Conflict Transformation through School (PDF)

Civil wars inflict terrible suffering and impede world development. Conflict transformation is the process of changing the relationships, attitudes, interests, discourses and underlying structures that encourage violent political conflict. Despite relatively little empirical evidence, the role of education is thought to be significant in building sustainable peace. Getting children into school is vitally important, but what do they learn once they get there? This book explores the ways in which the school curriculum can contribute to or impede conflict transformation. Using a framework based on truth-seeking, reconciliation and inclusive citizenship, the role of the school curriculum is examined through a qualitative case study of curriculum in seven schools in northern Uganda as it emerges from a twenty-year civil war. Their heads, teachers and students build a picture of schools that face great challenges but are making a distinctive contribution to sustainable peace. The framework is used to investigate the school curriculum in three other countries that have suffered civil conflict: Cambodia, Rwanda and Northern Ireland. As a curriculum model for reducing the risk of re-eruption of civil wars, it is essential reading for practitioners in the field of education in emergencies and for graduate students of development studies, and of comparative education in universities around the world.