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Abstract

Some argue that the field of study of ‘education and conflict’ has yet to be solidified since its emergence in the 1990s, partly due to the weak theory base. This article reviews the literature on the ‘contribution’ of schooling in contemporary violent conflict, via three strands of theoretical ideas, to demonstrate the validities and limitations of the current theoretical ideas available in the field. The article shows that the literature is skewed toward cases of ethnic conflicts and limited to theoretical ideas that fail to explain the complexities of contemporary conflicts captured by the case studies. It also shows the still insufficient engagement of the literature in the field with the dynamics and the root causes of contemporary conflict that have been demonstrated by scholars across social sciences.

Keywords

Education and Conflict Violent Conflict Schooling Education in Emergencies Ethnic Conflicts Educational Access Case Studies Curriculum and History

Introduction

This article reviews literature on the role of education in contemporary violent conflict in the field of education and conflict, a sub-field of international and comparative education. Since the 1990s, and most notably in the past decade, there has been a surge of literature on the relationship between education and violent conflict. Many, both practitioners and academics, have claimed the ‘mushrooming’ (Buckland, 2005) of literature since the 1990s to be an emergence of a field of education and conflict, albeit under different names (see Arnhold et al., 1998; Burde, 2005; INEE, 2004; Kagawa, 2005; Karpinska et al., 2007; Sinclair, 2002).¹

What has promoted this ‘emergence’ lies in changes in the mainstream discourse of the international community and the advocacy of the practitioners. Previously in the field of international development, education had been seen as an imperative tool for development in the long term. Education can alleviate poverty and drive economic and social development (e.g. Amartya, 1999; Annan, 2005; Psacharopoulos and Woodhall, 1985), but not as part of short-term humanitarian relief efforts (Burde, 2005; Winthrop, 2009; Kagawa, 2005). This is because that humanitarian assistance was limited to activities that saved human lives and their essential needs, such as water, food, shelter and health services (cf. Sphere, 1997). Such thinking had also assumed that education is ‘inherently benevolent’ (Bush and Saltarelli, 2000; Smith and Vaux, 2003) or that education would inherently contribute to development. In the 1990s, these notions in the international community – for example, that education inherently contributes to development and is not part of humanitarian assistance – started to change. For one, a lack of provision of education in refugee camps and in conflict-affected countries more generally, as a result of the belief that education is not part of humanitarian assistance, started to draw attention as an urgent issue to be tackled; as contemporary conflicts tend to last a long time and are often repeated, children may well spend their entire childhood in refugee camps and will therefore miss out on an education if they are not provided with one within the camp (Kagawa, 2005; Sinclair, 2002; Winthrop, 2009). The other assumption about education in the international community – that education is inherently good (and contributes to development) – also started to collapse in the late 1990s. The Rwanda case, which I elaborate in the article, was one of the primary instances which made the international community aware that education can potentially fuel violent conflict or genocide. This awareness was also part of a more general realisation that developmental and humanitarian aid can potentially do more harm than good (Anderson, 1999; Winthrop, 2009).

However, some argue that the academic field of education and conflict is still ‘stuck in its emergence’ (Rappleye and Paulson, 2007: 252). This is because it has not yet developed a common theoretical, conceptual or analytical ground on which knowledge from various studies can be compared, contrasted and accumulated. In an attempt to respond to such contention, the present article reviews literature in the field on the role of formal schooling in contemporary conflict in a way that demonstrates the advancement and limitations of the current theoretical ideas available in the field. The article shows that the theoretical ideas are skewed in scope and limited in depth. The great majority – both theoretically and empirically – are about the role of education in (contemporary) ethnic conflict. Not only is the role of education in non-ethnic contemporary conflict cases little discussed in the field, but the majority of the existing studies do not take into account the distinct characteristics or root causes (initial factors and circumstances that fuel) of contemporary conflict. This is despite the fact that there have been lively debates about contemporary conflict among scholars across the social sciences, and education is often argued to be part of the root cause of or a risk factor in it.

The article is organised as follows. First, it identifies three strands of theoretical ideas regarding the role of education in violent conflict in the field. Second, it reviews empirical studies –mostly in the form of country case studies – on the role of education in contemporary conflict. Before the empirical studies are reviewed, I will first provide a detailed description of country cases of Rwanda and Burundi to ‘showcase’ how education is considered to have fuelled the conflicts there. Then the understandings gained from other cases will be added on to them. The intention behind this approach is to illuminate the limitations of the understandings offered by the case studies in the field. Therefore, literature from beyond the field of education is incorporated in the ‘showcase’ descriptions. Third, the limitations in the current knowledge on the role of education in contemporary violent conflict are discussed.

This article is a review of literature in the field of education. This includes academic literature in the field of educational studies (mainly in the international and comparative education) and ‘grey’ literature in the field of international development, such as reports, discussion papers and policy papers by governmental and non-governmental agencies, but not other social sciences literature from fields other than education. Although disciplinary distinctions have become hard to make recently, I believe it is useful to focus the review on educational literature, to highlight its achievements and limitations with regard to understanding of the role of education in contemporary conflict. I have included literature that discusses the relationship between formal schooling and contemporary violent conflict (thereby excluding cases concerning the Second World War) and touches on schooling as a contributing factor to it. The relevant literature has been collected in multiple ways, including keyword search in relevant databases and journals (using education, conflict, schooling, violence, etc.), snowballing (tracking down relevant references found in articles, searching other writings by the relevant authors found) and getting information on relevant literature from expert academics. Such a method was used because relevant literature is scattered in different places due to the recent ‘emergence’ of the field. By ‘education’ in this article, I refer only to the form of formal schooling provided by the state in this review, although this does not mean by any means that other forms of education are not relevant to conflict (see, for example, Brock, 2011; Hammond, 1998; Pagen, 2011). On the other hand, violent conflict takes a broader definition, including genocide as well as internal or inter-state conflict; however, terrorism is not included as it is regarded as a distinct phenomenon.

