The Politics of Peace Education in Post-Conflict Countries · Peace education sounds an...

Centre for Research on Peace and Development (CRPD) KU Leuven

Parkstraat 45, box 3602, 3000 Leuven, Belgium Phone: +32 16 32 32 50; Fax: +32 16 32 30 88; http://www.kuleuven.be/crpd

The Politics of Peace Education

in Post-Conflict Countries

Lynn Davies, University of Birmingham, UK

CRPD Working Paper No. 32

2015


2

The Politics of Peace Education in Post-Conflict Countries

Abstract

While peace education sounds an incontestable good, this paper highlights significant

questions regarding the discourse, practice, and impact of peace education post-conflict. Can

any country be truly post-conflict and what are the political agendas surrounding education for

peace and security? Locating learners as responsible for peace, through discourses of

‘learning to live together’, draws attention away from continuing political and structural causes

of conflict. Narratives of integration and reconciliation also need scrutiny, as does any peace

education which ignores the complexity and contradiction in religious tensions. The paper

proposes that an education based on principles of transitional justice offers greater traction in

attempting to shift oppressive regimes and to challenge the normalization of violence.

Transitional justice may require structural reforms in education to address past inequalities,

but also a justice-sensitive education which includes a critical history curriculum to openly

address the past. Understanding rights and democracy and why these were not upheld

enables a future to be fought for which embraces the rule of law and freedom of speech. For

this, however, teachers need training in how to tackle controversial issues and schools and

teacher training colleges need themselves to be free from violence, whether structural,

physical, or symbolic. This means attention to the timing as well as the situating of peace and

justice initiatives and their scaling up.

Author

Lynn Davies – University of Birmingham, UK

[email: [email protected]]

This working paper is a draft version of the chapter ‘The Politics of Peace Education in Post-

Conflict Countries’ in the book Building Sustainable Peace: Timing and Sequencing of Post-

Conflict Reconstruction and Peacebuilding, edited by Arnim Langer and Graham K. Brown,

Oxford University Press 2016.

The ‘Building Sustainable Peace’ project was made possible by a generous grant of Flanders

Department of Foreign Affairs.


3

1. Introduction

Peace education sounds an incontestable good. Yet this paper highlights significant questions

regarding the discourse, practice, and impact of peace education—questions which underpin

any concerns about timing and sequencing.

In terms of timing, the first obvious point is whether any country can be seen as ‘post-conflict’.

There may be a cessation of violence, but the complex roots of conflict may not have been

addressed, or only partially. New structural inequalities emerge as power shifts. Migration

patterns may mean new under-classes. Adrian Little (2014) uses the term ‘enduring conflict,’

which means on the one hand that conflict endures in ‘post-conflict’ societies and on the other

hand that the quality of endurance is something that is demanded of people who live in post-

conflict societies. There has been much discussion of when something like peace education

should be attempted at the end of hostilities and war: the immediate concern is humanitarian

aid and physical reconstruction, but increasing calls have been made over the last decade by

international agencies (such as Save The Children, INEE, and UNICEF) for education,

including peace education, to be an immediate part of post-conflict rebuilding. Education

should be seen as integral to humanitarian work itself. This is part of the concept of ‘building

back better,’ the demand that reconstruction does not simply reproduce the conditions that

contributed to conflict in the first place. Such conditions may have included unequal access to

education, or a normalization of violence in schools.

However, the education in emergencies work has become entwined in powerful political

agendas and strategies, as Novelli (2011) has pointed out. Education has become caught up

in the merging of security and development. Initiatives in peace will depend on strategic actors’

analysis of the causes of conflict; the ‘peace dividend’ envisaged is not value free. Monaghan

(2015) uses frame analysis to examine how ‘framing’ an issue makes possible some policies

and programmes while excluding others; for example, beginning in the mid-2000s, UNHCR

began to frame the provisioning of education in protracted refugee situations as an urgent

matter of security when previously education had been framed as a fundamental means of

psycho-social support. It is in this light that it is necessary to see how peace, peacebuilding,

and peace education are framed, by whom, and with what interests.

2. Discourses of Peace and Conflict

There is a massive literature on peacebuilding and varied definitions, but usually the distinction

is made to peacemaking or peacekeeping, that peacebuilding is something that is attempted


4

to achieve a sustainable peace. The well-known distinction is that of Galtung’s (1975) between

a ‘negative peace’ (the absence of war or violence), and a ‘positive peace’ (removing the root

causes of violence and making structural changes that address social injustice). He later added

cultural violence, which feeds into and enables direct violence, as something to be addressed.

Clearly, the notion of ‘building’ implies a process, not an end state. Peace is not something to

be achieved, but a dynamic situation with elements that contribute to making violent conflict

less likely both now and in the future. In a fragile, transitional context, these elements or

building blocks are usually held to be a stable economy, democracy, the upholding of human

rights, and the promotion of and respect for the rule of law.

Questions of democracy and rights reveal a more contested field than notions of harmony and

love. Much discourse on peace implies the binary opposite to conflict, when in fact relative

stability may simply be a different way of managing or even disguising conflict. A strong

argument, particularly within complexity theory, is that conflict is not only normal, but is

necessary to achieve a functioning society. Different forms of democracy require conflicting

agendas to be constantly surfaced, so that evolution and emergence occurs. Democracy is

not an antidote to conflict, but something that builds on ‘natural’ tendencies for dispute over

resources, and finds a mechanism to ensure that conflict is not entirely destructive. The term

‘positive conflict’ has often been used in this regard, for example with regard to initiatives in

citizenship education (Davies 2005). Conflict suppression or denial means a non-dynamic

society which is in the end fragile. Complexity theory is increasingly used to show that ways in

and out of conflict are not linear but the result of combinations of many contingent, contextual,

and often unpredictable features (Davies 2004, 2014; Little 2014). As Little points out with

regard to the riots in the UK in 2011, conflict can be seen as a pathological phenomenon to be

overcome by punishing the ‘mindless’ perpetrators. Narratives and discourses of conflict, the

stories that we tell ourselves, are an essential part of how conflict is seen and attempted to be

‘handled’. Does peace education programming address the broad issues of structural causes

of inequality and hence ethnopolitical grievance? What sort of peace is attempted to be built,

and on what foundations, becomes the key reality definer.

