Environmental degradation, resource scarcity and protracted displacement increasingly shape the educational realities of refugee-hosting regions (Dryden-Peterson 2024; Dobson et al. 2021). While these dynamics are evident globally, they are particularly pronounced in low-income countries where refugees are commonly accommodated in camps (Bose 2024). In such contexts, refugees and host communities live in close geographic proximity and depend on shared ecological systems that are under growing strain due to population pressure, deforestation, soil erosion and limited access to sustainable energy (Nakalembe et al. 2022). These environmental pressures intersect with educational inequalities, livelihood precarity and socio-political tensions, shaping everyday life and learning for both refugees and host-community learners (Bjørkhaug et al. 2025; Dryden-Peterson 2024). Despite this interdependence, education responses in refugee-hosting contexts have largely prioritised access, inclusion and system alignment, often overlooking the potential role of education in fostering environmental sustainability, collective agency and shared futures (Dryden-Peterson et al. 2019; Dobson et al. 2021; Bose 2024).

Environmental Sustainability Education (ESE) offers a critical framework for addressing these intertwined challenges by linking ecological understanding with social justice, participation and shared responsibility (Tryggvason et al. 2022). Drawing on Freirean critical pedagogy and ecopedagogical perspectives (Misiaszek 2023; Jones 2023), this study understands ESE as a dialogical and problem-posing process through which learners critically engage with environmental challenges while examining the social, political and economic conditions that shape their educational experiences (Jones 2023; Tryggvason et al. 2022). Rather than framing sustainability as a matter of individual behaviour change or technical environmental management, this approach foregrounds collective learning, critical consciousness and action-oriented competences (Ardoin et al. 2023). In contexts of forced displacement, such an orientation is particularly important, as environmental challenges are deeply entangled with questions of power, inequality, belonging and access to resources (Dryden-Peterson 2024; Dobson et al. 2021).

This study explores the role of ESE in fostering sustainability competences, pro environmental action and social cohesion among refugee and host community learners living in protracted co-settlement contexts in Uganda. While supranational policy makers in the education field such as UNESCO increasingly underscore learning for environmental sustainability, there remains limited empirical research examining how sustainability oriented education is conceptualised (Oe et al. 2022), enacted and experienced within shared refugees-hosts educational spaces. In particular, little is known about how such education operates in contexts of displacement and structural inequality and how it can supports learners’ critical awareness and agency, collective action and negotiated forms of belonging. Conceptually grounded in Freirean critical pedagogy and ecopedagogy, the study positions ESE as both a pedagogical and social process through which learners critically engage with shared environmental challenges, interrogate power relations and construct collective sustainability imaginaries within contexts of protracted displacement settlements (Dryden-Peterson 2024).

Adopting a qualitative case study approach, the research draws on in-depth engagement with approximately 20 participants, including refugee and host-community learners and teachers. This sample size enables an depth and contextual sensitivity required to explore complex pedagogical processes and lived experiences in a resource-constrained and socially diverse research setting, while prioritising analytical rather than statistical generalisation. Through participatory and dialogical ecopedagogical practices, the study examines how learners develop sustainability knowledge, critical-system thinking, collaborative-participatory problem solving and collective agency and how co-learning processes can constitutes a possibility for sustainable co-existence. The research hope to broaden debates on inclusion, educational purpose and sustainability in contexts of forced displacement, while also critically illuminating the structural constraints and tensions that shape educational practice under conditions of scarcity and structural inequality.

The study focuses on refugee-host co-settlement communities in Uganda. While the term co-settlement communities is not a fixed category in academic literature, it is used here analytically to foreground the relational and spatial interconnectedness of refugees and host communities whose daily realities, vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities are shaped by common socio-educational, socio-ecological and environmental conditions (Nakalembe et al. 2022; Bjørkhaug et al. 2025; Dryden-Peterson et al. 2019). This relational framing builds on scholarship on shared schooling spaces, refugee-host relations and environmental interdependence (Oe et al. 2022; Ardoin et al. 2023; Bjørkhaug et al. 2025). This grounds ESE as a collective concern shaped by relations and interactions rather than an individual or group specific learning. Conceptually, the study draws on the ideas from relational pedagogy which situates teaching and learning as emergent from interactions between learners, educators and their environment (Moran and Richards 2025). The research adopts a qualitative case study design situated within a social constructivist and critical paradigm (Amna Saleem et al. 2021). The case is located in a protracted refugee hosting region in Uganda and includes refugees and host community young people learning together. Schools and educational facilities are conceptualised as part of broader communities of practice in which educators, students, families and local and international organisations engage collaboratively in environmental learning and action (Dryden-Peterson et al. 2019; Bjørkhaug et al. 2025). Framing the research through relational dynamics enables an exploration of how learners’ interaction with peers, teachers and other community actors such as NGOs and families shape their understanding of sustainability, negotiation of responsibilities and participation in collective environmental initiatives. Data are generated through semi-structured interviews with refugee and host-community learners and teachers, alongside classroom and activity observations. This study uses vignettes to explore learners’ relational engagement and co-construction of sustainability knowledge within refugees-hosts educational settings (Mickelsson and Oljans 2025). The study employs reflexive thematic analysis to identify patterns of meaning across participants’ accounts while attending to issues of power, positionality and contextual specificity. Particular attention is paid to researcher reflexivity and ethical engagement in a resource-constrained, socially diverse and vulnerable setting. This methodological approach supports an in-depth exploration of learners’ experiences of ESE, the pedagogical practices through which sustainability is addressed and the possibilities and constraints for collective learning and action within refugee–host co-settlements.

The study highlights shared environmental challenges as a meaningful entry point for collaborative and dialogue learning between refugee and host-community learners in protracted co-settlement contexts. Participatory ESE practices, including school-based environmental clubs, community projects and dialogical classroom activities, appear to support the development of critical awareness of environmental issues and their social, political and economic dimensions (Tryggvason et al. 2022). These practices enable learners to recognise environmental degradation as a shared problem rather than a group-specific concern and to articulate forms of responsibility that extend beyond individual or community boundaries (Oe et al. 2022). In this sense, ESE demonstrates potential for fostering collective sustainability agency (Finger et al. 2021). At the same time, the study identify structural constraints and significant tensions such as overcrowded classrooms, limited material resources and competitive narratives of inclusion that frame education as a scarce good constrain the scope for sustained engagement with sustainability education (Dobson et al. 2021; Dryden-Peterson 2024). Under such conditions, ESE risks being marginalised unless it is deliberately integrated into everyday teaching and learning practices. Moreover, without careful attention to issues of power, inequality and belonging, participatory approaches may inadvertently reproduce existing hierarchies rather than challenge them, echoing broader concerns about “paradoxes of inclusive exclusion” in refugee education (Dobson et al. 2021). The study hopes to contribute to research on education in protracted co-settlement contexts by foregrounding environmental sustainability as a shared and politically significant dimension of education. It advances ecopedagogical perspectives by demonstrating how ESE can support critical-system thinking, collaborative problem-solving and collective agency when grounded in participatory and dialogical practices (Ardoin et al. 2023). For policy and practice, the study hope to establish that education in refugee-host contexts should move beyond access-oriented models to engage more fully with sustainability, social cohesion and the lived environmental realities of learners.

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