Education and Conflict: Complexity and Chaos

129 Pages·2003·2.41 MB·English

by  Lynn Davies

vi Contents
PART IV
Acknowledgements
Strategic responses to conflict 141
9 Education in immediate times of conflict 143
10 The aftermath of conflict: rebuilding society 165
11 Conflict resolution within the school 183
PART V
The complex adaptive school 201
Thank you to:
12 Education for positive conflict and interruptive democracy 203
• all the people whose minds I have plagiarised for this book; all the young
and, er, older people who have inspired me through their examples of
Bibliography 225
positive resistance
Index 242
• people in the Centre for International Education and Research and
beyond who read drafts, told me what to cut out, and provided
everything from encouragement to jugs of margaritas — Clive Harbcr,
Michele Schweisfurth, Gordon Kirkpatrick, Chris Williams and Hiromi
Yamashita
• my husband Chris Davies who also applied his ideas around tree surgery
to cut out the surplus
• my daughter Anna for being an oasis of peace.
Part I
The terms of the debate
1
i
Chapter I
I ntroduction
The nature of conflict
There are no signs that the world is becoming a less conflictual place. Peace
agreements are signed and conflict breaks out in another place, or resumes in
the old one. The spread of international human rights conventions is barely
able to contain the rise of various fundamentalisms, claiming rights to land
as well as to ideology. Rewriting boundaries means new or resurgent ethnici-
ties, and demands for recognition and autonomy. Violence against children
may be legally prohibited in some countries, but domestic violence, school
violence and child sexual abuse does not go away. Conflict is part of our
lives, and it is difficult to foresee a time when there will not be a struggle for
resources and when those seeking or maintaining power will not use some
form of conflict in power interests. Highly 'educated' or qualified people
have been responsible for major atrocities in recent human history — as with
medical doctors in Nazi Germany as well as South Africa.
The nature of conflict is however shifting. As Eade points out, it is almost
routine to begin the discussion of conflict-related emergencies by stating that
contemporary wars are fought not on demarcated battlefields, but in the
towns, villages and homes of ordinary people. Ninety per cent of today's war
casualties are civilians and four out of five refugees and displaced persons are
women and children. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet
bloc are thought to have intensified these trends and ushered in the New
World Disorder (Eade 1996). Some 7 million children worldwide were
either killed or injured by conflict over the last decade alone, and more than
10 million are still affected by the violence they have witnessed or participated
in (Ecole et Paix 2001). Terrorism is claiming new victims and new martyrs,
as well as generating the dangerous 'war on terror' heavily promoted by the
USA.
Yet conflict resolution and prevention is grossly underfunded. In 2001
Britain was spending twenty times its contribution to OSCE (Organisation
for Security and Cooperation in Europe) on continued military operations to
`contain' Saddam Hussein (Mathews 2001). NATO countries spend approxi-
mately $413 billion on 'defence', which is 215,000 times the OSCE budget.
As Mathews points out, the result of such policies is that in conflict areas
4 The terms of the debate Introduction: the nature of conflict 5
around the world, warlords have instant access to weapons, and attention is on both sides of a conflict—whether in India and Pakistan, in the Middle East,
concentrated on the violent — while potential bridge builders and peace- in Northern Ireland — have been 'educated' in the sense of 'schooled', but
makers have few tools and fewer resources. This book considers whether will still see armed conflict as a solution — sometimes the only solution — to ter-
education can become part of these tools. Education spending is still less ritorial claims. The fact that it is in the interest of many economies that
than defence spending in most countries of the world, but is nonetheless a size- other countries live in perpetual tension so that they purchase arms is not
able chunk of the economy. something that appears on the school curriculum. It is not just that schools
Landmines cost less than $10 each, but once laid cost $300—$1000 to clear. do not all do 'peace education', but they do not tackle the uncomfortable
De-mining lags far behind the placing of new mines, so that there are now economic and political issues which might enable the next generation to
over 110 million mines strewn over past and current battlefields; their demand a more ethical foreign policy. This book argues that there are grave
removal would cost over $33 billion (UNICEF 1997). Landmine education omissions — or contradictions — in the curricula of both stable and conflictual
also mops up some of the education budget in affected countries, as will be societies, omissions which contribute to a continued acceptance of war.