3. Who Is Responsible for Peace?

Peace education in schools carries the implicit assumption that students are the bearers of

peace, individually and in the future, collectively. The discourse of ‘learning to live together’

(L2LT) is very powerful. But this approach posits violence and conflict as primarily occurring

because of inter-cultural tensions and ignorance, and predicts that ‘learning’ cohesive

behaviours will become a permanent habit. Yet the instigators of violent conflict may be the


5

state, the military, Boko Haram or ISIS. Children are not responsible, nor can they be somehow

held accountable for an unknown future. Peace education which stresses mutual

understanding and tolerance can be used by governments to deflect attention away from the

political and economic sources of conflict. This is not to say that students should not explore

inter-cultural relationships, but that there are real dangers if this is done at the superficial level,

or if this is not attached to an understanding of conflict in one’s own society. In a conflict or

immediately post-conflict society, children’s experiences of war-driven relationships and

human rights abuses may not match the messages of harmony and reconciliation they receive

in the classroom. The assumption of long-term scaling up is a deeply flawed one: the notion is

that if people of a certain age of learning and experience respect each other more than their

parents did (even assuming lack of respect was causal in conflict), this will somehow be

embedded, a genetic shift in the DNA. The long lead in time before school leavers, however

attitudinally attuned to peaceful relationships, assume any positions of influence or

responsibility has been a major barrier to assessing impact—together with the intervening

factors of joining the military or experiencing repeated abuse or oppression. Hence the

attributed responsibility for peace becomes a timing issue: long-term initiatives must be

accompanied by immediate, coherent interventions.

In divided societies, education for peace is often linked to narratives of integration. Integration

is not only difficult, but can essentialize ethnic or religious ‘groups’ as having specific

boundaries that need to be broken down and somehow intertwined. Zembylas and Bekerman

(2015) provide a valuable contemporary critique of the whole discourse and practice of

‘integration’ in conflicted societies. They discuss the main theoretical traditions which have

seemed to justify integration in the education sphere—social cohesion and acculturation

theory, the contact hypothesis, and multiculturalism. Using experience of countries such as

Israel, Cyprus, South Africa, and Northern Ireland, their ‘contentious’ concern that integrated

education may reproduce existing structures of division leads them to offer a different vision

and politics of recognition, based on the notion of mutual vulnerability, not on essentialized

identities of two groups. Inclusive education has itself to be inclusive conceptually,

encompassing socio-economic position, gender, ethnicity, and disability, and not remaining a

superficial convergence of two ‘identities’ whose separation is held to be a prime cause of the

conflict. Integrated schooling has also not taken off in Sri Lanka, with language differences

held to be the key barrier; in the post-conflict situation a strong emphasis on second national

language learning is understandable, but again frames the conflict—and future peace—as

embedded in linguistic differences (Davies 2012a). While the Sinhalese-only language policy

post-independence was certainly a trigger for the Tamil insurgence, it was not the only cause

any more than second language learning and student exchanges will address the wider, more


6

political base to the three decade long conflict—with grievances and imbalances that have not

gone away.

4. Coherence and Contradiction

Peace education therefore often assumes there is a linear path, with consistency in learners’

responses to threatened conflict. Yet there may not be consistency in the programmes

themselves. In looking at the international moves towards standards and competences in

peace education, Carter (2015) draws attention to the lack of coherence in goals of some

governments within education: while one state goal for education is orientation of its citizens

towards defence, another is individual problem solving without violence. The former

preparation typically positions students for citizenship with a political orientation towards armed

defence of the nation. As she points out, standards that omit peace history, which includes

analysis of non-violent responses to structural conflict, normalize violence as a means of

national defence. It is confirmed that standards for peace education tend to prescribe the

norms of the dominant culture, so that non-dominant groups have needed to create their own

standards. Carter argues that no government has a truly visionary pedagogy.

Contradiction also bedevils the relation between religion and peace. While the major religions

will espouse peace in their writings, texts are also characterized by violence and revenge.

Research shows that religious conflicts are more intractable than those that have other sources

of tension (Svensson 2007); while conflict between two religious groups is not necessarily

worse than between other sorts of warring factions, when religion is held to be the cause of

the conflict, it is more difficult to solve. There is no exchange value, no bargaining, as there

might be for land or political power. An essential problem for a critical education is the

continuing strictures on critique of religion or religious practice (Davies 2014). Inter-faith

dialogue, as with student exchanges, aims at understanding of ‘the other,’ but can ignore intra-

faith issues, the divergences and conflicts within a religion, as are seen with Sunni/Shia

divides, or Christian fundamentalism versus liberation theology. These complexities are not

normally part of the religious education school syllabus, nor of peace education. Yet until young

people learn of how religious factionalism can be used to manipulate and divide, peace

education will not be a critical force. Religion cannot be immune from critique, not elevated

above other sorts of economic, political, or social worldviews.

This is particularly important in the current issue of extremism. Schooling or educational level

as such does not appear to be preventive of people joining extremist groups, whether far right

or Islamist. Indeed, the authoritarian nature of schooling may predispose to obedience to


7

messages of authority (Davies 2004, 2008). A schooling where racism or violence is explicitly

or implicitly condoned normalizes such relationships, and is drawn on as a resource or a

justification for future behaviour. Current research into the backgrounds of former extremists

indicates that schooling was not protective (Davies et al. 2015). Nor did families seem

particularly influential, and indeed were often mortified when their children joined radical

groups at odds with their own values. Religion was certainly not protective, with a range of

faith backgrounds and conversions from one religion to another. A recent issue of teenagers

being recruited to join fighters in Syria means that schools in the UK are being scrutinized to

see how far they are preventing radicalization. It is the assertion of this paper that programmes

labelled peace education or even conflict resolution will not necessarily address the reasons

why young people are drawn into extremist groups. Leaving aside the search for adventure

and a sense of mission, justifications for ‘joining up,’ whether far right or Islamist, include

foreign policy, perceptions of structural causes of discrimination, broader Islamophobia, and

government policy on immigration. Peace education in its L2LT form cannot address these

shifting geopolitical issues. An approach to examining reform post-conflict which does have

the requisite political lens comes from initiatives within the sphere of transitional justice,

discussed next.

