Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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We would like to acknowledge with much gratitude the key work of the external reviewers, who
gave hugely detailed comments and constructive critiques. This not only enabled contributors to this
volume to refine their articles but will assist others to be published in the future. We would also like
to acknowledge the important work of the managing editor for this volume, Dai Li, who dealt with all
the communications and processing of articles with such skill.
effective soft convening power have helped to raise the profile and deepen
the quality and accountability of educational work in conflict, emergencies,
and reconstruction. As a network, INEE has allowed individual agencies and
governments to leverage their own actions with those of others and has
created space for genuinely disinterested teamwork. INEE’s greatest achieve-
ments have been to facilitate the articulation, publication, and dissemination
of Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies, Chronic Crises and Early
Reconstruction (INEE 2004), to launch a huge training campaign on the use
and application of the minimum standards, and to analyze their impact.
Compatible with but institutionally separate from the general standards for
humanitarian response, the INEE Minimum Standards now constitute the
normative framework for humanitarian response in the education sector.
They are increasingly becoming points of reference for government minis-
tries of education, as they systematically address their responsibilities to con-
flict- and disaster-affected children and youth.
A major development of the past few years has been the growing positive
engagement and commitment of donor governments and multilateral donor
and lending agencies to addressing educational needs in multisectoral, post-
conflict reconstruction operations. Much of this interest has focused on the
issue of educational provision in contexts of state fragility, which refers to
situations in which the sovereign government of a state is unable or unwilling
to provide satisfactory education for all of its population. This is a wider
analytical concept than education in emergencies and reconstruction, taking
in situations of extreme poverty and state decline. The Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance
Committee, the EFA Fast Track Initiative, individual governments, and multi-
laterals have devoted considerable attention in recent times to analysis of the
relationships between provision of high-quality education and the diminution
of state fragility, as well as to identifying conditions under which donors may
invest with confidence in education systems in fragile situations. In 2008,
INEE launched a Working Group on Education and Fragility to promote
research and advocacy for these issues.
Ten years have passed since the publication of the first serious, rigorously
researched studies of the particularities of education in conflict and emer-
gencies. During this time there has been a flowering of studies devoted to
educational provision in particular conflict-affected countries and territories.
More and more, researchers are examining large thematic issues in inter-
national comparative studies. The findings of these research efforts have been
rapidly transferred into the development of increasingly targeted and so-
phisticated program-planning and management tools, for use by government
ministries, UN agencies, and nongovernmental organizations in emergency
response and early postconflict and postdisaster reconstruction.
A key question emerging from recent research is how powerful the school
Emergent Themes
We identify five central themes that emerge from this collection: (a) the
importance of learning and the focus of education, (b) identity as a learner,
(c) pedagogy, (d) discipline and abuse, and (e) peers and friends. They paint
a picture of the learner as a much more active and discerning agent than
has sometimes been portrayed. Particularly in fragile states, learners want
and need to take control of their lives. As various contributors point out,
they are keenly aware of when they are learning and when they are not
learning. They are experts on their own experience. And while they are
influenced by the regime of schooling and by the divisive politicization of
learning and identity, they can equally subvert well-meaning attempts to make
them learn together in ways that do not then fit their identities.
Identity as a Learner
This links to a second theme that emerges from these articles, that of
one’s identity as a learner and how this is conditioned or mediated through
the education one receives. The first of these is of course simply being a
learner in the sense of the responsibility or status provided by being in a
purposely educational setting, whether in a refugee camp or a “regular”
school. This is about membership in the club of learners, not only an in-
dividual path to tread. But membership is highly complex in divided societies.
The articles in this special issue show the extreme challenges of inclusion—
whether ethnonationalist as in Bosnia and Herzegovina, religious as in
Northern Ireland, ethnotribal as in Rwanda, or cultural/linguistic as in Can-
ada. Such divisions are then overlaid with other forms of inclusion/exclusion,
such as gender or disability, as in Afghanistan or in the Burmese camps in
Thailand. On top of this are revealed the pitfalls of some attempts at inte-
gration. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the international community did not
fully foresee the strength of nationalism that would prevent learners wanting
to learn alongside others and in a common language. To the learner—and,
sometimes, the teacher—commonality is threatening the purity of identity
that gives the sense of self and a place in history. The concern with purity
has been identified as being significant in other divided societies, such as
Sri Lanka (Silva 2002) and in the appeal of extremism and fundamentalism
(Davies 2008). What becomes very clear is that any attempts at “inclusive
education” must take into account the long histories of political and cultural
division or hostility and how these affect the continued struggles for identity
formation and stability of learners. Inclusive education programs can become
battlegrounds for the political loyalties of large population groups.
Pedagogy
Teachers in conflict situations can take on many roles, helping learners
in and out of school and in establishing alternative learning spaces. Yet a
recurring theme in the articles included here is not just what is taught, with
whom, and where, but how. The curriculum articles on Rwanda and on
Quebec/Northern Ireland show the importance of democratic teaching and
learning styles, which would enable critical thinking and critical exploration.
Learner-centered teaching is now accepted as an ideology in most countries
but is not always practiced in reality. The articles show the many challenges
to this being accepted. Teacher education rarely gives teachers the oppor-
tunity to develop skills in teaching controversial issues or even the skills of
organizing classroom debate. Particularly during or after conflict, teachers
may be untrained or poorly trained. They may lack confidence even in con-
ventional methods, let alone what are seen as more radical ones. Democratic
methods may be seen as time consuming in an overcrowded curriculum and
to contradict the drive for examination passing, qualifications, and jobs,
which are very important for giving students hope in the midst of fragile
situations. But even more challenging, perhaps, are the political realities. In
a society characterized by ethnic or religion tensions, is it easier or safer not
References
Allport, Gordon. 1954. The Nature of Prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Bush, Kenneth, and Diana Saltarelli. 2000. The Two Faces of Education in Ethnic
Conflict: Towards a Peacebuilding Education for Children. Florence: UNICEF Inno-
centi Research Centre.
Chabbott, Colette. 2004. UNICEF’s Child-Friendly Schools Framework: A Desk Review.
New York: UNICEF.
Covell, Katherine, and R. Brian Howe. 2005. “Rights, Respect and Responsibility.”
Report on the RRR Initiative to Hampshire Education Authority, Children’s
Rights Centre, Cape Breton University.
Davies, Lynn. 2004. Education and Conflict: Complexity and Chaos. London: Routledge.
Davies, Lynn. 2008. Educating against Extremism. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham.
Harber, Clive. 2005. Schooling as Violence: How Schools Harm Pupils and Societies. Lon-
don: Routledge.
INEE (Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies). 2004. Minimum Stan-
dards for Education in Emergencies, Chronic Crises and Early Reconstruction. Paris:
INEE.
Leach, Fiona, and Claudia Mitchell, eds. 2006. Combating Gender Violence in and
around Schools. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham.
Salmi, Jamil. 2006. “Violence, Democracy and Education: An Analytic Framework.”
In Promoting Social Cohesion, ed. E. Roberts-Schweitzer. Washington, DC: World
Bank Institute.
Silva, Neluka, ed. 2002. The Hybrid Island: Culture Crossings and the Invention of Identity
in Sri Lanka. London: Zed.
Smith, Alan, and Tony Vaux. 2003. Conflict and International Development. London:
Department for International Development.