Education and conflict

Historical and Philosophical Perspectives Year 1 BA Education, Culture and Society

Essential question:

Can mass education function both as an opportunity for the defence of human rights and a route to exacerbating local and institutional conflicts?

Leach, F and Dunne, M (eds) (2007) Education, Conflict and Reconciliation London:Peter Lang

Focus of this session:

education in societies affected by conflictthe role of education in reconstructionconflict in schoolsopportunities for developing citizenship

and social inclusionpedagogical and methodological issues

The role of education in societies affected by conflict Smith (2007) explains the need to see past a linear

model- which moves from conflict to reconciliation- to a ‘conflict sensitive’ position which acknowledges a more cyclical understanding of conflict

What does this mean?

the difficulties and dangers experienced by pupils- especially girls- who try to attend schools heavily implicated through curriculum and through armed pressure on teachers and children in Nepal’s recent royalist/Maoist civil war

Where has this happened before (cf poster presentations)?

Challenges experienced in reconstructing education systems in post-conflict zones

What might be some of the challenges in: Northern Ireland? Afghanistan? South Africa?

Schools as environments in which conflict between young people and between pupils and teachers

can be created and exacerbated.

Often focused on gender

Friere’s (1970) ‘horizontal violence’- domestic violence and gendered violence in South London schools

How might schools make conflict more likely?

What do you know about conflict resolution strategies in schools?

Creating social justice and good citizenship through curriculum, organisation, and teaching methods The very gendered and

militaristic textbook that ten year-olds at Pakistani state schools are required to read offers a graphic example of the propagandising effects such materials can deliver

Positive steps towards conflict resolution taken when disparate further education institutions in South Africa were merged into larger, cross-community organisations

History text books in California

Pedagogical and methodological approaches to researching and addressing the relationship between education and conflict

Action research: attempts to break down social dissonance

between predominantly ‘Asian’ (Muslim) and ‘white’ schools in the North-West of England

a need for a holistic engagement with the relationship between education and conflict, including curricular, financial, and training concerns, geography, and ‘social mix’

emancipatory research methodologies

Seminar: How can mass education function both as a route to exacerbating local and institutional conflicts and as an opportunity for the defence of human rights?

1. Look at the model. How would it work in a school?

2. Watch ‘My Street’:http://www.runnymedetrust.org/projects/belonging/belonging-films.html

Discuss as a class: How might a school environment exacerbate this kind of conflict?

3. In groups of four discuss: What conflicts might young people in London schools be dealing with? Choose one

4. How would you get a class of year 7s to think about this conflict and to address it? Feed back to class

ALEC: Plagiarism