discussed later. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council, There are also elements of the process and ethos of schooling which foster a
with supposedly a keen interest in peacekeeping, are also the main suppliers lifelong predisposition to hostility — also often glossed over.
of arms, accounting for more than four-fifths of weapons sold (Rihani 2002). The World Bank Report A Chance to Learn: Knowledge and Finance for Education
Arms sales are linked to foreign policy; the Middle East, a lucrative market in Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, has a section on 'Extensive Armed Con-
for the USA and Europe, has, as Rihani points out, 'the perfect mix of attri- flicts'. This documents the brutal facts of one African in five living in a country
butes: abundant oil money, leaders willing to start a fight at the least provoca- severely disrupted by war, a growing number of perpetrators of violence
tion and a long history rich with grievances' (Rihani 2002: 221). New being children, and conflicts destabilising the region as a whole, eroding
Labour's promise to follow an ethical foreign policy with regard to the sales investor confidence, disrupting trade routes, accelerating the spread of HIV/
of British weapons abroad was forgotten soon after it won the election in AIDS and sending refugee populations into neighbouring countries (World
1997. Arms are marketed assiduously, with huge subsidies to foreign buyers. Bank 2001a: 25). The report is then curiously silent on how or whether edu-
The figures show clearly that the expenditure on arms has not promoted cation should respond to this. Instead it focuses on the conventional areas
peace. In 1994 it was calculated that 4 per cent of the sum spent by developing of universal primary education, alternatives to existing service delivery, cost-
countries for military purposes would have been enough to achieve universal sharing, language of instruction, physical infrastructure, teacher—pupil ratios,
primary education, cut adult illiteracy by 50 per cent and educate women to health education, locally produced textbooks, technology, vocational train-
the level of men (UNDP 1994). It is probably an even smaller fraction now, ing: education of nomads, teacher training and teachers' conditions of
with the increasing sophistication and cost of weapons. The sale cf arms is of service — it would seem everything but any direct attention to conflict and
course a very complex web across a range of buyers and sellers, so that arms peace. This is extraordinary. The section on 'measuring progress' does not
sold by one country can in the end easily be used against them, an irony not even hint at progress towards peace, relying on indicators of reading ability.
often admitted. UN peacekeeping forces die as a result of arms produced by The gender/equity sections discuss access to schooling, but have nothing to
the West. With arms easily accessible, internal conflicts are militarised; when say about the role of education in combating gender-based violence. There
wars break out they are prolonged; when wars end, peacekeeping operations is a mention of Colombia's aim 'to develop citizen skills', and conflict is
are endangered, and the burden of peacebuilding is exaggerated by the need mentioned in terms of problems of violence between nomads and farmers,
to try to collect millions of small arms that have been infused by western but basically, conflict is seen as a contextual (a diversionary?) issue rather
arms-dealers into the prevailing social and political disorder (O'Sullivan than one to be addressed head on through the education system. Given that
1999). this text is within the 'human development' series, it is a great pity that a
This book examines the relationship of education to such conflict and such body as influential as the World Bank does not appear to want to take a radical
contradiction. It does not paint a picture of schooling as a rescue operation, stance in prioritising peace.
