This document discusses research being conducted at the Centre for International Education on education and conflict. It provides background on how education has increasingly been delivered in conflict contexts since the 1990s. It then outlines several current research projects examining topics like how education intersects with conflict and how it can promote peace. The research aims to move beyond just promoting security and markets in peacebuilding to also focus on social justice and reconciliation. It introduces a research consortium between the University of Sussex and other universities examining how education interventions for youth can promote their agency and sustainable peace.

1. Introducing Research on Education
& Conflict at the Centre for
International Education
Mario Novelli, CIE, Sussex December 15th, 2014

2. Background to Research In Education & Conflict
• Since 1990 Jomtien Education For all Conference, there has been a global push to
promote access, particularly at basic level
• In 2000, EFA follow-up meeting. Half of the world’s out-of-school children live in
conflict-affected countries (2013/4 EFA Global Monitoring Report).
• In parallel we saw post-Cold War increase in UN humanitarian interventions, which
meant Education (and humanitarian and development assistance) was being delivered
in contexts of conflict rather than around the borders
• During this period we have seen increased international development assistance
directed towards conflict affected contexts
• This posed a range of challenges/questions
• How does education intersect with conflict?
• How does education contribute to peace/war before, during, after conflict?
• Does education programming and practice look different in conflict contexts?
• How can we ensure ‘education systems’ are more conflict sensitive/peace
promoting
• What are the competing logics, motivations, trajectories of key actors within the
field, and with what effects on the promotion of sustainable peace?

3. Research Trajectories

4. Current Education & Peacebuilding Research
Projects
• Engaging Teachers in Peacebuilding in Post-Conflict Contexts,
ESRC/DFID with University of Bristol (September 2014-
September 2016) and local partners.
• Research Consortium on Education & Peacebuilding, UNICEF
HQ with University of Amsterdam, University of Ulster (July
2014-January 2015) and local partners in six countries
• Education Sector Governance, Inequality, Conflict and
Peacebuilding in Kenya and South Sudan, UNICEF Easter &
Southern Africa Regional Office, Sussex Centre for Conflict and
Security Research (September 2014-October 2015) and local
partners in Kenya and South Sudan
• Currently have 6 Doctoral Candidates research related
education, conflict & peacebuilding issues.

5. Beyond a ‘Liberal Peace’ to a ‘Peace with Social
Justice’
• Underpinning all of the current work lies both a critique of
contemporary peacebuilding logics and a vision of peace with
social justice that emerged from earlier and ongoing work with
Professor Alan Smith, University of Ulster
• Current ‘global’ peacebuilding agendas and actors priorities
security, markets, democracy and relegate social sectors to
something that can come later
• Commitment to Positive vs. Negative Peace, long term and
sustainable peacebuilding processes, Recognition of the role of
horizontal and vertical inequalities in underpinning conflicts.
• Peace with Social Justice has multiple dimensions, and we draw
on Nancy Fraser’s 3 R framework and add Reconciliation as a 4th
R to provide our analytical ‘4 R’ lens to think through what might
a socially just and peacebuilding education system look like.

8. Research Consortium on Education & Peacebuilding

9. THANK YOU

11. Three Research Areas, two transversal themes

12. Research Area 1

13. Coordinator research methodologies, partnerships and capacity building
Prof Mario Novelli, University of Sussex
Research Area 2

14. Research Area 3
Research questions:
1. To what extent do these policy discourses include a focus on youth agency for the realization of
sustainable peace?
2. To what extent do education programmes focused on youth promote agency for the realization of
sustainable peace, and in how far are issues of gender (in)equality and violence addressed?
3. For both youth who are in- and out- of formal and non-formal education programmes, what are their
perceptions of their needs and agency as social, economic and political/potential peacebuilders?

15. 1. Music, arts, sports and faith-related
education programmes
2. Citizenship education
3. History education
4. Work-related programming
5. Cross-sectoral programming
Literature Review: focus on specific (non)formal
education interventions for youth

16.  Website:
http://learningforpeace.unicef.org/partners/research
-consortium/
 Research Briefings
 6 major deliverables:
3 literature reviews
3 synthesis reports
 Communication PBEA teams UNICEF
 Dissemination event Amsterdam
Communication strategy

17. Thank you