Building Peace in Times of Rising Social Divisions: Role of Socialist Legacies in Responding to Radical Conservatism

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Women, Cold War politics, and peace education: Challenging the paradigm

Proposal

Since the Republic of Croatia gained its independence from socialist Yugoslavia after a 1991-1995 war, Croatians have been attempting to develop a cohesive vision of the Croatian citizenry within the newly formed democratic, capitalist state. Building this social cohesion includes tense negotiations about the meaning of Croatianhood and the future of Croatian society, including responding to increasingly present “patriotic” narratives that place equity-based positions on gender, race, class, nationality, and sexuality in antithetical relation with nationhood and tradition. Since citizenship education is promoted by state and international policymakers as a tool that can promote peace-building and help navigate diverging worldviews, this paper examines the experiences of Croatian women teachers, who, in the face of these social tensions, teach citizenship education (CE).

This research uses data from semi-structured interviews conducted with 16 Croatian women CE teachers. More specifically, using transnational feminist and postsocialist frames, this paper examines interviewees’ varied understandings of their role in interpreting, addressing, and negotiating social conflicts through CE. The study focuses specifically on experiences of women teachers who occupy a unique and complex position in nation-building projects, serving as both agents of cultural transmission and subjects of nationalist ideologies (Mohanty, 2003). While dominant conceptions of nationhood are inherently patriarchal and exclude women’s experiences as citizens, this research focuses on women teachers’ voices, since the burden of teaching CE falls on Croatian teachers, 81% of whom are women (Drzavni zavod za statistiku, 2024).

Research findings show that while all teachers shared a sense of responsibility for shaping social relations, they did not share a unified view on whether their role was to change, challenge, or shape opinions, or simply to facilitate discussions of diverging points of view. Some teachers believed it was their duty to teach students shared values, while others were more cautious about their role in influencing students' values and beliefs. This cautious approach regarding the role of education in shaping students’ beliefs partly stems from Croatia’s socialist past, which all participants experienced, and which influences teachers’ concerns about institutional overreach and control. The caution also reflects teachers’ experiences with capitalist governments' ambivalence towards problematic public discourses on gender, race, and sexuality. Finally, the lack of commitment to equity and justice, as well as the few training opportunities on social and structural factors impacting gender and other inequalities, in both socialist and capitalist systems, present a significant barrier to women teachers’ ability to respond to social conflict.

Women teachers in postsocialist, post-conflict Croatia demonstrate that postsocialist legacies continue to influence current social conditions and shape Croatian teachers’ educational choices aimed at fostering peace and responding to the growing radical conservatism. Furthermore, while discourses in public debates increasingly attack gender rights, this research shows that women teachers are navigating legacies of socialism and realities of capitalism with few resources, affecting their ability to fulfill the full potential of CE as a catalyst for peace. The research concludes with ways to support CE teachers in Croatia and beyond.

Author

• Nana Gulic, O.I.S.E. University of Toronto