You can read more about what Garcia spoke about here. The evening also marked two other significant moments: the formal announcement of establishing Marri Mittigar, Barker’s ‘school within a school’ for students from a refugee background, and the Barker Institute launch of research I had completed about refugee education. Together, they demonstrated how research and practice can inform one another, with research shaping both the establishment of Marri Mittigar and the teaching and learning model that continues to guide its work. I am currently reviewing and updating Towards a Pedagogy for Radical Hope, but the text is still available on the Barker Institute here.

Garcia’s challenge invited us to think differently about humanitarian education. Towards a Pedagogy of Radical Hope sought to provide a theoretical response to that challenge, while Marri Mittigar became its practical expression. Since then, I have continued to find a strong resonance between the work of the IEP and my own work as a researcher and History & Global Perspectives teacher. Schools rightly focus on what happens within classrooms. We think about students, teachers, curriculum, wellbeing, and school improvement. All of these are daily concerns. However, many of the educational questions we seek to answer are shaped by forces beyond the school gates. Conflict, displacement, social cohesion, technological change, and economic uncertainty all shape the lives of young people long before they enter a classroom.

Organisations such as IEP make an important contribution here to those of us engaged in close-to-practice educational research. They provide a macro lens that helps us understand the wider context in which schools operate, reminding us that while our work might begin with individual learners, it certainly does not stop there. Whether it is through the Barker Journey, which seeks to understand how young people experience learning and schooling over time, or through our work in refugee education, we continually look to connect the lived experiences of students with the broader social, cultural, and humanitarian realities that shape those experiences. Good school-based educational research not only improves classroom practice but also help schools understand the world their students are growing up in and, ultimately, preparing to influence.

The evening also reinforced something I have increasingly come to believe about educational research. It is strongest when it connects the micro, meso, and macro: the experiences of individual learners, the practices of schools, and the wider global forces that shape them both. Research that remains at only one of these levels tells only part of the story. We need institutions that help us move confidently between those three levels of understanding.

Congratulations again to the Institute for Economics & Peace on the release of the 2026 Global Peace Index. Thank you for continuing to remind us that educating well also requires understanding the wider world our students are preparing to shape.