Peacebuilding, Citizenship, and Identity: Empowering Conflict and Dialogue in Multicultural Classrooms (original) (raw)
Related papers
2012
Ethnocultural minority immigrant students carry diverse histories, perspectives, and experiences, which can serve as resources for critical reflection and discussion about social conflicts. Inclusion of diverse students’ identities in the curriculum requires acknowledgement and open discussion of diversity and conflictual issues. In democratic peacebuilding education, diverse students are encouraged to express divergent points of view in open, inclusive dialogue. This ethnographic study with a critical perspective examined how three teachers in urban public elementary school classrooms with ethnocultural minority firstand second-generation immigrant students (aged 9 to 13) implemented different kinds of curriculum content and pedagogy, and how those pedagogies facilitated or impeded inclusive democratic experiences for various students. In these classrooms, peers and teachers shared similar and different cultural backgrounds and migration histories. Data included 110 classroom obser...
This qualitative study uses classroom observations, teacher and student interviews, and document analysis to show how peacebuilding dialogue processes were implemented in three elementary school classrooms in Ontario, Canada, and how diverse students, particularly ethnocultural minority immigrants, experienced these pedagogies in relation to their own perspectives, histories, and identities. The study's results showed how diverse students experienced and responded to implemented alternative curricula: when content was explicitly linked to their identities and experiences, opportunities for democratic peacebuilding inclusion increased. Authentic, critical dialogue provided opportunities for diverse students to engage in discussions about diversity and conflict, facilitating their engagement. Connecting to students' identities through peacebuilding education is important to encourage the inclusion of diverse perspectives in a democratic, multicultural learning environment.
Canadian Journal of Education, 2006
This article examines the representation of conflict, diversity, peace, and justice issues in selected mandated curriculum guidelines, grades 1 10, for three Canadian provinces. These curricula, grounded in prevailing assumptions, reflect political will and influence resource availability for teaching. Prominent among them is a neutral discourse invoking Canadian ideals of multiculturalism that emphasizes harmony, marginalizes conflict and critical viewpoints, and presents injustices as past or virtually resolved. Because relatively little attention is given to actual instances of social conflict, violence, or marginalization, these curricula limit students' opportunities to practice with constructive democratic conflict and peacebuilding.
Recent research on multi-faceted citizenship education policy and practice in Canada illustrates five enduring themes, of interest to educators around the world. First, citizenship education policy mandates reveal diverse goals for ‘good’ or ‘active’ citizen engagement, critical and inclusive awareness, and skills. Students from different social identity and status locations tend to have unequal citizenship learning experiences, and school education is often disconnected from their lived experiences and concerns. Second, intersecting questions of national and ethno-cultural identity and social justice are prominent in Canadian curricular rhetoric, although achievement of inter-group equity, mutual understanding and justice is elusive. Third, although transnational issues and perspectives are increasingly included, some Canadian curricula seem to reinforce ignorance and stereotypes about other nations and peoples and about the causes of global problems such as war. Much of the global citizenship education activity in Canadian schools seems to be focused on co-curricular activities, often emphasizing charity fundraising, leaving the causes of human misery largely uninterrogated. Fourth, curriculum policy discourse in civics, social sciences, language and media literacy emphasizes the importance of student-centred pedagogy for development of critical thinking skills, while typical classroom practice seems often to retain teacher-centred transmission approaches. Last, implicit citizenship education is embedded in day-to-day school-related activities and relationships: patterns of discipline and conflict management, community service activities, and student voice and leadership roles. Thus active, engaged citizenship, attentive to multicultural diversity, is a prominent goal in recent Canadian citizenship education policy and programming—yet in practice, Canadian students (especially those from less privileged backgrounds) have few opportunities to practice democratically-relevant citizenship learning in school.
Facilitated dialogue about questions of social justice and other conflictual issues is a key component of education for peacebuilding and democratic citizenship (Davies, 2005; Hahn, 2010; Harris & Morrison, 2003; Hess & Avery, 2008; Sears & Hughes, 2006). Education for democratic social justice and sustainable peace disrupts the existing social order, surfacing conflict and uncertainty. Such peacebuilding citizenship dialogue is rarely fully implemented or sustained in most North American classrooms, especially those serving non-affluent and heterogeneous student populations (also Kahne & Middaugh, 2008). Drawn from a larger study on implementation of peace-building dialogue in school settings (see Bickmore 2014 in Curriculum Inquiry), this paper examines case studies of three contrasting professional development initiatives in which public school teachers did have opportunities to develop skills, understandings, and confidence for facilitating such conflictual conversations in their classrooms.
Peace-Building Dialogue Pedagogies in Canadian Classrooms
Constructively critical and inclusive dialogue about conflictual issues is one necessary ingredient of both democratic citizenship and peacebuilding learning. However, in North American classrooms populated by heterogeneous and non-affluent students, pedagogies involving discussion of conflicts are rarely fully implemented, sustained, or inclusive of all students’ voices. This paper reports the results of a study describing contrasting ways in which teachers actually did implement (or attempt) dialogic pedagogies on difficult issues in Canadian public school classrooms. Based on a series of observations and interviews in eleven public elementary, intermediate, and secondary classrooms (linked to three different professional development initiatives), the article examines key elements—in the content of the conflicts discussed; in the processes and task structures for classroom discussion; in the norms, skills and relationships established; and in the school contexts—that make such dialogic classroom activities more (or less) feasible to implement and sustain, more (or less) inclusive of previously-marginalized voices, and more (or less) constructive for democratic and peacebuilding education.