It is difficult to substantiate knowledge in this area of research as it is extremely hard to establish causal relationships between education and conflict (see, for example, Arlow, 2004; Hilker, 2010; Smith, 2009). It is more so in the case of qualitative studies, including the case studies that make up the majority of the studies in the area and which the article reviews. However, as I will show, the case studies reviewed provide nuanced perspectives on the complexity and contexualised understanding of the role of education in contemporary violent conflict, which quantitative studies do not. Taking into account the merits and demerits of the case study methodology as well as the ‘emerging’ state of the field, substantiation of knowledge in this article is considered only by the volume of studies with similar findings.

Theoretical understanding of the role of education in violent conflict

Overall, the theoretical literature in the field of education and conflict is thin and underdeveloped – something that has been pointed out in the literature (e.g. Rappleye and Paulson, 2007). At the same time, there are some theoretical ideas that point to different ways in which education might fuel violent conflict. They can be categorised into three explanations:

Education fuels ethnic conflict by promoting ethnic divisions and hatred.

‘Violence’ in school promotes and exacerbates violence and violent conflict in society.

Education fuels contemporary conflict by fuelling the ‘root causes’ of it.

I will discuss each theoretical idea in turn below.

Education and ethnic conflict

The first theoretical idea is about the role of education in ethnic conflict. ‘Ethnicity’ is defined as ‘a sense of collective based on religion, language, culture or some other shared origin’ (Gallagher, 2004: 10). The main claims in this strand are, similarly, that education fuels ethnic conflict by promoting divisions and hatred among ethnic groups. One of the main studies in this area is Bush and Saltarelli’s (2000), published by United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Their central work lies in the delineation of elements that constitute the ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ faces of education; in other words, the elements that can fuel ethnic conflict or promote prevention of it and, further, peace. Aspects of the ‘negative face’ of education are in the curriculum and structure of the educational system and can be summarised as follows:

uneven distribution of education;

denial of education;

segregated education to ensure inequality, lowered esteem and stereotyping;

education as a weapon for cultural repression, i.e. restriction in the language of instruction;

manipulation of textbooks for political purposes, particularly in the areas of history and geography; and

inculcation of low self-worth and hatred towards ‘others’.

Bush and Saltarelli (2000) demonstrate this by drawing various examples of contemporary and historical ethnic conflicts or tensions, including Kosovo, India, Rwanda, Turkey, Israel and Palestine, Nazi Germany, South Africa and the US.

Gallagher’s (2004) Education in Divided Societies reaches a similar conclusion, but from academic case study analyses. He explains that ethnic tensions have been resurgent since at least the 1970s, partly because the expectation that modernity would sweep away ‘ethnicity’ by creating ethnically homogeneous nation-states was erroneous. Rather, modern states typically have come to be ethnically heterogeneous due to multiple factors, such as colonialism, migration and continuing territorial deputes. He argues that the way in which an educational system deals with ethnic heterogeneity, or ‘differences’, has either a negative or a positive impact on society. It becomes negative and may result in violent conflict when it deals with differences through intolerance and/or hatred. He argues this through mostly historical cases where the question of identity and ethnicity was central and where education responded to it in various ways, such as the US, Britain, South Africa, continental Europe, Nazi Germany and Northern Ireland.

Although Bush and Saltarelli (2000) and Gallagher (2004) focus on the claim that education promotes ethnic tensions or hatred, thereby contributing to ethnic conflict, they do not take the view that ethnicity is the cause of ethnic conflict, particularly in contemporary cases. Rather, they, as many authors in the field, consider ethniticy has been politically moblised (e.g. Bush and Saltarelli, 2000; Gallagher, 2004; Johnson and Stewart, 2007; Smith, 2009; Smith and Vaux, 2003; Tawil and Harley, 2004). For instance, Bush and Salterelli (2000) assert that the nature of contemporary ethnic conflict is ‘highly complex’ and includes factors such as economic tensions and ‘bad’ governance. They state the role of ethnicity in contemporary ethnic conflict as follows:

[E]thnicity neither causes conflict, nor in many cases does it accurately describe it. Rather ethnicity/identity is increasingly mobilized and politicized in contemporary violent conflicts (Bush, 1997, cited in Bush and Saltarelli, 2000, p. vii, emphasis added).

In other words, ethnic conflicts are not considered to be inevitable clashes arising from inherent cultural differences, as some have argued (e.g. Connor, 1994; Huntington, 1996).

Despite their recognition of the complex factors that surround the emergence of contemporary ethnic conflict, claims in this strand are limited to being about how education reinforces the ethnic tensions. Moreover, proponents seem to claim that their theoretical ideas are applicable both to cases in the Second World War and to contemporary ethnic conflicts, which have different causes, circumstances and contributing factors behind them (Duffield, 2001). This is demonstrated by cases and examples in Bush and Saltarelli (2000) and Gallagher (2004) being drawn from countries that participated in contemporary conflict, e.g. Northern Ireland, and those that promoted ethnic nationalism in inter-state war efforts, e.g. Nazi Germany.

