Achieving educational rights and justice in conflict affected contexts: 4As and 4Rs

• In Event: Theoretical and empirical approaches to building peace amidst conflict

Proposal

More than half a century of successive international declarations, covenants, and conventions have established a legal commitment on the part of individual nation-states to ensuring that all children have access to quality education free of bias and discrimination. Subsequent years saw increasing numbers of students attending school, but often in situations where education as delivered remained inadequate to the needs of learners, their communities, and societies as a whole; a product of the narrowing of the expansive agenda for education set out in earlier commitments, to a minimalist agenda which focussed on a one-size-fits-all model of education through formal schooling (see for example Robeyns, 2006). This reductionist view of the expansive rights-based framework signalled in earlier doctrine, and the absence of a social justice framework for education provision, was (and still is) particularly problematic in conflict-affected contexts (CACs) where the nature, quality and perceived (ir)relevance of education service provision acts as a driver for conflict. In CACs, poverty, gender, ethnicity, and geography, all have a role in determining levels of educational deprivation in such circumstances (UNESCO, 2011). In other words, to ignore horizontal and vertical inequalities in society, and presume that provision focused on universalism is appropriate is problematic at best, and dangerous at worst—in terms of fueling alienation and false hopes for education (Novelli & Smith, 2011).

Building on our earlier collaborative work and insights from the field of Education in Emergencies, in this conceptual paper we take the conceptual debate a step further by bringing together two relevant theoretical models: Tomaševski’s (2003) 4A’s framework—based on concepts of availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability of education; and the 4Rs framework (Novelli, Lopes Cardozo and Smith, 2017) that draws on the work of Fraser (2005) on social justice. As we discussed in these publications, and in other work developed through the Research Consortium on Education and Peacebuilding, it is often a lack of recognition, insufficient representation, and unequal distribution of resources which often fuels grievances of citizens against the state or other education service providers, and hinders processes of reconciliation. Bringing together these analytical frameworks allows us to identify what distinguishes education serving a positive and transformative, rather than a restorative or reproductive, role in CACs, particularly if the goal is to build a lasting peace. We argue that any educational framework that attempts to seriously work towards an objective of building peace through education would need to prioritise considerations of equity rather than equality. This requires specific engagement with multiple forms of injustices which preclude such goals from being realised, in light of the limitations noted with the universalism ascribed by the rights-based discourse to date.

To date, however, the rights-based discourse has been narrowly used as a call for increasing access, while social justice frameworks are often deployed solely for the purposes of addressing inequity (of either outcome or opportunity). There has been little work that has sought to better understand the interplay between these factors. This, according to Unterhalter (2014, p. 865), yields a social policy environment which then struggles to understand how inequalities are multidimension in nature. She argues for improved “knowledge resources…for gathering information or reflexively engaging with complex inequalities,” of which we believe the 4Rs in combination with the 4A’s provide a useful starting point for analysis. The paper visually maps the interrelationships between the 4As and the 4Rs, with specific attention to conflict-affected contexts. In doing so, we draw on key actions from across the INEE Minimum Standards (2010) to suggest what this might look like.

We contend that only when education provides meaningful access to all, and is provisioned in ways that are equitable rather than equal, can it effectively contribute to what Fraser termed a ‘transformative remedy’. We demonstrate in this conceptual paper, how bringing the 4As and 4Rs together helps us to focus on the intersectional dimensions of opportunity and disadvantage which cannot be solely understood by singular classifications or disaggregation of groups by location, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexuality, social class, or other identify markers. It also lends to advocacy for comprehensive and longer-term educational interventions in conflict-affected environments, to ensure that the restoration and expansion of access goes hand in hand with considerations about equity and appropriateness.

References:

Fraser, N. (2005). Reframing Justice in a Globalized World. New Left Review, 36, 79–88.

INEE (2010) Minimum Standards for Education: Preparedness, Response, Recovery, availble at http://s3.amazonaws.com/inee-assets/resources/INEE_Minimum_Standards_Handbook_2010(HSP)_EN.pdf

Novelli, M., & Smith, A. (2011). The Role of Education in Peacebuilding: A synthesis report of findings from Lebanon, Nepal and Sierra Leone. New York: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Novelli, M., Lopes Cardozo, M.T.A. and Smith, A. (2017), ‘The 4Rs Framework: Analyzing Education’s Contribution to Sustainable Peacebuilding with Social Justice in Conflict-Affected Contexts’, Journal on Education in Emergencies, 3(1), pp. 14-43 DOI: https://doi.org/10.17609/N8S94K

Tomaševski, K. (2001). Right to education Primers no. 1. Gothenburg: Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.

Unterhalter, E. (2014). Walking backwards into the future: a comparative perspective on education and a post-2015 framework. Compare, 44(6), 852–873. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2014.957040

UNESCO. (2011). The Hidden Crisis: Children and Armed Conflict. (UNESCO, Ed.), EFA Global Monitoring Report. Paris: UNESCO

Authors

• Mieke Lopes Cardozo, University of Amsterdam

• Ritesh Shah, University of Auckland