5. Transitional Justice Approaches

Transitional justice refers to the judicial and non-judicial measures that are engaged in to

address the grave violations of human rights that occurred in countries transitioning from

conflict. These measures are reflected in the various truth and reconciliation commissions in

countries such as South Africa, Sierra Leone, Guatemala, Rwanda, Peru, and Sri Lanka. As

well as the building blocks of democracy and rule of law mentioned earlier, transitional justice

adds—or insists on—the dimension of redress: in order to build a peace, past injustices and

violations of rights must be recognized through truth-seeking and accountability for

perpetrators. Where possible three features must be instituted: 1) Reparations made to victims;

2) Institutional changes made to prevent injustice occurring in the future; and 3) New or

restored cultural norms introduced that are different from those during conflict or oppression.

Military victories can bring an apparent peace, but unless grievances that fostered conflict are

addressed, there is latent tension. Education is relevant both in institutional and cultural

change.

Transitional justice is constantly Janus faced, past and forward looking, with a concern that a

violent past is directly contributory to the potential for a violent future. Addressing the past is a

way of building a future which is recognizably better. One of the key debates is on reconciliation


8

versus retribution, not just about where the emphasis should be, but whether retribution

actually impedes the possibility of opposing sides reconciling differences. There are problems

with the whole notion of reconciliation, as this implies a return to previous harmonious or equal

relationships, either with other groups or with the state. Such relationships may never have

been there. Elizabeth Cole (2007) draws attention to how reconciliation may have been set

against justice, in the sense that for some, reconciliation after violence refers to the very

‘Christian- tinged’ pursuit of harmony, apology, forgiveness, forgetting (which is contingent on

forgiveness), and sometimes truth—but not so much truth as to disrupt the utopian ideal of

harmony. Can one seek reconciliation without justice? Also, those in power who are associated

with earlier perpetrator regimes have sometimes promoted or legislated reconciliation as a

means of public amnesia and in pursuit of a legal amnesty. Examining the past in terms of who

was denied rights, and seeking to compensate for that, is more concrete. In education, this

has two major aspects: structural reform and the development of a justice-sensitive learning

culture within schools and higher education which will help non-repetition of conflict.

5.1 Structural Reforms

Where broad embedded structures of division such as ethnic or religious segregation of

schooling were implicated in the conflict, then measures are needed to break down the more

harmful aspects of this divide. South Africa had to repeal old legislation on separate, unequal

schools based on race/colour, opening up formerly white schools to students of other

backgrounds. There was also reallocation of funds to try to equalize historical discrepancies

between types of schools. As Murphy (2014) holds, however, South Africa’s reforms are rare

in comparison to other divided and transitioning countries—though it is true that South Africa,

despite its shortcomings, has been a paradigmatic example within transitional justice cases.

Yet as Murphy also points out, if society continues to be divided and hostile, integrating

education will have little impact. In the absence of a broader transitional justice framework,

there will be a lack of commitment to both reforming education and to addressing the past. In

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and Northern Ireland, for example, the way that the conflict

‘ended’ profoundly shaped and informed its transition. Both ended by negotiated settlements,

the Dayton Accords (1995) and the Belfast Agreement (1998). In both, not only were

educational reforms largely neglected, but the key factors such as interpretations of the past

or the connections between political/cultural power and identity were ignored, and the

agreements themselves legitimated segregation based on the honouring of a complex cultural,

linguistic, religious, and political identity. The fear of a group’s identity being threatened or

subsumed by another permeates both agreements. In BiH, no organization, international or


9

domestic, was given a clear mandate to ensure educational reform until 2002 when the Office

of the High Representative (OHR) admitted it was late too consider this.

One question in reform is whether language issues are used as a further means of

marginalization or attempted assimilation. Debates and dilemmas abound generally around

the encouragement of the use of minority languages in education. There are pedagogical

reasons why mother tongue teaching can be beneficial in the early years, but in transitional

justice terms the question would be whether the lack of acceptance of minority language and

cultures was part of the conflict and grievance. As well as curriculum change, structural reforms

will then include allocation of teachers and resources to different language communities, and

recognition of language in different political spheres. In Sri Lanka, structural integration is much

more difficult than it would be in Northern Ireland or even BiH because of language divides.

The promotion of a second national language is more than just a curriculum area: if successful,

it represents a reform towards genuine bilingualism in education and governance. But it would

need to be accompanied by an equally genuine equity in education resourcing for Tamil and

Sinhalese (and Muslim) schooling, as well as opportunities post-schooling. And this is not to

mention equity in power and resourcing more generally. The roots of conflict were not that

people could not really communicate.

Structural reform needs to be constantly mindful of such roots, but also of realism. In Northern

Ireland, the lack of progress on fully integrated schools has generated the interesting initiative

on ‘shared classes,’ a collaborative network across Catholic and Protestant schools. Students

travel and share classes for certain core curricular areas. Evaluations show that fears that this

would lead to greater sectarian violence have been unfounded. Students enjoyed the activities

and meeting students from other areas. This is very much a refinement of ‘contact theory,’

more complex than simply bringing people together. There was experimentation, learning from

mistakes, a bottom-up venture. Many pupils considered religion as less important than shared

interests when they were making friends. In this philosophy of shared classes emerges the

central idea of leaving boundaries where they are but making them less important (Duffy and

Gallagher 2012). The timing issue here is whether such initiatives delay the push towards the

ideal of full integration or represent a useful compromise, in that integrated schools are a long

way off in the future. They are nearer to the idea of mutual vulnerability, mentioned earlier.

Some structural reforms are also proposed in the immediate aftermath of conflict, when many

have been denied education, and may be still vulnerable to being drawn into violent groups.

These reforms can include reparations, in terms of providing education to victims of the conflict

who had missed educational opportunities, as in Peru, Chile, Rwanda, and South Africa. The


10

policies of ‘catch-up’ education, or Accelerated Learning, or a stipend programme, attempt to

compensate for past lack of schooling, and provide redress; an economic interpretation of

transitional justice may also propose shifts to more vocational education in order to make

students employable and in theory boost the economy. Yet in countries such as Sierra Leone,

these are not without problems, and cannot be undertaken without analyses of the labour

market for males and females and whether there are real opportunities post-schooling (Davies

2012a). Again, this is a timing issue, and it would seem obvious that vocational graduates

should not be disgorged into the labour market without real jobs available.