This strand of literature, particularly Bush and Saltarelli (2000), has become the basis of a theoretical or generic idea of the role of education in violent conflict in the field. The simplification by Bush and Saltarelli (2000) of education as having ‘two faces’ has provided a framework for the later literature, whether or not it is labelled as ‘ethnic’. This includes both ‘grey’ literature (e.g. Seitz, 2004; Smith and Vaux, 2003) and academic studies in the field of education and conflict (e.g. Paulson, 2008; Evans, 2008; Davies, 2010). The simplified framework implies that it fails to capture the distinct complexities, characteristics and root causes (initial factors and circumstances that fuel it) of conflict and the relationship of education to them. And its wider application – beyond contemporary ‘ethnic’-labelled conflict – further fosters neglect of attention to the particularities and complexities.

Violence in school and violent conflict

The second strand argues that ‘violence’ in school promotes and exacerbates violence and violent conflict in society. The conceptualisation of violence set out by Salmi (2000, reproduced in 2006) is central in this strand. He categorises violence into four types:

direct violence (or physical violence);

indirect violence (that does not have a direct relationship between the victims and the perpetrator);

repressive violence (that refers to basic forms of violations of human rights); and

alienating violence (i.e. deprivations of a person’s higher rights, such as the right to psychological, emotional, cultural or intellectual integrity).

There is not space to discuss each type of violence here, but it suffices to recognise that among the four types, only direct violence counts for what is commonly referred to as violence: a behaviour in which physical force is employed (or is intended) to hurt, damage or kill someone or something (adapted from the Oxford English Dictionary definition).

Although Salmi only refers to violence in school being mutually reinforcing with individual violence in society, Harber (2004, 2002) takes the idea further to argue that violence in school promotes organised violence as well as individual violence in society, such as ‘racist/ethnic violence and, in extreme cases, even genocide’ (2002: 13). His argument centres on the idea that it is the authoritarian aspect to schooling that provides the structure in which ‘violence’ – in the form of the four types of violence drawn from Salmi (2000, 2006) – is accepted and reproduced in schooling. He states: ‘A combination of crude loyalty to a social group and blind obedience to authority is a dangerous mixture and both have been promoted by schooling’ (2002: 13). Harber (2004) more specifically sees corporal punishment as a key element of authoritarian schooling and schooling as violence, stating that ‘the perceived right’ of teachers to punish is the ‘most ritualised form’ of physical violence in schools. He further discusses other elements in school that perpetuate violence: the ‘hate’ curriculum, sexual abuse in school, stress and anxiety created through examinations, teaching of struggle, violence and war and militarisation of school. He draws examples from various contexts, such as Nazi Germany, Kosovo, South Africa and Rwanda.

Similarly, what Davies (e.g. 2004) discusses as the ‘direct’ preparation of children for war is mostly underpinned by this strand of explanation. In addition to elements similar to those raised by Harber above (e.g. Davies, 2004, 2010), she adds lack of political education and critical pedagogy (cf. Freire, 1970) as elements that can prepare children for conflict; by doing so, schooling is failing to cultivate the critical thinking skills that are essential for pupils not to accept distorted political messages on faith (see Davies, 2004, 2005).

This violence in school approach has some conceptual and theoretical issues to be clarified. The concept of ‘violence’ employed in those works is ambiguous. The concept includes aspects such as the use of authoritarian teaching and lack of political education and critical pedagogy. However, the lack of teaching of critical thinking skills in public schools is of concern in many countries that have not experienced a contemporary conflict, such as the UK, Korea and Japan (for instance, see Morse, 2012; Park, 2013). As such, the link of such ‘violence’ to violent conflict is loose. In relation to this, there seems to be a jump in the logic in terms of just how school-based ‘violence’, physical or non-physical conduct principally held at the individual level, comes to promote violent conflict, organised and armed violence, as opposed to crime. Even in countries where direct forms of violence in school, such as corporal punishment and bullying, have been observed, it is not the case that all have experienced contemporary violent conflict – see for example Australia and the USA (for instance, see Rigby, 2007; Wang et al., 2009).

Perhaps related to the issues above, I have not found a study in the field that has applied this strand as a framework, citing these researchers above, although the issues of ‘violence’ are claimed to be relevant to conflict by some researchers. As I will show below, Pherali (2011) claims a link between corporal punishment to conflict in Nepal; Matsumoto (2008) and Jones (2009) write on Afghanistan linking the languages of violence and war, including jihad; and a link to authoritarian teaching in Rwanda is made by Freedman et al. (2008), Muhumpundu (2002, cited in Hilker, 2010) and Walker-Keleher (2006).

Education as part of ‘root causes’ of violent conflict

The third theoretical idea is about understanding how education fuels the ‘root causes’ of contemporary conflict. In addition to her treatment of the ‘direct’ preparation of pupils for conflict as presented above, Davies (2004) explores how education ‘indirectly’ fuels the root causes (or ‘roots’, as she puts it) of conflict. She identifies three roots of conflict: economic or class inequalities; gendered violence and inequalities; and pluralism and diversity (particularly of ethnicity and religion).

More recently, two further approaches have attempted to understand how education fuels the roots of conflict. One focuses on how education plays into ‘fragility’. The notion of the ‘fragile state’ is a popular discourse and framework in the international community in regard to states that are considered to have a high risk of conflict and instability (see for instance DFID, 2005). There are studies both by academics and by practitioners trying to understand how education fuels this (see Conflict and Education Research Group, 2008; INEE Working Group on Education and Fragility, 2010; INEE, 2011; Kirk, 2007; Mosselson and Wheaton, 2009). The ‘fragility’ approach has a fundamental problem to overcome: that is, the concept of ‘fragility’ is ill-defined (cf. Bengtsson, 2011). The ambiguity of the concept results in a discussion that does not offer any significantly new perspective. Many treat conflict-prone countries and ‘fragile’ states interchangeably and, as a result, their discussions are essentially the same as discussions on the role of education in violent conflict.

