Security, conflict management and peacebuilding: formal education in intra-state political agreements 1989-2016

Giuditta Fontana*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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Abstract

The rhetoric of international donors and policymakers has established education reform as crucial to peacebuilding. However, three questions remain on the relationship between education reforms and peace processes: How often do intra-state political agreements (IPAs) prescribe reforms of formal education? Is the inclusion of reforms of formal education affected by the geopolitical context and by the broader contents of IPAs? How do IPAs frame reforms of formal education?

To tackle these gaps in existing research, I analyse the frequency, context and framing of education reforms in IPAs through a mixed methods analysis of FEPA, a novel dataset of education reform in all the 286 accords concluded between 1989 and 2016, providing the most extensive and fine-grained data on education in IPAs worldwide.

This analysis shows that IPAs circumscribe the peacebuilding potential of education in three respects: education is a rare component of accords; the geopolitical context and broader contents of agreements are not clearly associated with the inclusion of education reforms; and education reforms are primarily framed as contributing to security and conflict management rather than aiming at long-term peacebuilding. IPAs’ focus on the promotion of negative peace rather than more ambitious positive peace is a fundamental obstacle to realising the peacebuilding potential of education in conflict-affected contexts.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)173-201
Number of pages30
JournalHarvard educational review
Volume93
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 7 Aug 2023

Bibliographical note

Published on 07/08/2023

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