Each national context is therefore distinct in terms of whether to focus reforms on ‘difference’—

whether in opportunity or identity. When inequality is mapped onto ethnic divides, it will be

important to attempt to redistribute resources, give cultural recognition or widen access—in

the process surfacing and prioritizing difference. But when attempts at integration lead to

further and stronger ‘nationalism’ (BiH), or are unpopular with parents who fear assimilation

(Northern Ireland), or draw attention away from the real problems (Sri Lanka), then it may be

better to accept the boundaries between groups and find ways to reduce the impact of

difference—or the manipulation of it.

5.2 Justice-Sensitive Education

Within schools and higher education, post-conflict reforms point towards what I have termed

‘justice-sensitive’ education (Davies 2015 forthcoming). This has two linked areas of curriculum

and education for non-violence. Firstly, the backward looking glance of transitional justice has

often meant reform of the history curriculum—particularly if it presents a biased or incorrect

view of war and conflict and has indirectly contributed to prejudice or even hatred. There is

widespread agreement that nationally accepted historical narratives should not whitewash acts

that inflicted major suffering nor exclude the experiences of non-victors, including women, the

economically marginalized, and, in the case of international conflicts, citizens of other states

who were victims of historical violence perpetrated by the in-group’s state (Cole 2007). But this

is not just about replacing one version of history with another. Carretero and Borrelli (2008)

recommend analyzing the social structure, linking human acts with social conditions, as well

as avoiding simple reductionism (good vs. bad, innocent victims vs. villains). It can be seen

that revision of the history curriculum is also revision of pedagogy: hearing contending voices,

deliberative democracy, debate, argument, and dialogue in a history classroom are essential

precursors to a democratic political culture as well as the recognition that there is more than

one version of history. The way that history is taught might be argued to take priority over

textbook reform—another timing issue, returned to below. The South African history curriculum


11

asks students to explore the violent past—and the human behaviour that animated it—through

the lens of human rights. Students are to study the transition itself and some of the transitional

justice efforts such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. BiH now has Guidelines for

textbook writing and evaluation of history textbooks, which has been adopted by all Ministries

of Education. The OSCE is implementing the project History for the Future—aiming towards

reconciliation through education.

Yet the revision of the history curriculum is another timing issue: it is felt that this can be too

sensitive immediately after a conflict, and best left until later, as was the case in Rwanda. While

alternative narratives are required in the long term, memories now are too fresh; would

revisiting the question of who are victims and who the perpetrators stir up old hatreds? There

can be little acceptance of the importance of acknowledging the injustices of the past. This has

a variety of reasons—it can relate to denial of culpability, but also a strategic view and

ideological preference for a ‘clean slate’, for moving on. Not all educators believe in confronting

the past, or lack the skills or confidence to engage in this in the classroom. There can be

government bans on talking of genocide (as in Rwanda) or on admissions of guilt. The

language of past crimes presents a problem—Turkey refuses to see its historical treatment of

the Armenians as a ‘genocide’ at all. Both South Africa and El Salvador also suspended their

history curriculum after the conflict. This is what Rodino (2014) refers to as the ‘null

curriculum’—everything that is not named or discussed. There can even be the use of

education to deny culpability (as with peace education in Japan) and a reframing of who the

victims were.

Two fundamental aspects of history curriculum reform are first who writes the new versions,

and second how learners interpret them. One recent important edited collection is History

Education and Post-conflict Reconciliation which explores joint history textbook writing

(Korostelina and Lässig 2013). This is significant, for as Rosalie Metro (2013) points out in her

study of post-conflict history curriculum revision—which she calls an ‘Intergroup encounter’—

revising history curricula in post-conflict settings can either worsen or ameliorate conflict. Her

research was with Burmese migrant and refugee communities in Thailand, where history

curricula have been controversial in their vastly divergent accounts of history, depending on

whether they are Burman-centric or ethnonationalist, portraying Burmese as oppressors. Many

factors impeded reconciliation about revision between the different stakeholders, including

language and class, but also participants’ fear that if students were taught critically about

history and identity they would no longer respect their elders.

Finally with regard to history curriculum, Michelle Bellino (2014) makes the important point that


12

history education remains reliant on the connections that learners make to their own lives. She

asks: ‘What should educators teach young learners about the world when contemporary crime

overshadows recent genocide, and when memories of violence are sometimes perceived as

threats to peace?’ In Guatemala, there are a number of projects based on local experiences:

students produced a play and later a video called There is Nothing Hidden that will not be

Revealed about the 1982 massacre in their community and the villagers’ flight into Mexico.

The play continues to be produced by successive generations of high school students who

tour the country performing in schools and municipal salons (Oglesby 2004). Here the timing

issue refers to keeping memories alive in the long term, an important part of non-reoccurrence.

History education can then be linked to human rights education. The distinctiveness of a

justice-sensitive approach is an understanding of rights in terms of how these rights had been

violated in the past, and therefore what needs to be done to uphold rights in the future. How

did ‘derightsification’ occur, how was it possible that some were cast as inhuman and not

worthy of rights? Yet exploring past rights abuses is a difficult area for teachers. Some

educators will simply talk of ‘human values’ in order to tackle past dehumanization (Gill and

Niens 2014), but this can be very vague—and an equally contested concept in terms of whose

values prevail. The international set of rights as specified in the conventions do provide a solid

starting point and platform for analysis. Many international organizations, such as UNICEF and

Save the Children, will promote human rights and children’s rights as ways to generate child-

friendly and non-violent schools. International human rights frameworks also cut across

religion, so that they provide a secular but commonly acceptable framework to discuss values

and to make decisions on what to tolerate and what not to tolerate (Davies 2014) .

Pedagogically, the sensitive transitional context will determine whether the entry point to

talking about rights is the individual student and their family, or more general violations of rights

nationally and internationally. HRE manuals written by international organizations have to be

used with care. In some countries and religious contexts, human rights might be sensitive in

itself, although children’s rights are acceptable. Sometimes there is a need to find a way in.

Work in Afghanistan, for example, found that it was possible to persuade families that girls’

education was important once an illustrated booklet was prepared for them showing human

rights in the Quran (Davies 2014).

One vital perspective in HRE then is not to see transitional justice as just about abuses, as just

about horror and crime, but also as about a positive future, with a stress on shared values and

commonalities in rights. There is a need for a ‘usable past’ (Fullinwider 1996), a past in which

students can find values and projects to take as their legacies, seeing that not all was dark. If


13

a positive national identity is sought, then there needs some past to justify, illustrate, or

celebrate this.