The other emerging approach engages with social science literature on root causes of contemporary conflict in order to explore how education fuels these root causes (Smith, 2005; Novelli and Cardozo, 2008; Otsby and Urdall, 2010; Brown, 2010). Smith (2005) and Novelli and Cardozo (2008) take a similar path in delineating three strands of explanations for contemporary conflict: a) political explanations, or structural inequalities within the global economy and polity (see e.g. Duffield, 2001); b) economic explanations, or a neo-liberal rational choice perspective (see e.g. Collier and Hoeffler, 2000); and c) socio-cultural explanations, or modernisation theories (see e.g. Huntington, 1996; Stewart, 2000). Ostby and Urdal (2010) further outline the relation of educational levels, expansion (or availability of opportunities), inequality and content to conflict.

The interdisciplinary approach in this strand is promising. There is a growing body of literature across social sciences, such as in economics, political science and developmental studies, that discusses the root causes of contemporary conflict, whether ethnic or not, and does include education as part of them (see for instance Collier and Hoeffler, 2004, 2000; Stewart, 2002). As such, this approach, by engaging with works across social sciences on contemporary conflict, not only helps to understand the role of education in non-ethnic contemporary conflict that has been little discussed in the field, but also helps develop a more robust understanding of how education might fuel contemporary violent conflict more generally. However, the impact of the interdisciplinary approach on the field is only beginning to be seen; it has been very recent works, such as Ostby and Urdal (2010), King (2014) and Burde (2014), that delineate the features in education that can fuel the root causes of conflict, and the only empirical studies to take the approach which I have found so far are Hilker (2010) and King (2014), on the case of Rwanda, and Burde (2014) on Afghanistan.

In summary, there are three theoretical ideas about role of education in violent conflict: they concern the role of education in ethnic conflict, violence in school promoting violent conflict and education fuelling the root causes of conflict. Among them, the literature on how education fuels ‘ethnic’ conflict is predominant, while the approach to understanding the role played by education in the root causes of conflict has been developed more recently. The predominance of the first strand means that theoretically the field has dealt little with the role of education in non-ethnic contemporary conflict, or the relationship of education to the distinct characteristics or root causes of contemporary conflict, whether the conflict is labelled as ethnic or not.

Empirical case studies on the role of education in contemporary conflict in the field

The majority of studies in the field take the form of country case studies² and look at education’s contribution to contemporary ethnic conflict, such as that in Rwanda, South Africa, Northern Ireland and Kosovo; some others are on non-ethnic conflict cases, such as Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.³ Those on ethnic conflict cases show some common ways in which education contributes, principally by promoting division and hatred among ethnic groups through the structure and/or curriculum. Yet they also show the complexity of the issue, through their contextualised accounts. Some of the studies further suggest that education may fuel ethnic conflict in other ways than merely promoting ethnic divisions and hatred.

In exploring the role of education in ethnic conflict, Rwanda and Burundi are elaborated as the showcases below. Both have often been written about by educationalists as ‘classic’ cases in which education is considered to have fuelled a contemporary ethnic conflict. And yet, recent analyses of the cases (mostly by non-educationalists) show the complex ways in which education might have fuelled conflict there, and a level of complexity beyond that so far captured by educational studies on any ethnic conflict cases in the field, be they theoretical pieces (see above) or the empirical ones to be reviewed in this section. That is to say, the cases of Burundi and Rwanda set out below demonstrate that promoting ethnic divisions or hatred may not be the only ways in which education has fuelled (or can potentially fuel) ethnic conflict; instead, education may potentially fuel (or have fuelled) the issues or root causes that underlie it. To show this, below, the conventional role of education in violence in Rwanda and Burundi held by educationalists is first described; after this root causes other than ethnic tensions suggested in the cases by other social scientists, and their relation of education, are described.

Rwanda and Burundi

Rwanda and Burundi are considered to be non-identical twins: Rwanda was one kingdom, one state and one people, and so was Burundi. Both countries are composed of the same ethnic groups: Hutu (approximately 85% in Burundi and 90% in Rwanda), Tutsi (approximately 15% in Burundi and 9% in Rwanda) and Twa (1% or under in both countries) (Obura, 2003, 2008). Burundi and Rwanda were joined together as Ruanda-Urundi under the colonial control of Germany (1899–1916) and then of Belgium (1916–1962). They were separated at their independence in 1962.

Both countries experienced cycles of violence after independence, which culminated in the 1990s. The violence in the 1990s in both countries was fuelled by ethnic tensions, particularly between Tutsis and Hutus – although its nature is as highly complex as any other contemporary conflicts. In post-independence Rwanda, the state was led by Hutus and the Tutsi population faced increasing discrimination and worsening opportunities. The civil war which began in 1990 was launched by the Tutsi-led Rwanda Patriotic Front against the Hutu-led state, and was followed by the genocide in 1994. On the other hand, Tutsis held the political power in Burundi after independence and discrimination and exclusion of the Hutu there consequently worsened. Ethnic violence was repeatedly experienced, culminating in the 12-year civil war from 1993. The war started when the first democratically elected Hutu president, Ndadaye, was assassinated by Tutsi extremists.

