War in the Classroom: Teaching Conflict Through Textbooks

• In Event: A Long and Representative View of Peace Education Across the Globe

Abstract

Conflicted-affected societies are faced with the challenge of finding a balance between the recognition of injustices for the purpose of meaningful reconciliation versus promoting values of social cohesion for the purpose of national unity. How conflict and war are addressed in school textbooks is one area where this debate is most apparent. This study provides the perspectives of 58 teachers and 101 students on Sri Lanka’s 30-year war and if and how school curricula should address the country’s conflict. Findings reveal that education can take the role of victim, accomplice, and transformer of conflict with respect to how conflict is in/excluded in the formal curriculum. Participants’ ethnic affiliation, exposure to war, and understanding determined how these roles played out.

Author

• Thursica Kovinthan Levi, University of Ottawa