Yet the future orientation aims to envisage a future which is less violent than before. How did

violence become normalized in a society? A justice-sensitive education explores how hatreds

build from what was once apparently peaceful or cohesive (as in BiH or Rwanda), or how

existing divisions can be further manipulated into violence. It would also touch on how

schooling may itself have been implicated. The education priority is for a schooling in

alternatives to violence. Social change is envisioned, but education can help to analyse and

develop non-violent means to get there—advocacy, campaigning, lobbying, and of course the

myriad ways to use social media to establish networks. A great problem with the ‘normal’

democratic processes in many countries is the slow rate of change—waiting for elections, then

for the results of these to be reflected in policy. Impatience with these processes can mean

turning to more visible, dramatic, publically confrontational styles, particularly with the far right

(Davies et al. 2015). A preference develops for active movements, violent if necessary, rather

than party politics and going to meetings. Mistrust of the state to tackle apparent ‘takeovers’—

whether by Jews, Muslims, or Christians—justifies taking the law into your own hands. In these

contexts, education for non-violence has a more immediately political thrust than education for

peace, and can be more localized and less abstract.

Education for non-violence therefore has to tackle a number of fronts. One is the culture of

school or training college. The obvious point is that schools need to be free from violence, first

in terms of banning corporal punishment by teachers, as well as symbolic violence in terms of

humiliations and harassing of students. Codes of conduct for teachers are needed, before or

at the same time as codes of conduct for students. Nepal’s Schools as Zones of Peace are

often cited in this regard, as while the origin was ensuring that schools were not used for

recruitment by government or opposition forces, this became broadened to ensure that schools

were places that were safe from violence generally. In many parts of the world teachers still

have to be trained in alternatives to corporal punishment. Timing and sequencing does become

important here—there is no point in doing peace education if the culture of the school is hostile

or oppressive.

Another front is the political education which examines why people are drawn to violence to

achieve their aims and what alternatives are available. Clearly this varies according to context

of immediate community politics and broader state politics. The great problem is that violence

can sometimes be successful—whether through revolutionary groups or the demands of

extremists. The aim of spreading fear is easily achieved. What schools can do is tackle


14

escalations, particularly in terms of revenge. Revenge is sanctioned in some religious texts,

which is a particular concern in issues such as insult of the Prophet. The Pope recently

sanctioned revenge in saying that he would hit someone who insulted his mother. He also

sanctioned smacking children. In their punishment regimes, schools are often very vengeful

places, and this becomes even more normalized when supported by a global religious leader.

Together with rights and the search for truth, a justice-sensitive education will usually have a

political dimension of promoting democracy. Democracies do not have a spotless human rights

record, but on the whole they fare better on the protection of human rights than their

alternatives. Yet narrow conceptions of democracy as relating just to elections or periodic

regime change are not necessarily justice-sensitive. Democracy here is not just about voting,

nor even just about political participation—both of these had high levels in Hitler’s Germany. A

fuller conception is needed which is related to protection of minorities, upholding of gender

rights, the promotion of transparency and the protection of freedom of speech. Again, the past-

looking view enables discussion of what was or was not democratic about a society in the past.

Political participation will be a key dimension, leading to awareness of the need for active

political participation as a citizen in order to try to bring accountability and avoid the

authoritarian nature of past decision-making.

This leads on to the question of immediacy: while democracy is not just about elections,

transparent and violence-free elections are very important in fragile states, and voter education

can be a key underpinning. A good example of this is currently in the Philippines, which has a

history of elections rigged by family dynasties, warlordism, and private armies, with

manipulation of voters, vote-buying, and violent partisan and clan warfare. Electoral reform

also is a key part of the peace process with Muslim Mindanao and the establishment of the

Bangsamoro autonomous region. One strong organization involved in accountable election

processes is the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), run by the Catholic

church which uses church and lay personnel for political education (as well as for Poll Watching

and the ‘Unofficial Parallel Count’). There are modules for every educational level, and comic-

style booklets, and volunteers with a caravan-style training who try to reach inaccessible

places. A multi-media campaign used the Philippine peso plastered on voters’ faces to

symbolize how ‘money blinds us to the true value of our vote.’ Much is designed to appeal to

the young voter; yet a timing issue is of course when to start voter education: when the voting

age is eighteen, as in the Philippines and many countries, then should this be started in school

or not? One argument would be that one can start quite young, perhaps in civic education,

thinking about how governments get elected and in whose interests: peace education in this


15

scenario would not be about love and harmony but about not voting in a government that

oppresses its people.

This leads on to the area of citizenship or civic education. Because of the time needed to agree

and establish a sensitive history curriculum after conflict, it is sometimes quicker to adapt or

introduce civic education (which is what happened in Argentina in the 1980s and in Chile).

However, civic education without an acknowledgement of the past can be abstract. For

example, in the case of Guatemala, Oglesby (2004: 28) noted that the recent conflict was being

attributed to an unspecified ‘culture of violence,’ a tautological and vague cause that diminishes

and obscures rather than clarifies the conflict. There is similarly always the danger that

citizenship education is used for nationalistic and patriotic purposes (learning to be a ‘good

and dutiful citizen’) rather than a critical examination of who has had citizenship denied in the

past. Such critiques may include work on whether women are really constituted as citizens

(Arnot and Dillabough 2000).

Similarly, one of the goals of TJ is the restoration of the rule of law and from this the

improvement of civic trust. There is however a problem of teaching the rule of law. Erika

George (2007) points out that this has often been uprooted or may never have taken root in

conflict societies. Building or rebuilding the rule of law needs the creation of a widely shared

public commitment to human rights and a preference for relying on the law and the political

process rather than resorting to violence to resolve conflict. This underscores the issue of

timing: is there any point in teaching the rule of law in schools when it is not in daily evidence

outside, or is the only way to create a commitment to the law to use educational processes? If

schools do not begin the process of understanding rights, democracy, and the law, who will?

