Positive Peace, Global Transformations, and U.S. Contestations: Decolonial, Ecological, Economic, and Democratic Pathways in Education (Part 2)

Group Submission Type: Paper Session

Proposal

Panel 2 Overview
This panel is the second in a double session dedicated to exploring positive peace as a framework for understanding and addressing intersecting crises in education and society. Whereas Panel 1 foregrounded global and conceptual perspectives—centering decolonial, ecological, and economic pathways—Panel 2 focuses on the U.S. context, examining how positive peace is undermined and reimagined in the face of systemic inequality, authoritarian retrenchment, and cultural conflict.
Building on Johan Galtung’s definition of positive peace as a condition characterized by justice, equity, and inclusive social relations, this panel interrogates how current U.S. education politics both erode and generate possibilities for peace. The three papers illustrate the stakes of this struggle across historical, structural, and lived-experiential dimensions.
Paper 2.1 situates U.S. post–Civil War history within the lens of transitional justice (TJ), highlighting moments when efforts to confront slavery’s legacy sought to advance justice, as well as the persistent backlash that undermined those gains. By reframing transitional justice as relevant not only in post-conflict societies abroad but also in the ongoing racial reckonings of the United States, this paper demonstrates how education and civil society can plant seeds of peace in contested spaces.
Paper 2.2 analyzes the dismantling of public education as a key project of neoliberal authoritarianism in the United States. Tracing the arc from the Powell Memo through the rise of the Christian right to the enactment of Project 2025, the authors show how corporate and religious actors have strategically eroded democratic institutions, with schools as central battlegrounds. This analysis reveals how structural assaults on public education undermine the very conditions of positive peace: civic participation, equitable access, and social cohesion.
Paper 2.3 examines the scapegoating of transgender teachers as a political strategy deployed by Christian nationalist and neoliberal forces. Drawing on interviews, policy analysis, and regional comparison, this study documents how trans educators experience and resist moral panic campaigns that use their identities as tools of authoritarian mobilization. The paper highlights the ways educators cultivate belonging and inclusion even in hostile contexts, demonstrating that peace in schools depends on resisting structural violence and supporting vulnerable communities.
Taken together, these three papers illustrate how education in the United States is simultaneously a target of authoritarian projects and a site for advancing democratic, inclusive, and peaceful futures.
Thematic Contribution
This panel contributes to comparative and international education scholarship in three interconnected ways:
Reframing Transitional Justice for the U.S. Context
Transitional justice has typically been studied in post-conflict contexts such as South Africa or Northern Ireland. Paper 4 demonstrates the analytical power of applying TJ frameworks to U.S. racial history, illuminating how responses to slavery and its legacies embody both progress and retrenchment. By identifying “anchors and springboards” from prior TJ efforts, the paper argues that education can play a central role in renewing commitments to justice and equity today.
Exposing Authoritarian Projects in Education
Paper 5 situates contemporary culture wars and Project 2025 within a longer trajectory of neoliberal restructuring. By connecting attacks on education to corporate, religious, and ideological forces dating back to the 1970s, the paper shows that current authoritarian trends are not aberrations but the culmination of decades-long projects. This analysis reframes education policy debates as struggles over democracy itself and highlights how dismantling public education undermines positive peace by eroding shared institutions of equity and participation.
Documenting Scapegoating and Resistance in Schools
Paper 6 extends analysis to the lived experiences of transgender educators, a population often overlooked in research. By documenting how Christian nationalism operationalizes scapegoating at regional and state levels, the paper exposes how authoritarian politics target vulnerable groups as part of broader moral panic campaigns. Yet the study also highlights educators’ acts of resistance and inclusion, illustrating how even in hostile contexts, schools can serve as sites of peace-building and belonging.
Relevance to the Double Panel
Together, Panels 1 and 2 form a cohesive double session. Panel 1 addresses the conceptual and global foundations of positive peace, reimagining justice, education, and economics beyond colonial, extractive, and neoliberal paradigms. Panel 2 then applies this lens to the empirical realities of the U.S., a country experiencing intensified authoritarianism, racial backlash, and culture wars. This sequencing mirrors the methodological arc of comparative education: moving from global theorizing to national and local application. The double panel thus offers a comprehensive exploration of positive peace as both a guiding concept and a lived struggle.
Relevance to the Conference Theme
CIES 2026 emphasizes the confrontation of racial capitalism, patriarchy, militarism, and the climate crisis in education. This panel speaks directly to those concerns in the U.S. context: racial capitalism is traced through the legacies of slavery and systemic racism (Paper 4); patriarchy and Christian nationalism are examined in the context of scapegoating trans teachers (Paper 6); and neoliberal militarized governance is revealed in the dismantling of public education (Paper 5). By showing how these forces undermine the conditions for peace, the panel underscores the urgency of education as both a site of contestation and a pathway to transformation.
Conclusion
Education in the United States today sits at a crossroads. On one path lies deepening authoritarianism, scapegoating, and the dismantling of public institutions; on the other lies the potential for transitional justice, democratic renewal, and inclusive education. This panel demonstrates that achieving positive peace requires confronting systemic violence—racial, economic, and gendered—while also nurturing the seeds of justice, belonging, and solidarity. As the second in a double panel, it grounds the global and conceptual insights of Panel 1 in the lived struggles of U.S. education, providing a comprehensive view of positive peace as both an urgent challenge and a horizon of possibility.

Sub Unit

• 21st Century Educational Alternatives: Confronting Racial Capitalism, Patriarchy, Militarism, and the Climate Crisis

Organizer

• Frank Adamson, California State University, Sacramento

Chair

• Rezan Benatar, Independent Scholar

Individual Presentations

• Seeds Planted in Contested Space: Transitional Racial Justice in the U.S. Post Civil War - Michael Gibbons, The Alternatives Project

• Democracy at Stake? Culture wars and the Project to Dismantle Public Education - Carol Anne Spreen, New York Univesity; Frank Adamson, California State University, Sacramento; Anthony Lewis Wagner, New York University

• Scapegoating Trans Teachers as Political Strategy: The Neoliberal Deployment of Christian Nationalism - Shannon Barnes, California State University, Sacramento; Frank Adamson, California State University, Sacramento

• The Destruction of Peace in the U.S. Classrooms Under Racial Gaslighting and Anti-CRT Legislation - Yaereem Lee, Penn State University; Brittany Aronson; Haniyeh Kheirkhah

Discussant

• Frank Adamson, California State University, Sacramento