Education In Divided Societies

All societies contain ethnic divisions. Traditionally, education has acted to promote social integration, but with the acknowledgement of diversity do we know which system best promotes positive inter-community relations? Education in Divided Societies examines the experience of a range of systems, including those which provide common schools and those which place minorities in separate schools. The book argues that structures do not guarantee outcomes and that processes of dialogue and interconnected social systems provide the route to the future.

Conceived through collaboration by activist academics from Israel and Northern Ireland, this book draws from experience to offer practical and theoretical insights and programs for promoting activist pedagogy for shared learning and shared life in divided societies.

This book examines the possibilities and realities of promoting citizenship, peace, and reconciliation through schooling in divided and post conflict societies. With specific attention to the case of Northern Ireland and the Local and Global Citizenship (LGC) initiative, the book investigates the faltering progress to develop and teach school curricula aimed at promoting citizenship as well as peace, tolerance, and mutual understanding. Following an overview of the scholarship on citizenship education, the author provides a broad social and political historical context within which to understand the educational reforms and changes that have taken place in Northern Ireland, highlighting various education initiatives of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s that sought to foster understanding of "the other" and promote reconciliation. The book’s focus then shifts to the implementation of LGC, which began in 2007. Despite initially strong political support and a considerable investment in terms of financial and human resources, LGC has had limited impact. The book analyzes the obstacles impeding its success, which include marginalization within the curriculum and competing conceptions of the purpose of education. A concluding chapter reflects upon what we can learn from LGC’s implementation and highlights innovative recent initiatives to bring the young people of Northern Ireland together. This book will appeal to scholars and students of education studies with interests in citizenship education, peace studies, educational policy, and curricula and practice.

Countries that have suffered ethnic or religious conflict and become segregated societies reflect these divisions in education provision for their children. Northern Ireland is a case study in point where a parallel system of schools offers education in Catholic maintained schools and Protestant (de facto) controlled schools. While school segregation is the most obvious manifestation of Northern Ireland's fractured society, there are more important issues of 'educational inequality' with respect to schools and pupils. This book analyses three issues in some detail: segregation, educational performance and inequality in educational outcomes between schools and between pupils from deprived and affluent family backgrounds. Thus far public policies to tackle these issues have been met with limited success. The authors consider an alternative approach, which they term 'shared education', the aim of which is to improve school performance and, in so doing, to dismantle some of the barriers between maintained and controlled schools.

One of the key unanswered questions related to youth violence and tolerance is the effect of social diversity on daily experience. By examining children's political imagery, this project significantly expands existing work on troubled and neglected youth in Northern Ireland, South Africa, and the Middle East. The current changing political context within Northern Ireland reflects that a process of peace-building has begun and that integrated schooling is an important cornerstone of that process.