6. Teacher Education

However, it can be seen from all the above that curriculum reform and changing school cultures

requires teacher training. This has to include knowledge of and implications of children’s rights

and human rights generally. Teacher education colleges in many post-conflict countries can

be authoritarian and even violent (with peer bullying). Rights to freedom from harm, to freedom

of expression, and to participation in decision-making have to be operationalized on a day to

day basis. Given the links of masculinity to militarism, gendered violence is also an issue for

teachers to consider. The problem again for timing in immediately post-conflict states is that

teachers themselves may have been subject to violence in war, may be traumatized, may

retain ancient hatreds or suspicions, or may still be subject to gendered and domestic violence

in the home—often exacerbated by war. They have to work through their own experiences and


16

this can be painful. In the case of recent post-conflict societies, practising teachers will have

experienced this from the perspective of one of the parties (perpetrators, victims, or witnesses)

and will have suffered the consequences of such experience, as Rodino (2014) confirms. This

will affect their capacity to teach about the past, regardless of the study programme and

teaching materials they have. Nonetheless it can be argued that a rights-based approach, as

in transitional justice, enables teachers to recognize their own rights. Sadeed (2012) claims

from their peace education in Afghanistan that peace education teacher training and coaching

has reduced counter-productive corporal punishment practices (among teachers) to almost

zero. Measurable improvements in behaviour among students are then noted, with a decline

in observed aggressive behaviour among students. Teachers actively modelling peace

education concepts in the classroom—treating students with dignity, recognizing their equal

rights—form the bedrock of a comprehensive peace programme. This is what Baxter (2012)

refers to as teaching through social justice rather than about social justice.

There is also the argument that there is no point in introducing human rights education or

education for democracy when the wider society is undemocratic or corrupt. Where there is

indeed little point is when teachers themselves do not understand the materials, do not know

how to teach controversial issues, are wary of the language of rights or do not want to give up

power in favour of student-led democracy. Then human rights education or revised history

curriculum projects do not find a permanent home in the classroom, and there is lip-service to

real shifts of pedagogy. Teachers will need good materials on alternative narratives of history,

but also incentives to use them. They need incentives to change the way they relate to students

and alternatives to humiliating punishment. Above all, they need experience and possibly

training in working with the community to create change.

The school system itself may be reluctant to deal with conflictive or controversial issues: its

traditional position was to transmit certainties and avoid intellectual or social conflicts, and the

teachers bear the uncertainties and contradictions of the system as well as their own. Teacher

education colleges are often the most conservative of all higher education institutions because

of this remit to socialize the young into the accepted ways of society. So our questions become:

Are teacher training colleges democratic, with respect for human rights? Do teachers learn in

critical ways? Do they have knowledge of the past and of alternative past narratives? Research

in South African teacher education institutions (Harber and Serf 2006; Mncube et al. 2014) is

uncovering cultures which include features ranging from authoritarian lecturing and teaching

to sexual harassment among trainees or between lecturers and students. It is clear that if the

teacher training experience replicates the cultural conditions surrounding a conflict, then it is


17

unlikely that teachers will know how to teach in participative ways or to understand the

implications of rights.

Working with teachers and teacher educators to shift the way that they teach can be quicker

than creating, approving, producing, and distributing new textbooks, even if resources for this

exist. As with the debates on multicultural education, should old biased textbooks be sanitized

or sensitized? Should they be used creatively to uncover with students how the world used to

be presented? All this requires acceptance by teachers. In countries where there are truth and

reconciliation commissions, teachers will need good materials on TRCs themselves, but also

incentives to use them. They also need incentives to change the way they relate to students,

and alternatives to humiliating punishment, such as restorative discipline.

7. Scaling Up

Finally comes the question of scaling up peace and non-violence programmes. The non-

structural initiatives often begin in pilot schools, with the backing of NGOs. The endpoint, if

these are successful, is to have them mainstreamed. This presents sequencing issues. Is the

beginning the establishment of a unit or section in a Ministry (of Education or Ministry of

National Integration)? Or the drawing up of a policy on education for peace/non-

violence/integration which includes the need to establish a base and legitimation in a formal

government institution? Much depends on who participates in drawing up the policy and, as

intimated earlier, what their agendas are. NGOs are often influential here. UNICEF’s child-

friendly schools, for example, are well known as models; currently the Sri Lanka government

is however questioning this title, as it implies that other government schools are not child-

friendly. But the term is usually more acceptable to cautious politicians than ‘Rights Respecting

schools,’ as used in the UK.

NGOs and INGOs will often have an exit strategy of attempting to mainstream their work in the

relevant ministry, with a cadre of officers, a budget, a workplan, and transparent lines of

accountability, etc. The downside of this institutionalization is inevitably that the work becomes

less politicized and more bland, with a preference for the visible but safe areas such as student

exchanges and cultural events. Promotion as an education officer is not often achieved by

being a fierce advocate for children’s rights and for a critical justice-sensitive education.

Experience in Sri Lanka finds that psycho-social care initiatives supported by German technical

cooperation (GIZ), which train counsellors to deal with issues that include trauma and exposure

to violence, can be co-opted to turn counsellors into careers guidance or ‘discipline’ teachers.

Disaster risk education, which might include the risks of a community erupting into violence


18

again, can be taken over by popular and non-controversial agendas regarding climate change.

This is not to deny the importance of these areas, but they leave gaps in official ministry

provision.

It might be thought that the recommendations regarding education by truth and reconciliation

commissions in different countries would carry much weight, especially as they have

international recognition. In Sierra Leone, for example, the TRC provided the momentum for

the largely World Bank-led reform of the educational sector, even though several

recommendations (such as for free secondary education for girls) called for changes beyond

the scope of the reform package (Paulson 2006). The TRC recommended that the content of

the final report be incorporated into curricula in primary, secondary, and tertiary education, but

this has not happened so far. However, the UN has been working with the Ministry of Education

to incorporate human rights training in school and university curricula, which opens the door

to also adding information contained in the TRC report (Dugal 2014). The Commission made

a decision to produce versions of its report for children and secondary school students. This

was an important innovation, although the take-up has been patchy.

In Peru, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Comision de Verdad y Reconciliacion

(CVR)) engaged more explicitly with education—its role in conflict and post-conflict—than

many other truth commissions that preceded it throughout the world. The recommendations

stressed the importance of intercultural and bilingual education, linkages with other sectors in

addressing the needs of the most vulnerable children, the need for scientific education and a

move away from dogmatic teaching (especially given its linkages with Shining Path), early

childhood education and local educational management, and a literacy plan with priority for

adolescent girls and women. However, in 2008 people felt there was very little progress made,

mentioning a lack of political will as well as a fragmented Ministry of Education, and ministerial

elites with power (Paulson 2011). Initiatives to insert the CVR’s narrative of Peru’s conflict (the

‘truth’) into curriculum also did not work: in one instance, conflict-related educational materials

were proposed to be introduced in communities prone to conflict—implying blame for the

conflict on poor, rural indigenous communities. The Ministry maintains intact group distinctions

and stereotypes. Elsewhere party politicians called the CVR narrative an ‘apology for terrorism’

(particularly those that highlighted armed forces and political responsibility) and attempted to

silence the history curriculum. One key problem is that the CVR had no legally binding

mechanism to enforce its recommendations.

