Beyond Battlefields: Rebuilding Education and Redefining Identity and Conflict through Schooling in Post-War Burundi

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Knowledge production, displacement, and identity: Challenges, theories, and reflexive experiences from conflict and post-conflict contexts

Proposal

Schools are unequal. Who gets access to school, and the way resources and teachers are trained and distributed shape a country’s social, political, and economic systems. Unequal schooling also contributes to violence, conflict, and war. This presumed education inequality/war pipeline has led to noble goals for addressing these inequalities as a key priority for peacebuilding by the international community. UNESCO declared that “an education that is provided equally, with inclusive teaching and learning materials, is a powerful preventive tool and antidote for conflict” in in 2016 Global Education Monitoring Report. Addressing inequalities in schooling can get at the root causes of violence: addressing grievances, building social-emotional learning skills, promoting social cohesion, promoting democratization, and post-war government legitimacy after violence have all been posited as key reasons why education access can promote peace. However, we know very little about how addressing education inequalities can contribute to peace. Several factors likely inhibit the presumed short- and long-term benefits of addressing educational inequalities: legacies of violence can take years to overcome, and the politics and polarization of identities can influence how youth interpret changes in their education opportunities after war - even in the face of post-war political power-sharing and changes in governance structures.

This paper is an effort to bridge institutional and identity research on education’s role in conflict to better inform our understanding of perceived education inequality after identity-based wars. This book is a case study on the implications of the politics and policy of education changes and their effects on youth in post-war Burundi. I draw on interviews with 72 secondary, 25 university, and 17 out-of-school youth in the country, which I conducted over 4 field visits. I explore how youth in this post-war, resource-poor country envision inequality (and equity) across ethnic, regional, political, and gender identities in their schooling and lives. I argue that attempts to redress educational inequalities after civil wars and identity-based violence may paradoxically reinforce existing disparities and create new perceptions of inequality, especially without significant investments in economic and peacebuilding initiatives. Moreover, I contend that both pre- and post-war institutional structures influence the effectiveness of policies aimed at reducing educational inequalities, and that such institutional structures sometimes working against each other.

Equal access to education through redistribution is a priority for countries emerging from conflict. This paper showcases how governments and policymakers can reduce perceived inequality in education, even in resource-scarce post-war countries, and even if actual inequalities are difficult to overcome. Beyond Battlefields builds on the growing field of education in conflict studies, in addition to contributing to studies on the politics of education. By adding youth voices to the study of education redistribution, I hope to contribute to a growing literature elevating these voices in times when youth resilience and hope in education are needed more than ever. In addition, development organizations and practitioners often aim to increase access to marginalized groups through their educational programming. Governments around the world are facing challenges of inequality in schooling, inequalities that have only magnified as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper offers a cautiously realistic pathway for how such actors could contribute to short- and long-term peacebuilding goals through education.

Author

• Emily Dunlop, Cornell University