Q&A with LSX Fellow Mariam El Marakeshy on the Global Power of Education and Intercultural Communication

Your work spans several areas including migration, environment, and cultures. What led you to include education as a focal area of your work?

The reason I have always included education as part of my work, using a multidisciplinary approach, is that I believe in its powerful ability for social change. Education is a key tool for bringing real solutions to global problems, as it influences the perceptions and beliefs of people and how they behave socially and contribute to society. I always say that media and education are two key elements for influencing society and so they are important areas of work if we aim to achieve an impact and resolve social challenges.

Through my work in media, I have been exploring subjects like migration (as in my award-winning film Transit about migrants in Europe), environment, and cultures, but I have also worked extensively on education. I have produced media projects on alternative educational initiatives that bring innovative approaches to learning in different contexts, like in refugee camps and other humanitarian settings. I have created projects on migrant education and international students’ challenges in Turkey, like in my award-winning film Misafir A Guest. I’ve explored education challenges of the pandemic in Europe through multimedia work with NatGeo. I’ve also produced unique educational programs, like my Scientists Education Project about environmental sciences masters programs, with HHMI and NatGeo in southern Africa. I have made TV programs and media campaigns on social impact projects to build schools in rural areas in many regions. I also contribute to some global educational platforms like the Platform of International Education in the Netherlands for implementing international knowledge exchange programs within higher education. My work in the area of museum education employs educational and storytelling tools within museum spaces to better serve the community and improve the social role of museums.

As an educator myself, I have been appointed as a lecturer in academia for some years, and I am now teaching storytelling, media ethics, and social impact media to school- and university-level students in multiple regions including Europe and Central Asia, in addition to volunteering in educational projects as part of my contribution to social and humanitarian campaigns serving better learning of marginalized groups. I have also focused on education during my work with the United Nations in international development projects and I have contributed to many social impact campaigns to improve education systems with UNESCO and multiple NGOs, especially in the area of teaching ethics and multicultural learning.

What stories need more attention in order to build understanding about education systems?

The stories that need more attention are those that bring voices of marginalized groups ̶ those whose voices can’t be reached easily or are often disregarded, like migrants, refugees, people with special needs and educational needs, and people in rural areas. Stories that shed the light on challenges and drawbacks of educational systems and how to overcome them are also important to build better understanding about how to improve these systems to better serve the needs of society. Solutions journalism stories, which focus on educational projects or initiatives that aim to solve problems within the education systems, are also needed to highlight what works and hasn’t worked in regard to challenges and opportunities within global education systems. For example, I have been a jury member for the Solutions Journalism Awards in which many media projects focus on education.

Stories that tackle issues like misinformation and bias within curriculums and educate people on how to eliminate misconceptions are also needed. For example, I have worked in the area of education on media ethics through a project to educate media professionals and organizations in Europe about ethical storytelling in our Report Diversity publication. In general, we need more in-depth stories that go beyond the typical reporting and investigate underlying causes and sociocultural elements within education for better understanding of the challenges and opportunities available to improve learning.

You facilitate connections among students and professionals across the world. Can you talk about the value of these connections in understanding education challenges and solutions?

I am accredited as an intercultural facilitator to facilitate communication between students and professionals worldwide who come from diverse cultural backgrounds. The aim of this kind of mediation and communication is to build better cultural understanding and help in conflict resolution. This is done through bringing different perspectives and changing misconceptions and wrong perceptions about other cultures that have been caused by media misinformation or conscious bias and other societal stereotyping regarding cultural diversity and differences among groups. I believe that we need this kind of intercultural communication, especially within education systems, to help students and teachers bring their cultures and voices to the learning environment, which will improve their learning achievements. And, this is what we have used in our LSX product, the SuperDiverse Gamekit, which allows students to express their cultures in classrooms in an actively respectful environment to improve their learning.

What have you learned during your fellowship that policymakers need to know?

I have learned that multidisciplinary experience is very valuable and needed to solve educational problems. Coming from a very diverse background myself, in terms of expertise across media, education, and social impact, this was very useful in rethinking problems and introducing solutions through bringing different perspectives that serve the objective of the fellowship. Also, I have learned that interdisciplinary collaboration among different sectors is much needed to tackle the challenges of education, especially when working with marginalized groups and those who present more complicated needs that are sometimes disregarded at the policymaking level. Including expertise from different regions is also very useful as it provides a better multicultural approach to problem solving, which is a valuable input that is rare in policy discussions and decisions. A global perspective is very valuable and could be useful in tackling even local challenges. The values of respect and active sharing of ideas and talents is also something that is unique to the fellowship and is a good lesson from which policymakers can benefit.