The colonial state is considered to have played an important role in changing and reinforcing the ethnic identities and divisions between Hutus and Tutsis, although some evidence points to an existence of ethnic tensions before then (Vansina, 2004, cited in King, 2014). This is because the relationships among Hutu, Tutsi and Twa were harmonious before colonisation and, fundamentally, because the groups were not ethnic groups as the colonisers believed, but were actually socio-identity groups (Obura 2003; 2008). According to Obura (2003, 2008), this denomination means that they know themselves and are known by others by which group they belong to, and yet the groups are mutable: a Hutu could become a Tutsi through increasing property and acquiring higher social status and a Tutsi could be relegated to Hutu status if they lost their economic assets. However, the colonial powers defined the groups as ‘ethnicities’, which are by definition not mutable, and applied rigid division between them as a basis for political control of the colony. They used an ‘indirect control’ approach, which meant that they delegated the functioning of the state to one group of colonised people, i.e. Tutsis, to take a superior administrative role, while the other group(s), i.e. Hutu and Twa, were relegated to an inferior labouring role. In addition, the Belgian approach became increasingly ‘direct’ and divisive, in that they even removed all the Hutu chiefs and assistant chiefs from the traditional political structures and replaced them with Tutsis (King, 2014; Obura, 2008).

The origin of modern schooling dates back to the beginning of colonial control there, because before then education had been undertaken primarily at home (King, 2014; Obura 2003, 2008). From the beginning, access to education was unequally provided among ‘ethnic’ groups. The main purpose of formal schooling was to train Tutsis as support staff for the government (Obura, 2003) and thus preference was given to Tutsis in schooling under colonial control (King, 2014). This is epitomised in the enrolment ratio at Astrida Secondary School, the most prestigious educational institution in Ruanda-Urundi. In 1932, the year of opening, 45 Tutsi pupils were enrolled alongside only nine Hutu pupils, despite Hutus being the great majority of the colony. The gap remained until the end of the colonial rule, albeit smaller in degree (Obura, 2003). Such unequal access to schooling is regarded as a source of the divisions because of its (perceived) returns. That is, access to schooling has been perceived by people as the ‘door to employment, wealth acquisition and power’, and thus its unequal distribution has been seen, ‘rightly or wrongly, as the source of all other inequalities in the nation’ (Mariro, 1998, cited in Obura, 2008, p. 61). Access to secondary schooling was particularly important because it was, or was at least seen to be, the path to the elite administrative cadres that would assist the colonial government (King, 2014; Obura, 2008).

In addition to the unequal provision of schooling, the curriculum also contained discriminatory elements. Textbooks during the colonial period, in subjects such as history, geography and civics, contained ethnicity-related elements, particularly at secondary education level (King, 2014). They emphasised the differences in physical features and intellectual capacities between Hutus and Tutsis, showing Tutsis as intelligent and destined to rule the nation and Hutus as unintelligent, meek and suitable only for manual work (Bush and Saltarelli, 2000). There were also differences in the subjects taught to Tutsi and Hutu pupils according to the different positions they were expected to occupy in colonial society. For instance, French was taught to Tutsis whereas Hutus had lessons in singing. Natural science was taught to Tutsis, while it was only an optional subject for Hutus (King, 2014; Obura, 2008).

After independence, ethnic divisions continued to be promoted or mirrored in the education sector as well as in other sectors in both Burundi and Rwanda, albeit in different ways. In Burundi, where Tutsis held onto power, the discrimination against Hutus in education persisted and even worsened (Obura, 2008). On the other hand, in Rwanda, where Hutus took political control after independence, the educational system became increasingly discriminatory against the Tutsi population. For instance, an ethnic quota was applied from the 1970s on. This ensured the enrolment of Hutus in schooling while a great number of Tutsis were purged from university (Hilker, 2010). Various elements in education were ethnically defined, such as pupil identification files (Rutayisire, Kabano and Rubagiza, 2004). Teachers also segregated classes from time to time into Hutu and Tutsi pupils in the period immediately before the genocide (1990–1994) (Hilker, 2010).

In Rwanda, the version of history taught in schools is considered as a particularly significant factor in arousing ethnic divisions and prejudice (Hilker, 2010; Freedman et al., 2008; King, 2014; Obura, 2003). Gasanabo (2004, cited in Hilker, 2010) analysed textbooks and teaching materials from between 1962 and 1994 and suggests that primary and secondary schools propagated a version of the past that supported the political ideology and rhetoric of the Hutu regimes. The distorted historical perceptions were not only taught in history and civics classes but were incorporated throughout the whole educational system (Obura, 2003). Hilker (2010) argues furthermore that the version of history taught in schools in the early 1990s inculcated not only the ideology of ethnic division but also fear among the Hutu population toward the Tutsis. Nataganda (2002, cited in Obura, 2003) shows, on the other hand, that unschooled people did not hold an ethnicised view of history, but rather held that all Rwandans share a common ancestor in the form of Gihanga.

It should be noted, however, that the above analyses by educationalists do not empirically demonstrate the link between the discrimination and divisions in the educational system and the violence in the 1990s in Rwanda and in Burundi (see Hilker, 2010). Moreover, the extent to which ethnic tensions and hatred drove the violence itself remains a contentious issue in social science literature. In the case of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, researchers such as Straus (2006) and Fujii (2009) does not deny the idea that ethnicity played a role, but not as the primary driver of violence. Straus (2006) argues that it was fear not of Tutsis but of intra-Hutu intimidation and violence that made ordinary Rwandans become perpetrators. In addition, the importance of personal motives and situational factors is claimed by Fujii (2009) to be relevant to individual participation. Another factor that is often pointed out as having fuelled the genocide in Rwanda is the combination of the centralised and strong state on the one hand and the Rwandans’ sense of obedience and loyalty to authority or to community on the other. Straus (2006) argues that the centralised state institution penetrating to the local level was one of the factors that facilitated the organisers of the genocide in enforcing the decision countrywide in just a short time. Uvin (2001: 84) shows that the traditional characteristics of Rwandans, seen as ‘unquestioning’, ‘obedient’ and ‘conformist’, are partly considered to have contributed to many people taking part in the genocide when they were told to do so. In the case of Burundi, Daley (2006), for instance, shows that the ethnic line became salient in violence there because political elites mobilised ethnicity in their struggle for economic gain and control of the state.

