SECTION C: SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL RELATIONSHIPS WITHIN AND BETWEEN SOCIETIES
Theme 6: Transition, conflict and post-conflict societies
International Convenor:
Mark Ginsburg (mginsburg49@yahoo.com)Regional Convenor: Khalil Abourjali (ildes@sodetel.net.lb)
Local Convenor: Nikša Nikola Šoljan (educa@email.htnet.hr)
Intra- and inter-societal conflicts pervade the globe, with devastating effects on the men, women, and children who are the targets and the perpetrators of the physical and non-physical violence often associated with such conflicts.
Such conflicts may have long histories and/or they may (re)surface in the context of societies undergoing political economic transitions. As a key human institution, education (both formal and nonformal) is implicated in such conflicts. At times educational settings are sites in which (internally or externally initiated) violence occurs.
At other time education is called upon to address the physical and psychological needs of those who have experienced the ravages of warfare and other violent conflicts.
Moreover, the formal and hidden curriculum of educational programs can contribute to the problem by promoting negative views of the “other” and by encouraging violence as a strategy for dealing with conflict with the “other”.
Alternatively, education can help students, teachers, and other community members to understand, tolerate, and even appreciate differences and can develop their commitments and capacities to resolve conflicts through nonviolent means.This thematic group seeks to provide a forum for research, theorizing, program case studies, and policy analysis focusing on one or more settings to illuminate what is happening and how planning, policy, and action – by governments, multi-/bi-lateral agencies, and national/international nongovernmental organizations – is contributing to or alleviating violent inter-group conflicts. Papers are invited that address issues related to education in conflict and post-conflict settings, including the following:
- how the education systems and those attending and working in these institutions are affected by violent conflicts;
- how educational institutions can meet the various needs of refugees, orphans, child soldiers, and others who have suffered as a result of violent conflicts;
- how formal and nonformal education programs promote negative or positive views of other groups and encourage acceptance or rejection of human diversity;
- how formal and nonformal education programs build commitment and capacity for using violence or nonviolence to deal with inter-group conflict;
To propose a paper presentation or a panel session of presentations, please submit the abstract (not more than 250 words per presentation) and presenter contact information through the website (www.wcces2007.ba). The proposal will then be forwarded to the Thematic Group organizers for review. The deadline for abstracts is 31 March 2007.
Theme 7: Religion, ethnicity, secularism and spirituality
International Convenor: Jing Lin (jinglin@umd.edu)
Regional Convenor: Camel Borg (carmel.borg@um.edu.mt)Local Convenor: Amel Alic (al-amel@bih.net.ba)The theme for the thematic group of Religion, Ethnicity, Secularism and Spirituality is to discuss how different religions/cultures/ethnic groups and the whole society can co-exist and learn from each other, and how education can help us build bridges of understanding and revive cultural/religious/spiritual traditions and wisdoms that enlighten us about our common roots and interconnectivity.
The theme of this group is:Constructing Understanding for Mutual Respect and Co-Existence: The Role of Education for a Better World
This theme correlates and supports the congress theme of “Living Together, Education and Intercultural Dialogue.” We believe when we advocate people living together, we must begin building common understandings that connect us as dissimilar but also as fundamentally interconnected cultures, souls, and communities. Religious, ethnic and other social strife is reduced or eliminated when we empower our students to engage with each other at personal, cultural, religious and spiritual levels, building our common humanity. Education needs to expand its functions to embrace all cultures and religions and to recover lost wisdom from our traditions.
Educators need to teach to the heart, soul and spirit of students and be very sensitive and respectful of our differences. This need to be reflected in our educational theories and practices in the classroom, in curriculum and school administration.
Theme 8: Gendered discourses
International Convenor:
The first part of the 21st century is marked by a global chaos in girls’ and women’s education. Despite noticeable international and national commitment to universality of access to and participation in education, the gender disparity persists and in certain regions of the world enrolment, drop-out rates and gaps in education and employment are worsening. Outside the formal educational system, women’s access and participation in adult and informal learning is declining with the diminishing of public sponsored learning and skill training opportunities.
Sharzad Mojab (smojab@oise.utoronto.ca)
Regional Convenor: Aisha Maherzi (maher@univ-tlse2.fr)
Local Convenor: Nada Ler Sofranić (nadalsws@bh.ba)
War, too, has ravaged many parts of the world; it has caused destruction, violence, poverty, and has injured the human spirit. The rise of nationalism, fundamentalism and racism in this century is a direct outcome of the machinery of war and militarization. Wars have contributed to the division of humanity along racial, ethnic, national, religious, and linguistic lines. Girls’ and women’s education is directly affected by these divides. War, and the cycle of violence that it perpetuates, aims at the subjugation of women through its project of the masculinization of social culture and the strengthening of the patriarchal structure of power.
It is remarkable, however, that girls and women are resisting the forces of oppression through continuous demand for access and participation in education, through their desire to renew and transform the content of education that makes them invisible and renders their experience as subjective or arbitrary and, thus, merits no scientific inquiry. They are commanding the transformation of knowledge production where women’s stories, experience, history, and knowledge could take a central place in the organization, production and reproduction of knowledge.
In this context of struggle and resistance, we would like to pose the following areas as guides for envisioning a paper
(or research):
1. How to develop an inclusive education for girls and women which can address the particularity of cultures and universality of rights.
2. What are gender specific educational issues in marginalised communities including, indigenous population, internally displaced population, refugees, and immigrants.
3. What is the role of education in confronting the rise of racism and Islamophobia where girls and women are the main targets of this form of violence, in particular in diasporas.
4. How to involve, educate, and engage parents of culturally diverse communities in the educational matters of girls.
5. What mechanisms and processes are needed to develop gender specific peace education, civic education, global education, or world education.
6. How to engage with contradictory but complimentary gender specific educational principles of secularism and spirituality.
7. How we should bring lifelong learning, adult literacy, and skill training into conversation with each other and with issues related to the marginalisation of girls and women.
8. What are the educational policy, curriculum, and planning issues in addressing the impact of war, violence and racism on girls and women’s learning and education.
9. What is the role of the state in creating a culture of tolerance and rights.
10. How should we account for the world gap in girls and women’s access to and participation in education; how to account for slow progress in the UN Millennium Development Goals on gender equality.
