Mechanisms of Institutional Interaction in Post-Genocide Education: An Examination of Secondary Social Studies Education

• In Event: Schooling in conflict & post-conflict societies: the politics of knowledge

Proposal

Introduction
This research explores interactions between international government organizations (IGOs) and national governments related to the development of secondary social studies curriculum in post-genocide contexts, with a specific focus on the interactions between UNESCO and Rwanda in the development of their post-genocide history curriculum. The Rwandan context is the primary focal point of this research because of the extensive external involvement in re-developing the country following the 1994 genocide (King, 2013; Schweisfurth, 2006; Tawil & Harley, 2004). UNESCO was an organization which initially—and continually—supported the Rwandan education system following the genocide, and they also contribute to the international model of post-genocide education, in part through their substantial work with Holocaust education. This research examines the interactions between international and national policy makers and identifies five mechanisms of interaction, including financial support, professional oversight, normative beliefs, implementation, and accountability measures.

Relevance & Significance
This study explores the international template for post-genocide social studies education in the Rwandan context, and qualifies as comparative and international education because it examines international models for post-genocide education in one specific context. While there are numerous studies which describe how education is implemented in schools and classrooms in the post-genocide Rwandan context, this study is unique in that it examines the institutional level to explore the policies which inform these previously studied classroom practices. The framework presented in this study can be applied to analyses of education systems and curriculum in other post-trauma contexts to highlight interactions between international and national level policy makers.

Theoretical Framework
The theoretical framework guiding this research draws from sociological neo-institutionalism and policy borrowing to create a new frame for analysis—the mechanisms of institutional interaction. Aligning Leuze et al.’s (2008) international governance instruments and national transformation capacities with Phillips and Ochs’s (2003, 2004) cross-national attraction impulses and externalizing potential contributed to the mechanisms of institutional interaction, which exist in the space where international and national level policy makers interact. These mechanisms include the areas of financial support; professional oversight, including human capacity and resources; normative beliefs, including cultural norms, pedagogical approaches, and curriculum content; implementation, including guidance and instruction regarding how to implement a policy; and accountability measures, including goals and outcomes to evaluate a policy’s long term implementation.

Methodology
For this case study, research was conducted using content analysis from document sets representing international and national narratives. Content analysis provided a framework for the systematic examination of historical documents from different organizations and moments in time. At the international level, policy documents published by UNESCO focusing on Rwanda and Holocaust education were included. For the national level, Rwandan policy and social studies curriculum documents were included. The primary research developed a coding scheme from existing literature and theory, which was then piloted on selected pages from each document. During this pilot phase, an additional coder worked to ensure the validity and reliability of the coding scheme.

Results
Interactions between UNESCO and Rwandan policy makers were particularly observable through the mechanisms of institutional interaction of professional oversight and accountability measures. Within professional oversight, UNESCO documents encouraged national policy makers to rely on international organizations for professional and technical assistance regarding post-genocide education development, a sentiment that is echoed in Rwandan policy documents, which call for national offices to oversee and coordinate UNESCO’s involvement in the Rwandan education system. These interactions show the push and pull between the international and national levels, and both UNESCO and Rwandan policy makers seek to provide professional oversight.
Accountability measures occupied the largest number of coded sentences, with many of these sentences referring to international education goals. For example, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and the Education for All (EFA) goals are international tools to measure progress which were referenced throughout the international and national documents. The MDG and EFA goals are indicate the overlapping narratives, as the Rwandan documents cite UNESCO’s EFA goals as a benchmark toward which the national education system is striving, while the UNESCO narrative attributes the development of the Rwandan education system, and overall national development, in part, to its achievement of these goals.
Additional findings emerged beyond the mechanisms of institutional interaction, including an increase in genocide-related content between the 2008 and 2010 curriculum to the 2015 curriculum. The Rwandan ministry may include content related to the genocide as a way to maintain global legitimacy and attract donor funding. Even when the genocide was not included, there was a heavy emphasis on Rwandan values, such as peace, tolerance, and respect, which may be an indirect way of addressing the past by promoting the creation of citizens who are more aware and prepared to prevent any such event in the future. One possible explanation for this increase is the Rwandan government’s need to include the genocide in their curriculum in order to meet the expectations of the international community.
It also became apparent that in Rwanda, history was written by the winners, with the referred to as the genocide of the Tutsi, despite the questionable behavior of the Rwandan Patriotic Front. Human Rights Watch has limited documentation on civilian violence performed by the RPF, stating that they too performed large-scale executions. Additionally, in the curriculum and policy documents, the RPF is positioned as the hero party which ended the genocide and saved the country, when in reality they were an active part of the Rwandan conflict both leading up to and following the genocide.

Conclusion
This research examines policy documents to explore the intersections of UNESCO and Rwandan policy makers around the development of secondary social studies education. The mechanisms of institutional interaction appeared across documents, providing evidence of policy makers interactions. Both UNESCO and Rwanda are active agents in the transfer of international expectations regarding post-genocide education. UNESCO contributes to education development by using the mechanisms of institutional interaction to encourage national level policy makers to adopt their agenda. Rwanda also participates in the international post-genocide model by using the same mechanisms of institutional interaction to both accept and reject particular portions of the international narrative.

Author

• Petrina Davidson, Lehigh University