resilience tool against disinformation that threatens democracy, make an equity case for integrating it into education and discuss several models and best practices of how to do it to maximize impact on students’ information engagement habits, and illustrate these points with both domestic and international examples.