nor work on the premiss that a continuation of our present education systems Nonetheless other bodies and arenas are acknowledging the centrality of
will of necessity eventually lead to a more peaceful and collaborative world. the issue. By the time of the 1990 World Conference on Education for All in
There is little evidence so far that the formal systems that we have had in 1990, in Jomtien, a connection had been made between declining school
place for over a century in many parts of the world have directly made the enrolments and armed conflict, although the actual Jomtien Declaration
world a more 'rational' or ordered place. The people making the decisions and Framework made only limited reference to such armed conflict. The
6 The terms of the debate 1 Introduction: the nature of conflict 7
Amman mid-decade review in 1996 devoted one of its round table sessions to It can be seen that I hope for multiple audiences. I do think that the link
`Education in Emergencies', identifying escalating violence caused by grow- between conflict and education is a grossly under-analysed area. This is
ing ethnic tensions and other sources of conflict as an 'emerging challenge' not surprising, as it is uncomfortable for policymakers and curriculum
for education (Tawil 2001). The World Education Forum in Dakar in 2000 developers. It is safer to focus on literacy and numeracy, on the number of
introduced into the Dakar Framework for Action that EFA initiatives must desks and the achievement of measurable targets. It is significant that much
take into account the needs of children and adults affected by armed conflict. of the curriculum work and materials on rights, non-violence and peace
How exactly should this be 'taken into account' though? Tawil asks these education comes from NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations) outside
questions: the main state frameworks. I want to see conflict brought into the main-
stream, to encourage both risk-taking and networking. The aims and range
If one of the principal functions of education is to ensure social cohesion, of this book are in some ways hopelessly ambitious, but what I attempt to
what do violent breakdowns of social cohesion tell us about the content show is that everything is interlinked, that you need a robust sociological
and function of formal education? How does formal education contri- theory as well as examples of good practice, and that you need some sort of
bute to the breakdown of social cohesion and the outbreak of internal vision as well as descriptions of everyday 'reality'. A central position of the
conflict? Conversely, in what ways can formal education contribute to book is that we all have agency, but that we need a range of alliances to
the reinforcement or rebuilding of social cohesion? sustain real change. If the book has multiple audiences, it is because we need
(Tawil 2001: 294) multiple connectivities. As a teacher educator, I like Murphy's (1999) idea
of 'an open conspiracy'. If we are to do anything about conflict, it will need
I would add some further puzzles. Why do some schools remain resilient in the an open conspiracy of a large range of people in and around education.
face of war, while others collapse? How can a school simultaneously seem to I should at this point reveal where I come from in this book. It is from a
be a force for good and a force for evil? How can religious education do like- history of working around deviance, around gender issues, around democracy
wise? Are the ways of doing peace directly opposite to the ways of doing war? and around education management — all within international contexts.
What are the 'rules of engagement' for peace? Can a country declare peace Pupil deviance, teacher deviance and government deviance are closely inter-
on another country, and can schools help in this declaration? twined in most parts of the world. Short periods of work in Kosovo, Bosnia
These are all the questions for this book. As the above discussion has and Palestine over the last few years have given me practical insights into
implied, the relationship of education to conflict is not just about conflict responses to conflict, and certainly will have underpinned the interest in
societies — it is a global issue in which stable countries are also implicated. complexity. Management training with United Nations Relief and Works
And conflict within the school occurs in any political context, with increasing Agency (UNRWA) officials in UK and Jordan has also been a learning
concerns about violence and disaffection among students. These two arenas experience, as is teaching human rights education and citizenship education
are intricately interlinked, as I will try to show. On one level, of course, all to experienced international participants. Theoretically I often come at con-
life is conflict, and it may be difficult to know where the boundary falls flict from a feminist standpoint and have been influenced by feminist writers
between the inevitable everyday cut and thrust and the full-scale war — or and researchers on conflict and masculinity. However, to arrive at complexity
whether to talk of a boundary at all. In parallel with the concern about theory means an eclectic mix of feminist theory, deviancy theory, manage-
armed conflict and violence, this book also advances the notion of 'positive ment theory and development theory. Friends ask whether this book is my
conflict' — the necessary way in which social progress occurs and challenges life's work, and in some ways it is. But it is a life bombarded by other lives,
are made to injustice. other rationalities, other absurdities. I acknowledge debt to them all.
My aims in this book are fourfold:
Structure of the book
(a) to demonstrate the crucial contemporary importance of an analysis of
the relationship between education and conflict The ordering of this book has been difficult, because of the overlapping nature
(b) to trace connections between wider conflict and school-based conflict of all of the discussion and the predicament of fitting a non-linear subject
(c) to provide a theoretical framework for understanding which can also be into a linear framework. Nonetheless, I do want to try to build an argument,
used in practical ways and isolate some areas before reassembling them. After this introductory
(d) to advance the use of positive conflict and interruptive democracy in chapter, Chapter 2 sets out the framework of complexity theory which will
education as a way to allow the emergence of more appropriate learning.
