Teaching about education in emergencies in a time of scholasticide: Examining lecturers’ readiness and competences to teach about Gaza

• In Event: Methods That Matter: Rethinking How We Study Education in Crisis

Proposal

Hajir and Qato (2025) argue that the scholasticide of the Palestinian education system extends beyond the systematic destruction of schools and the targeting of teachers and scholars. It also encompasses the silences within Western academia, including lecturers’ avoidance of the topic, recourse to “complex” or “nuanced” framings, and institutional efforts to suppress solidarity. This paper takes my own teaching trajectory – from tentative engagement to more explicit discussion – as a point of departure to examine how lecturers in the field of education in emergencies have addressed scholasticide and genocide in Gaza, and Palestine more broadly, over time.

The objective is not to determine complicity, but to critically reflect on the attitudes and practices of scholars who, like myself, often advocate for teaching difficult histories as a path to reconciliation (see Paulson, 2015; Skårås, 2021). To explore lecturers’ motivations, hesitations, experiences and constraints, I will collect anonymous written reflections via Qualtrics among members of the Comparative and International Education Society’s Special Interest Group on Education in Emergencies (October–November). Open-ended prompts will invite participants to share whether and how scholasticide has been integrated into their teaching, the timing and settings of such discussions, and the considerations shaping their decisions to remain silent or to speak out. They will also be asked to reflect on their interactions with colleagues, students, and administrators, as well as on shifts in understandings of and looking at their own research. A follow-up focus group (planned for December) will provide space for collective reflection on challenges, risks, and opportunities among those comfortable and interested.

The study interrogates whether the imperative to teach about scholasticide (or not) aligns with theoretical arguments to teach about the violent past, and whether the “stumbling blocks” lecturers face mirror those encountered by secondary school teachers in conflict-affected societies (see Kuppens & Nfundiko, 2025; Zembylas et al., 2016). The analysis will be guided by an adaptation of a framework I previously developed, which positions lecturers along two intersecting axes: their beliefs regarding the peace-building role of university education, and their perceived competence and comfort in critically teaching about, in this case, scholasticide. By foregrounding lecturers’ reflections on their own motivations and practices, the paper aims to open up a conversation about the implications of “our” (a community of lecturers in EiE, as far as this exists) own positions towards teaching about scholasticide for “our” teaching practices and for the research “we” conduct and the policy recommendations we formulate.

Hajir, B., & Qato, M. (2025). Academia in a time of genocide: scholasticidal tendencies and continuities. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 1-9.
Kuppens, L., & Nfundiko, J.S. (2025). Teaching About the Violent Past: Opportunities and Challenges for Teachers in Conflict-Affected African Societies. Leuven: Leuven University Press.
Paulson, J. (2015). 'Whether and how?'History education about recent and ongoing conflict: A review of research. Journal on Education in Emergencies, 1(1), 115-141.
Skårås, M. (2021). Teaching and learning the most recent history in divided societies emerging from conflict: A review of the literature through the lens of social justice. Journal of Peace Education, 18(3), 282-308.
Zembylas, M., Charalambous, C., & Charalambous, P. (2016). Peace education in a conflict-affected society. Cambridge University Press.

Author

• Line Kuppens, University of Amsterdam