How education relates to the above-mentioned root causes of violence in Rwanda and Burundi, other than in terms of ethnic divisions and hatred, is largely left unanswered. However, two features in the educational system that may relate to the genocide in Rwanda in other ways are suggested by some educational literature. The first is a lack of education. Hilker (2010) states that the majority of those who carried out the genocide were unemployed and undereducated young people and that rural young people without education or employment prospects are argued to have played a key role in expanding the scale of the genocide. Evidence for this is that secondary education had been largely inaccessible in pre-genocide Rwanda. Although primary schooling expanded after independence, secondary schooling remained accessible only to wealthy elites. For instance, the figure varies depending on the source, but only 6–9% of primary school students were accepted into secondary school at the end of the 1980s (Hoben, 1989 and RoR, 1991, cited in King, 2014; Obura, 2003). There had long been reform plans to improve access at the secondary level, but these had never been implemented.

Another feature of education that may have a different link to the genocide in Rwanda is the authoritarian teaching style or teacher-centred pedagogical approach. Some scholars, such as Freedman et al. (2008), King (2014), Muhumpundu (2002, cited in Hilker, 2010) and Walker-Keleher (2006), suggest that the top-down teaching approach to students in the pre-genocide years, without fostering students’ critical thinking, encouraged ‘unquestioning’, ‘obedient’ and ‘conformist’ features of Rwandans without fostering a sense of individual responsibilities. This was something also recognised by Rwandans themselves. The National Curriculum Development Centre staff similarly stated that the excessive emphasis in the curriculum on loyalty to the group and to the community had helped foster the blind obedience observed during the genocide (Obura, 2003).

As the above account shows, the educational system in Rwanda and Burundi is argued to have fuelled the ethnic violence these countries suffered in the 1990s. Primarily, this was by its promotion of ethnic tensions and hatred. Tutsis, the small minority, were provided with greater access to schooling especially at the secondary level, while Hutus and Twas had been marginalised since colonial days. Inside the school, too, stereotypes of the superior Tutsis and inferior Hutus (and Twas) were promoted through various subjects, including history and civics. The educational systems continued to promote ethnic divisions even after independence in both Rwanda and Burundi. The account above shows, furthermore, that ethnic tensions were at least not the only contributing factor that underlay the violence. Although there has as yet been little focus on how education might have fuelled other root causes, the connections between scarce access to schooling and authoritarian teaching and the violence have been explored to some extent.

Many of the elements in education that are considered to have fuelled the violence in Rwanda and Burundi are not unique among contemporary ethnic conflict cases. Deliberate unequal distribution of education among different ethnic groups has been seen in, for instance, Nigeria (Ukiwo, 2007) and South Africa (Barakat, 2008; Johnson, 2007). The teaching of history classes is also connected deeply to conflict in Kosovo (Sommers and Buckland, 2004) and in Israel and Palestine (Steinberg and Bar-On, 2009). Moreover, stereotypes regarding different ethnic groups were also promoted in cases such as Sri Lanka (Bush and Saltarelli, 2000).

In other cases, different features of schooling from those seen in the cases of Rwanda and Burundi seem to have played a more essential role in fuelling ethnic tensions and divisions. In cases such as Northern Ireland (see Arlow, 2004; Dunn, 1986; Nolan, 2007), South Africa (Johnson, 2007) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (Pasalic-Kreso, 1999), the educational system was segregated by ethnicity. In the early days of the conflict in Northern Ireland, the schools were separated by religion into Protestant and Catholic institutions (Nolan, 2007). A further feature related to segregation of the system is language, as was the case in South Africa under Apartheid (Johnson, 2007) and in Malaysia (Brown, 2007). In South Africa, the system was segregated by language, i.e. English or Afrikaans, as well as by race. Johnson (2007) argues that the debate on whether to use Afrikaans or English as the language of instruction reflected and reinforced the struggles for dominance between the Afrikaans- and the English-speaking groups and, as a result, the mandate to use Afrikaans triggered a nationwide uprising. Language has also been used as a means to oppress in Sudan (Sommers, 2005), Nepal (Shields and Rappleye, 2008), Kosovo (Sommers and Buckland, 2004), Guatemala (Salazar Tetzaguic and Grigsby, 2004) and Sri Lanka (Perera et al., 2004). The Sudanese government attempted to impose Arabic as the sole language of instruction in schools in Southern Sudan, an area where non-Arab non-Muslims are predominant (Sommers, 2005).

Regardless of the elements, the basic finding that education, whether through its curriculum or structure, is considered to have contributed to heightening ethnic tensions appears to be common among different cases. Nevertheless, recent studies in the field add complexity to this common principle. Barakat (2008), reviewing South African and Palestinian education, argues that education not only was and can be a divisional factor between ethnic groups; it also did and can promote divisions ‘within’ the same side of a conflict. For instance, in South Africa the Apartheid government used schooling as a tool to divide the non-white population so that it would be difficult for them to create a common opposition force. This strategy was successful to some extent, although in the end a common opposition emerged. In the case of Nepal, Shields and Rappleye (2008) explore how education not only fuelled conflict but also contributed to mitigating it. That is, education contributed to reinforcing social inequalities while it played a role in maintaining social cohesion between opposing sides. That a well-intentioned educational system fuelled political violence in contrary to intentions in Bhutanese refugee camps is asserted by Evans (2008), who shows an educational programme that aimed to empower the beneficiaries was used by them to promote political violence. In some other cases, as in Kosovo (Sommers and Buckland, 2004), Southern Sudan (Sommers, 2005) and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (Nicolai, 2007), although the state-funded educational system was oppressive and biased toward one ethnic group, an alternative education system (in the form of a parallel system) for the discriminated-against was established and played a role in resistance against the state authority. In addition, Watson (2007) shows the complexity of the issue of language of instruction in relation to potential ethnic conflicts. On the one hand, as above, language is an important element of local cultures and ethnic identities, and restrictions in regard to the language of instruction in schools can be a mechanism through which education represses culture. On the other, teaching people using local languages exclusively has provoked (and may provoke) resistance from the local people themselves; after all, many administrative and modern sector jobs were held by those who could speak the language of the colonial master, and therefore being taught only in local languages can be perceived as their being excluded from modern society.