8 The terms of the debate Introduction: the nature of conflict 9
underpin the book. Part II focuses on the roots of conflict and their implica- extreme, in that it does not include consensual resolution. Roche (1996) simi-
tions for education. This is somewhat artificially carved up into the three larly defines conflict as 'the playing out in violent form of political relations'.
areas of economic/class relations, gender, and ethnicity/identity, acknowl- For this book, I prefer a wider concept of conflict, in line with Agerback's
edging their interconnections but arguing that there are distinctive contri- delineation of 'dispute':
butions that each 'field' makes to the conflict debate. Analytically it is
necessary to tease out such contributions, if only to avoid the paralysis that In the sense of dispute, conflict is of course universal in the politics of
comes from seeing everything as inexorably linked. The irony or paradox of family, community and nation. In that sense, any dynamic human
complexity theory is that the sum is not reducible to its parts, yet to under- system is by nature a conflictive one, encompassing the play of opposing
stand connectivity we do need to look at those parts. interests. The crux lies in how such conflict is managed. So long as the
Part III moves more directly to review the interface between education and social and political processes provide channels for dialogue, partici-
conflict in terms firstly of how war or violence affects educational institutions, pation and negotiation, conflict plays a constructive role. Where such
and secondly (or conversely) how education can contribute to war — or to channels are blocked, and yet basic needs go unmet, then resentment
peace. It must be stressed again that these chapters are not just about 'war- and desperation build up. The outcome is protest, repression and
torn' societies. Conflict spreads historically and spatially. The contribution violence.
of education to war is not just in military training camps, but in 'normal' com- (1996: 27)
petitive, authoritarian, non-critical pedagogy the world over. Similarly, the
contribution to peace can range from very specific 'peace packages' used in Such a description links the universal nature of conflict with the more crucial
refugee camps to 'normal' democratic, rights-based, cooperative education question of where it stems from and what people do with it. Many conflict
which can also be found all over the world (although, I would have to say, resolution books start out with definitions of conflict, definitions which are
far less frequently). actually about causality and process. From Isenhart and Spangle's (2000)
Part IV contains four chapters delineating strategic responses to conflict. list of definitions from a range of authors, for example, one could summarise
I have initially followed the convention of distinguishing conflict and post- that conflict is:
conflict societies, while admitting that the strategies overlap hugely. In the
`immediate' conflict chapter I look at rapid educational response and • a real or apparent incompatibility of interests or goals
humanitarian aid, as well as refugee education; in the 'aftermath' chapter I • a belief that parties' current aspirations cannot be achieved simulta-
focus more on the issue of rebuilding society and restoring public and political neously
culture. These two chapters are followed by one that focuses specifically on • a struggle over values and claims to status, power or resources
conflict resolution within the school, showing how the techniques used in • an intermediate stage of a spectrum of struggle that escalates and
conflict resolution at international levels equally apply to classrooms and becomes more destructive.
relationships in an institution. The final chapter sets out my argument for
interruptive democracy and positive conflict, for the deliberate introduction In organisational psychology on the other hand, there is a traditional dis-
of certain sorts of conflict within a school in order to create a generation of tinction between cognitive conflict and affective conflict. Cognitive conflict
learners who will challenge injustice and the folly of violence — and whereby is overt, related to the task; affective conflict happens at the more subtle,
the complex adaptive school can be an agent of change in the community process level and relates to group maintenance and interpersonal dynamics.
and beyond. Cognitive issues focus on roles, policies and resources and enhance group per-
formance. Affective issues focus on norms and values, and supposedly reduce
performance and satisfaction. Apparently, people are able to tell the differ-
Definitions of conflict, war, violence, protest and
ence between the two, and whether conflict is about affective states such as
peace
hatred and jealousy (Thomas 1992). I would hazard however that it is
It would be useful to begin with how this book sees and uses the basic termi- unlikely, especially in education, that there is clear water between the two
nology. Coser (1956) had a simple definition of conflict as involving struggles states. Even a conflict about something functional, such as curriculum
between two or more people over values, or competition for status, power policy, is likely to mean people taking positions related to their identity.
and scarce resources. He later added 'in which the aim of opponents is to If the question is solved after a simple debate with people putting forward
neutralise, injure or eliminate rivals' (1967: 8), which seems somewhat views and counter-indications which are persuasive enough for a consensus
10 The terms of the debate Introduction: the nature of conflict I I
to form, then this is not actually a conflict. If something becomes a conflict, in feminist rhetoric and analysis in the 1970s. This was intended as a powerful
then affective issues are bound to emerge. metaphor, to challenge the limited definitions of war, and is less used now
The nature of escalation and the question of time together mean that defini- after some trivialisation by the media. However, the need to understand
tions of 'conflict' therefore may revolve around a temporal or 'stage' issue, gender relations as a potential ongoing site of conflict is still there, particu-
that is, at what point a difference of opinion actually becomes a conflict. larly in terms of sexual violence and the forms such sexual violence takes in
`Crisis', for example, is defined by Roche as 'a critical juncture in a process national or civil armed conflict (see Chapter 4). 'War' is generally used now
at which a radical change becomes necessary. Thus a crisis represents a period in a range of metaphorical discourses, and this has educational implications.