Discussions of TRCs underscore the intensely political processes that peace-based initiatives

in schools encounter once they expand from inter-cultural meet-and-greet programmes and


19

tackle the complex, structural causes of conflict. Peace education policy has to be cross-

sectoral, examining disadvantage, access to resources, and vulnerability, as well as how

people communicate about these. The sequencing will not be linear, nor smooth, and has to

be sometimes opportunistic, finding peoples’ agendas and spaces for intervention.

In Chile, the National Corporation on Reparation and Reconciliation, established in 1992 to

follow up the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, had among its

major tasks the mandate to implement an ‘Educational and Cultural Promotion Programme’

understood in terms of prevention and guarantees of non-recurrence. The programme, which

targeted both the formal and non-formal sectors, focused in the creation of tools to consolidate

a human rights culture in Chile. To this end, it worked in six different areas including the

promotion of knowledge creation of human rights, the qualification and training of education

actors, the production of didactic materials to teach about human rights, support of research

projects about education and human rights, support of the creation of spaces for reflection and

debate, and support of activities to promote human rights. This highly participatory programme

constituted a genuine effort to incorporate the topic of human rights in the education system,

both in schools and universities. Once the commission was dissolved in 1996, the programme

was taken over by the Ministry of Education.1

8. Conclusion

If we try to summarize all the educational possibilities, the key question is whether there can

be any general recommendations about timing and sequencing or whether everything is

country or case specific. The first point of departure relates to how education was—or still is—

implicated in the conflict. If it was directly contributory, in terms of real grievance about

educational opportunities, then there is urgency in reform. Structural change can be symbolic

as well as real, showing commitment to a new, more equal future. Immediate, case-specific

changes are Accelerated Learning programmes and reintegration of child soldiers; larger

programmes can be relatively immediate (the dismantling of apartheid education) or are linked

to longer-term curriculum change (language or recognition of cultural minorities).

If conflict was about manipulation of ethnic hatreds, then the educational contribution may be

indirect—we do not actually know what the influence of curriculum and textbooks are in the

way ‘others’ are portrayed. It is good to reform them, but they may be a symptom, not a cause.

Is the more pressing issue that of the normalization of violence and the use of violence to

1 See, http://www.ddhh.gov.cl/historia_programa.html.


20

achieve ends? We have seen from the above discussion that timing in terms of curriculum

reform is highly case specific—the sensitivity of a new history curriculum being a prime

example. But an international project such as Facing History and Ourselves can at least

stimulate debate and provide legitimacy. Sequencing depends on what is already in the

curriculum—in Sri Lanka for example, human rights was mandated by the LLRC, but is already

there, and accepted, but needs to be strengthened and linked to the specific findings and

recommendations of the LLRC with regard to cohesion. Completely new curriculum areas need

a long time for consultation and then training of teachers to use them. This would be particularly

true of any critical religious education.

Teacher education has therefore been cited as a key precursor of much other change, whether

in curriculum or a rights-based, non-violent school culture—yet the sequencing question is who

trains the trainers? In many countries, teacher educators do not undergo any specific training

for this role (and in some countries may never have even taught in schools). So first step is

(re)training of teacher educators on teaching controversial issues, rights, democracy, and

alternatives to humiliating punishment, so that they can implement with teacher trainees what

they have learned and practised in their own in-service orientation. Murphy (2014) argues that

bringing the truth commission and apartheid into classrooms as subjects while the commission

was still operating would have been too soon to benefit and to avoid damaging students, but

temporal distance made it easier to consider the role that the past can play in schools. Indeed,

it took ten years of revisions to the national curriculum after apartheid to develop a document

that requires a human rights focus in addressing the past. In Argentina, the teaching of the

past only became a state policy with the approval of the General Education Law No. 26,206 of

2006, which was later reinforced by the five-year compulsory Education and Teacher Training

Plan (Rodino 2014). In Bangladesh, in 2001, the Liberation War Museum began developing

programmes aimed at children and youth to learn about the mass atrocities that occurred

during the country’s 1971 war for independence—thirty years after the fact (Hoque 2014).

An underpinning area then is legal or quasi-legal policy change: these include policy directives

on codes of conduct for teachers, or the provision of student councils in schools, some of which

can be drawn up relatively swiftly if they are not controversial. But laws and policies will not be

effective unless there are specific bodies set up to implement them, with trained personnel.

International pressure, particularly if linked to a security agenda, can speed up processes, but

it takes time to create functioning departments with clearly understood mandates.

In the end few generalizations are possible, in that change is not linear in the way that the

notion of a ‘sequence’ implies. The development of an education for peace and non-violence


21

requires a multi-faceted approach, sometimes simultaneous, sometimes sequential, but with

mutually reinforcing aspects. There can be incremental, experimental small steps—a

workshop here, a new resource there—but sustainability will probably require some semi-

permanent institutional or legal features. Yet the nature of potential conflict means the nature

of potential peace is equally unpredictable, and even the structural features will require revision

and rethinking. One thing is clear, and that is that teachers remain central. Their training and

their buy-in are at the heart of any successful education for peace.


22

References

Arnot, M., and Dillabough, J-A. (2000). Challenging Democracy: International Perspectives on

Gender, Education and Citizenship. London: Routledge Falmer.

Baxter, P. (2012). ‘Development of the INEE Peace Education Programme’, in Education

Above All, Education for Global Citizenship. Doha: Qatar Foundation, 165–180.

Bellino, M. (2014). ‘Whose Past, Whose Present? Historical Memory Among the “Postwar”

Generation in Guatemala’, in J.H. Williams (ed.), (Re)constructing Memory: School Textbooks

and the Imagination of the Nation. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 131–152.

