UNESCO Chair on Refugee Integration through Education, Language and Arts

This episode is a recording of a presentation by Dr Maria Grazia Imperiale, Dr Giovanna Fassetta, Dr Sahar Alshobaki and Damian Ross, shared with us at the online UNESCO RIELA Spring School: The Arts of Integrating 2025.

The presentation highlights the LINEs4Palestine projects, launched in March 2024, to reduce isolation and support Palestinian students, especially in Gaza. Initially, English and Education graduates received tailored workshops and up to six hours of one-to-one mentoring. The expanded phase of the project now serves students across disciplines and universities, offering, e.g., ELLT Oxford test training, research methods course for social sciences, critical pedagogy course, drama-based teaching and learning, and sci-fi film creation. The presentation offers pathways of what could be done in such dire circumstances, lessons learned and how we imagine things can go forward.

Things have moved on since this recording was made, and you can read all about the continued work here.

For the biographies of the speakers, please scroll down.

This episode was edited by Shivangi Rani. 

The Project team are a group of academics based at the University of Glasgow and the University of Porto: Maria Grazia Imperiale, a Lecturer in Adult Education in the School of Education (University of Glasgow – UofG, Project-Lead), Giovanna Fassetta (UofG, Project Co-Lead), Sahar Alshobaki (UofG, Project Coordinator) and Damian Ross (University of Porto, Project Co-Lead).

Sahar Alshobaki is a Research Associate at the University of Glasgow (School of Education). She has taught languages (English and Arabic) online and face-to-face in the UK, Austria, Turkey, and Palestine, across the primary and secondary school sectors, as well as in higher education. She is interested in language learning and teaching, in particular, the use of vision and strategies in teaching and learning a foreign language. Sahar is also interested in researching second language motivation, translanguaging, social inclusion, self- and online teaching and learning.

Giovanna Fassetta is Professor at the School of Education, University of Glasgow. Giovanna’s research focuses on inclusion in education of children and young people from refugee backgrounds and on refugee education more in general. She has led several projects working with partners in the Gaza Strip and other Low and Middle Income countries. Giovanna teaches on several Master’s degree programmes with a focus on inclusion in relation to cultural and linguistic diversity, gender identity and sexuality, and socioeconomic backgrounds. She has a long history of collaboration with the UNESCO RIELA Chair and is part of the steering committee for the Glasgow Refugee Asylum and Migration Network (GRAMNet).

Maria Grazia Imperiale is a Lecturer in Adult Education in the School of Education (University of Glasgow, UK). Her research interests focus on language education for adult refugees and migrants, multilingualism, and intercultural education. She conducted research in several contexts, including Palestine, Lebanon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Italy and Scotland. She also worked as a language teacher and a teacher trainer. She is a member of the Glasgow Refugee Asylum Migration Network (GRAMNet) and part of the network’s steering committee.

Damian Ross is Lecturer in English Language at the University of Porto. He specialises in inclusive education and English language development management. He has over 20 years of international leadership, teaching, training, project management and business development experience, including global, regional and country management in Europe, the Levant, and Central and Southeast Asia. His specific areas of interest are teacher identity, agency and inclusion and language and inclusion. Recent focuses include disability and gender in English Language Teaching and working towards a representative ELT sector that is owned and led by English teachers in education systems across the world.

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First published: 8 July 2026