of transformation, or transition when disaster threatens. Disaster is defined There are also different definitions of violence, not of all of which include
here as the situation that occurs when crisis outstrips the capacity of a society arms. Cairns says we must distinguish interpersonal violence from intergroup
to cope with it' (1996: 23). Hence instead of attempting to deal solely with or political violence, the latter defined as 'violence perpetrated by one set or
events produced by different types of change, we must try to shape and guide group or people on another set or group of people who were often strangers
the forces which produce such events, in order to 'change the nature of to each other before the violence occurred' (Cairns 1996: 10). Yet in civil war
change itself' (Roche 1996: 23). such as in Bosnia the groups were only too familiar; I am not sure about this
Perceptions of the history of a conflict become crucial for looking at points definition. Zwi and Ugalde (1991) distinguish four main types of 'political
of intervention and 'coping'. As Cockburn (1998) points out, conflicts (such violence', although recognising that they overlap considerably:
as in the Balkans, or Northern Ireland) are portrayed by the media and
other commentators as based on age-old, primordial ties — wars are thus seen • structural — resulting from the maldistribution of resources and political
as inescapable and will never end; they will just vary in intensity. Yet a more power
careful reading shows that these wars are modern — not just fought with • repressive — by the state or others in which social groups are targeted
modern weapons, but with modern goals — sovereignty, statehood or citizen- because of their religion, ethnicity, political beliefs, etc.
ship, as well as resources. Focusing on 'age-old' rivalries also underestimates • reactive — a reaction against the repression experienced, or conversely by
the part played by twentieth- and twenty-first-century world powers such as privileged groups against reforming government
the USA, Britain and Germany. Who is fighting whom can change all the • combative — the use of force to preserve or gain power, possibly linked with
time, including who are allies and who become the refugees in whose country. outside intervention such as the 'low intensity' wars of Mozambique or
This is another argument for complexity theory, to help understand the Nicaragua.
dynamics of change in conflict.
Shifts in the nature of armed conflicts are also relevant to discussing the role I find Jamil Salmi's (1999) typology one of the most useful for this book.
of education in different countries (Tawil 2001). Since the end of the Cold He offers an analytical framework to define violence and distinguishes four
War, violent conflicts have increasingly taken place within, rather than different categories:
between, states. In 1999, only two of the twenty-seven major armed conflicts
observed throughout the world were international. Yet this picture can • Direct violence relates to physical acts resulting in deliberate injury and kill-
change, and will be influenced by 'international terrorism' within and across ing (murder, genocide, rape, torture, forced resettlement, forced labour,
countries. slavery).
I then come to the question of whether 'war' is the same as 'armed conflict' • Indirect violence refers to violence by omission — lack of protection against
and/or 'violent conflict'. Arnhold et al. (1998) in their book on Education for poverty, hunger, disease, accidents and natural catastrophe, or victims
Reconstruction distinguish three forms of 'war': intercountry belligerence, civil of persecution; also mediated violence which is the result of deliberate
war, and ethnic and religious conflict, all of which mean physical destruction human interventions in the natural or social environment (defoliants,
and disruption to education. Even after a political settlement, hostility will pesticides, embargos).
persist. We should not conflate the three forms of conflict — interpersonal • Repressive violence refers to human rights violations — of freedom of thought,
aggression, public order and organised war — as they have legal distinctions. speech, religion, freedom to vote, go on strike, form a union.
Definitions of 'war' may also have a gendered component. Kelly asks, 'Does • Alienating violence is the deprivation of a person's higher rights such as
militarism construct a particular form of brutal (or brutalised) masculinity? psychological, emotional, cultural or intellectual integrity. This includes
When is a war a war, and what constitutes peace from the perspective of racism, social ostracism, cultural repression and living in fear.
women?' (2000: 47). She points out how the term 'sex war' was commonplace