More fundamentally, some case studies suggest, similar to the cases of Rwanda and Burundi, that education does more than promote ethnic tensions and hatred. For instance, the role of the highly educated in initiating conflicts in the name of ‘revolution’ was suggested by Pherali (2011) in Nepal, and he also suggests there is a link between the use of violence in schooling, i.e. corporal punishment, and the conflict there. In addition, the link between low educational provision and conflict, one of the elements identified in Rwanda and Burundi, is also suggested in Southern Sudan (Sommers, 2005) and Nepal (Pherali, 2011; Sheilds and Rappleye, 2008); young people who were partially educated and without employment are believed to have been mobilised into conflict the most.

In addition to the work described above on the role of education in ethnic conflicts, there are some studies, albeit much fewer (see footnote 3), on the role of education in non-ethnic conflict cases. In some cases, the ways in which education is argued to have contributed are similar to how it is considered to have done so in the cases of ethnic conflict. Frayha (2004) on Lebanon and Balegamire et al. (2004) on Mozambique similarly contend that the formal education system reinforced divisions, discriminations and political tensions, which are ultimately seen to have fuelled conflicts, in the countries through curriculum content, language policy and segregated structure. Education in the case of Afghanistan, on one hand, different ideologies, i.e. communism, Islamism, and fundamentalism, were promoted at different times (Jones, 2009; Matsumoto, 2008). On the other, the languages of violence and war, including jihad (against the Soviets), were accepted and normalised in the curriculum there. These ways in which education was used there seem to resemble - as well as some ethnic conflict cases above - the Second World War cases, which are documented elsewhere (for instance, Lowe, 1992). In Sierra Leone, as in Rwanda, Burundi, Southern Sudan and Nepal, the low provision of higher levels of schooling and the lack of employment opportunities for those who had some education are pointed out as factors that contributed to the conflict there (e.g. Krech and Maclure, 2003; Matsumoto, 2011, 2012, 2014; Paulson, 2006; Skelt, 1997; Wright, 1997).

In summary, the case studies of education’s role in contemporary conflict are largely about ethnic conflict. The studies of ethnic conflict cases have shown some common mechanisms in the curriculum or structure of the formal schooling considered to have promoted ethnic divisions and hatred there. The studies have further shown the complex relationship of education to ethnic conflict. More fundamentally, some studies suggest, although in preliminary ways, that education does more than promote the ‘ethnic’ aspects of tensions and hatred; in fact, contemporary ‘ethnic’ conflict seems to be driven not only by ethnic tensions or hatred but also by other underlying issues in society, which education may be fuelling.

The state of the knowledge on the role of education in contemporary violent conflict in the field of education and conflict

A considerable amount of research has been done recently on the role of education in contemporary violent conflict in the field of education and conflict. In particular, literature on how education may fuel ethnic conflict has been treated both empirically and theoretically. Essentially, the theoretical ideas and the empirical studies on the role of education in ethnic conflict reviewed do not contradict each other. The basic principle that education promoted ethnic tensions through the curriculum and the structure, thereby fuelling ethnic conflict, is consistently argued in studies of contemporary ethnic conflict. The idea that violence in school promotes violent conflict seems to complement, to some extent, the ways in which education has been seen to fuel violent conflicts, whether labelled as ethnic or not. Militarisation of the curriculum and physical violence in school was observed in a few of the contemporary cases, such as Afghanistan and Nepal, and an authoritarian education style has also been cited in some cases, such as Rwanda. The idea that education fuels the root causes of conflict also helps explain the potential link between conflict and the low provision of education in cases as Rwanda, Burundi, Southern Sudan, Nepal and Sierra Leone, and the link of ideologies taught in school to conflict in Afghanistan.

And yet our knowledge about the role of education in violent conflict is still yet to develop in many ways. I focus on elucidating three major limitations. First of all, the theoretical ideas in the field are clearly yet to be refined and established. Even the most predominant theoretical ideas about ethnic conflict in the field only discuss how education may have fuelled ethnic tensions and hatred, which are not recognised as causes. They do not directly address how education fuels conflict in other ways, including the root causes of it. As seen, empirical studies in the field and beyond suggest that education does so. In addition, the theoretical ideas are too simplistic to explain the complexities of the mechanisms involved, for example, about how education was divided ‘within’ the same ethnic group as in the case of South Africa. Perhaps theory’s attempt to explain education’s contribution to both contemporary cases and cases of the Second World War together, as the ‘ethnic’ conflict and ‘violence’ strands do, might not be appropriate, as differences in the causes and nature between them are pointed out in the literature (e.g. Duffield, 2001). In the case of the violence-in-schooling approach, further explanation and clarification is needed as to just how school-based violence comes to promote violent conflict, an organised and armed violence, as opposed to crime. The link of ‘violence’ to conflict is also loose because the concept of ‘violence’ employed in those works is ambiguous, including non-physical acts. And, the approach to understanding how education might fuel the root causes of violent conflict is at an incipient stage.