Carretero, M., and Borrelli, M. (2008). ‘Memorias Recientes y Pasados en Conflicto: ¿Cómo

Enseñar Historia Reciente en la Escuela?’ Cultura y Educación, 20/2: 201–215.

Carter, C.C. (2015) ‘Standards and Guidelines That Influence Conflict and Peace Education’,

in Z. Gross and L. Davies (eds.), The Contested Role of Education in Conflict and Fragility.

Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 187–202.

Cole, E. (2007). ‘Transitional Justice and the Reform of History Education’. International

Journal of Transitional Justice, 1: 115–117.

Davies, L. (2004). Education and Conflict: Complexity and Chaos. London: Routledge.

Davies, L. (2005). ‘Teaching about Conflict through Citizenship Education’. Internationl Jounal

of Citizenship and Teacher Education, 1/2: 17–34.

Davies, L. (2008). Educating against Extremism. Stoke on Trent: Trentham.

Davies, L. (2012a). Promoting Education in Countries affected by Fragility and/or Conflict.

Synthesis of case studies of German Development Cooperation in Afghanistan, Democratic

Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Sri Lanka. GIZ.

Davies, L. (2012b). ‘Sri Lanka’s National Policy on Education for Social Cohesion and Peace’,

in Education Above All, Education for Global Citizenship. Doha: Qatar Foundation, 255–266.

Davies, L. (2014). Unsafe Gods: Security, Secularism and Schooling. London: IOE/Trentham.


23

Davies, L. (2015 forthcoming). Transitional Justice and Education. New York: International

Centre for Transitional Justice.

Davies, L., Limbada, Z., McDonald, L.Z., Spalek, B., and Weeks, D. (2015). Formers and

Families: UK Findings. Birmingham: ConnectJustice.

Duffy, G., and Gallagher, T. (2012). Collaborative Evolution: The Context of Sharing and

Collaboration in Contested Space. Belfast: Queen’s University Belfast.

Dugal, T. (2014). ‘Children and Transitional Justice in Sierra Leone’. Paper prepared for

International Centre for Transitional Justice, New York.

Fullinwider, R. (1996). ‘Patriotic Education’, in R. Fullinwider (ed.), Public Education in a

Multicultural Society: Policy, Theory and Critique. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Galtung, J. (1975). ‘Three Approaches to Peace: Peacemaking, Peacekeeping and

Peacebuilding’, in J. Galtung (ed.), Peace, War and Defence: Essays in Peace Research

(vol.2). Copenhagen: Christian Ejlers, 282–304.

Gill, S., and Niens, U. (2014). ‘Education as Humanisation: A Theoretical Review on the Role

of Dialogic Pedagogy in Peacebuilding Education’. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and

International Education, 44/1: 10–31.

George, E. (2007). ‘After Atrocity Examples from Africa: The Right to Education and the Role

of Law in Restoration, Recovery and Accountability’. Loyola University Chicago Law Review,

5/1: 59–85.

Harber, C., and Serf, J. (2006). ‘Teacher Education for a Democratic Society in England and

South Africa’. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22/8: 986–997.

Hoque, M. (2014). ‘Outreach and Education at the Liberation War Museum,

Bangladesh’. Paper prepared for International Centre for Transitional Justice, New York.

Korostelina, K., and Lässig, S. (2013). History Education and Post-conflict Reconciliation.

London: Routledge.


24

Little, A. (2014). Enduring Conflict: Challenging the Signature of Peace and Democracy. New

York/London: Bloomsbury.

Metro, R. (2013). ‘Post-Conflict History Curriculum Revision as an “Intergroup Encounter”:

Promoting Interethnic Reconciliation among Burmese Migrants and Refugees in Thailand’.

Comparative Education Review, 67/1: 145–168.

Monaghan, C. (2015). ‘Changing the Prism: New Theoretical Approaches for Education in

Emergencies’, in Z. Gross and L. Davies (eds.), The Contested Role of Education in Conflict

and Fragility. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 63–81.

MnCube, V., Davies, L., and Naidoo, R. (2014). ‘Democratic School Governance, Leadership

and Management: A Case Study of Two Schools in South Africa’. International Journal of

Educational Development in Africa, 1/1: 59–78.

Murphy, K. (2014). ‘Educational Reform through a Transitional Justice Lens: The Ambivalent

Transitions of Bosnia and Northern Ireland’. Paper prepared for International Centre for

Transitional Justice, New York.

Novelli, M. (2011). ‘Are we all Soldiers Now? The Dangers of the Securitization of Education

and Conflict’, in K. Mundy and S. Dryden-Peterson (eds.), Educating Children in Conflict

Zones: Research, Policy, and Practice for Systemic Change. New York:Teachers College

Press, 49–66.

Oglesby, E. (2004). Historical Memory and the Limits of Peace Education: Examining

Guatemala’s ‘Memory of Silence’ and the Politics of Curriculum Design. New York: Carnegie

Council on Ethics and International Affairs.

Paulson, J. (2006). ‘The Educational Recommendations of Truth and Reconciliation

Commissions: Potential and Practice in Sierra Leone’. Research in Comparative and

International Education, 1/4: 335–350.

Paulson, J. (2011). ‘Reconciliation through Educational Reform? Recommendations and

Realities in Peru’, in J. Paulson (ed.), Education and Reconciliation: Exploring Conflict and

Post-Conflict Situations. London/New York: Continuum, 126–150.


25

Rodino, A. (2014). ‘Pedagogical Guidelines for Teaching about the Recent Past and

Citizenship Education in Processes of Democratic Transition’. Paper prepared for International

Centre for Transitional Justice, New York.

Sadeed, S. (2012). ‘Peace Education Can Make a Difference in Afghanistan: The Help The

Afghan Children Initiative’, in Education Above All, Education for Global Citizenship. Doha:

Qatar Foundation, 143–148.

Svensson, I. (2007). ‘Fighting with Faith: Religion and Conflict Resolution in Civil Wars’.

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 51/6: 930–947.

Zembylas, M., and Bekerman, Z. (2015). ‘Rethinking the Theoretical Grounding of Integrated

Education in Conflicted Societies’, in Z. Gross and L. Davies (eds.), The Contested Role of

Education in Conflict and Fragility. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 29–44.

The Politics of Peace Education in Post-Conflict Countries · Peace education sounds an...

Documents

Transcript of The Politics of Peace Education in Post-Conflict Countries · Peace education sounds an...