Second, it is clear that both theoretical and empirical studies in the field have been greatly concentrated on education’s role in ethnic conflict. In contrast, knowledge on how education may fuel or has fuelled non-ethnic-labelled contemporary conflict is limited both theoretically and empirically. This is again despite the existence of theoretical debates and empirical studies – mainly quantitative – on the non-ethnic conflict cases and the relationship of education to them in social science literature (see, for instance, Barakat and Urdal, 2009; Keen, 2005; Ostby and Urdal, 2010; Richard, 1996; Thyne, 2006).

Last, the studies in the field have predominantly focused on how elements inside education as an independent provision of education or schooling, such as structure, curriculum or governance, may fuel conflict. There is no discussion on how schooling as a social institution is entangled in the political economy of a country that allows or promotes the emergence of violent conflict, while the debates in the social science literature mentioned above precisely point to this aspect of schooling. Another implication is that how education is received or perceived by the beneficiaries is not discussed. In terms of curriculum, for instance, Williams (2004: 472) argues that whether education fuels conflict or not depends on the ‘attained curriculum’ or what students actually learn, for it is ‘naïve to assume that learners acquire the material in the curriculum precisely as intended’. And yet the attained curriculum has been little empirically investigated in relation to the role of education in conflict. With regard to the structure, too, a handful of studies in the field have empirically studied people’s perceptions about unequal provision, for instance (see Matsumoto, 2012). This is in spite of arguments in much of the ethnic conflict-related literature that the unequal provision of education can fuel people’s frustration and ultimately conflict because education is perceived to be a key tool for their socioeconomic mobility and power (Bush and Saltarelli, 2000; Johnson, 2007; Johnson and Stewart, 2007; Obura, 2008; Ukiwo, 2007). The tendency to focus on provision and policies is something common to empirical studies in the field of education and conflict as a whole. The only exceptions that investigate learners’ perceptions or experiences are, as far as I am aware, Bird (2007), Cunningham (2011), Matsumoto (2011, 2012), Obura (2003) and Winthrop and Kirk (2008).

Concluding thoughts

The article explored literature in the field of education and conflict on the role of formal schooling in contemporary conflict. It showed that while a considerable amount of research has been done in a short period of time, the literature is skewed toward cases of ethnic conflicts and limited to yet-to-be-refined theoretical explanations that fail to capture the complexities and the depth of contemporary conflicts. It also showed the field’s still insufficient engagement with the dynamics and the root causes of contemporary conflict that have been demonstrated by scholars across social sciences.

The concentration on ethnic conflict cases and stagnation of knowledge development beyond it in the field is understandable to some extent. It is a complicated area of research by nature, as mentioned at the beginning of this article. Also, education was often observed to have an apparent role in ‘ethnic’-labelled conflicts, which were the majority particularly in the 1990s (e.g. Stewart, 2008). However, the concentration on ethnic conflict cases might also be related to the history of the field. It has ‘emerged’ largely through the advocacy of the practitioners in humanitarian aid and developmental work (Kagawa, 2005; Winthrop, 2009; Rappleye and Paulson, 2007). As such, it may also be related to the ‘dilemma’ of the international community (see Smith, 2009). The literature points out that the role of education in violent conflict is an ‘uncomfortable’ topic for policy-makers and donors (Davies, 2004; Smith, 2009; Smith and Vaux, 2003; Tawil and Harley, 2004). The main reason for this is that mainstream educational development attempts to be ‘apolitical’ in character and some donors are afraid to be too closely involved in the analysis of education provision within member states, as it is considered as encroaching on national sovereignty (Smith, 2009; Tawil and Harley, 2004; UNESCO, 2011). However, the apparent role of education in ethnic conflict alerted the community to the fact that education was not ‘inevitably a force for good’ and thus they should ensure their educational assistance did not fuel conflict, in opposition to their intentions (Bush and Saltarelli, 2000; Tawil and Harvey, 2004).

For the field to advance, however, deeper engagement with other social science literature on contemporary violent conflict is vital. More and more educational literature has begun to do so. Epitomising this, the EFA Global Monitoring Report (2011) draws from the social science literature and recognises four schools of thought on the root causes of conflict (economic motivations, state fragility and resource traps, ethnic composition and grievance and injustice),⁴ and several background papers to the report have taken an interdisciplinary approach to disentangling the role of education in contemporary conflict (i.e. Brown, 2010; Hilker, 2010; Ostby and Urdal, 2010).

Footnotes

Funding

This research was part of a DPhil study, which was partially funded by Makiguchi Foundation and Oxford Project for Peace Studies Award.

Notes

Author biography

Mitsuko Matsumoto, DPhil, currently collaborates with a research group, Infancia Contemporánea (Contemporary Childhood) at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. She gained her Doctor of Philosophy at the Department of Education, University of Oxford, UK. She works in the areas of education and conflict, peace education, education for disadvantaged children, and technical and vocational education and training.

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Schooling’s ‘contribution’ to contemporary violent conflict: Review of theoretical ideas and case studies in the field of education and conflict

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Theoretical understanding of the role of education in violent conflict

Education and ethnic conflict

Violence in school and violent conflict

Education as part of ‘root causes’ of violent conflict

Empirical case studies on the role of education in contemporary conflict in the field

Rwanda and Burundi

The state of the knowledge on the role of education in contemporary violent conflict in the field of education and conflict

Concluding thoughts

Footnotes

Funding

Notes

Author biography

References