Teaching About the Violent Past

Policy recommendations and strategies to support teachers in addressing the violent past.

Education plays a vital role in fostering reconciliation and teaching peace in conflict-affected societies. In particular, teaching about the violent past from multiple perspectives helps replace fear and hatred with mutual understanding. While conflict-history education has been explored across sub-Saharan Africa and beyond, curricular reforms often overlook teachers—despite their key role in achieving success.

Building on insights from education sciences, sociology, political sciences, memory studies and social psychology, this book introduces a novel and interdisciplinary framework to analyse secondary school teachers’ engagement with conflict-history education, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. It focuses on three distinct locations—Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, and the Democratic Republic of Congo—that differ in the intensity of violence experienced and the time elapsed since conflict ended.

This practice-oriented book aims at identifying teachers’ needs to feel confident and competent in driving reconciliation in their classrooms and provides actionable policy recommendations and teaching strategies to support them in this essential role.

"Teaching About the Violent Past" was written by Line Kuppens, Justin Sheria Nfundiko, Louis-Gervais Adomon Anoma and Mary Kange’the.

Line Kuppens is an assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam, and visiting fellow at the Centre for Research on Peace and Development, KU Leuven. Her research focuses on peace education.

Justin Sheria Nfundiko is an associate professor at the Université Officielle de Bukavu and Université Catholique de Bukavu. His research focuses on the role of education in consolidating peace.

Yes, "Teaching About the Violent Past" is published Open Access. It is available under a BY-NC-ND license.

Publication of "Teaching About the Violent Past" was funded by KU Leuven Fund for Fair Open Access
Open Book Collective
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Preface
List of Abbreviations

Introduction
I.1. Research gaps and objectives
I.2. Case study contexts
I.3. Methodology
I.4. Outline of this book

Part 1. Theory & Concepts

Chapter 1. Reconciliation, memory and (peace) education
1.1. Conflict narratives
1.2. Challenging conflict narratives through transitional justice
1.3. Education as a subject & instrument of transitional justice
1.4. Direct peace education
1.5. Sociological time & societal ‘ripeness’
1.6. Alternatives to direct peace education
1.7. Theory of change of direct peace education

Chapter 2. The risk-taking continuum 2.0
2.1. Curricular-instructional gatekeeping
2.2. The risk-taking continuum
2.3. Limitations of the risk-taking continuum
2.4. Alternative frameworks
2.5. Towards a risk-taking continuum 2.0: the conflict-history education framework
2.6. Using the conflict-history education framework

Part 2. Empirical evidence

Chapter 3. Teaching about ethnic tensions in Kenya
3.1. Ethnic tensions and violence in Kenya
3.2. Education, conflict & peace
3.2.1. Kenya’s education system
3.2.2. Education & conflict
3.2.3. Education & peace
3.3. Survey data
3.4. Support for (in)direct peace education
3.4.1. Support for multicultural education
3.4.2. Support for direct peace education
3.5. (Dis)comfort
3.6. (In)competence: Stereotyping and ethnic favouritism in the classroom
3.6.1. Stereotyping in the classroom
3.6.2. Ethnic favouritism in the classroom
3.7. Situating Kenyan teachers within the framework of conflict-history education

Chapter 4. Teaching about the violent past in Côte d’Ivoire
4.1. Conflict dynamics
4.2. Education, conflict & peace
4.2.1. Côte d’Ivoire’s educational system
4.2.2. Education & conflict
4.2.3. Education & peace
4.3. Survey data
4.4. Support for (in)direct peace education
4.4.1. Support for indirect peace education
4.4.2. Support for direct peace education
4.5. (Dis)comfort
4.6. (In)competence
4.6.1. Focus on competing narratives of conflict
4.6.2. Support for teacher training
4.7. Situating Ivorian teachers within the framework of conflict-history education

Chapter 5. Teaching about ongoing violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
5.1. Conflict dynamics
5.2. Education, conflict & peace
5.2.1. The Congolese education system
5.2.2. Education & conflict
5.2.3. Education & peace
5.3. Survey data
5.4. Support for (in)direct peace education
5.4.1. Support for indirect peace education
5.4.2. Support for direct peace education
5.5. (Dis)comfort
5.6. (In)competence
5.7. Uprooted
5.7.1. Background on ‘Uprooted’
5.7.2. Fostering critical design experts through ‘Uprooted’
5.8. Situating Congolese teachers within the framework of conflict-history education

Part 3. Conclusions & Policy recommendations

Chapter 6. Main findings and conclusions
6.1. Situating teachers in terms of their support for direct peace education
6.2. Explaining differences
6.3. Teachers’ professional development needs
6.4. Limitations & future research directions

Chapter 7. Promoting critical design experts? Policy recommendations
7.1. Reflections from the field
7.1.1. Kenya: Mary Wanjiru Kang’ethe
7.1.2. Côte d’Ivoire: Louis-Gervais Adomon Anoma
7.2. Policy recommendations
7.3. Teaching strategies
7.3.1. Silent conversations
7.3.2. Exploring the unknown
7.3.3. Forum theatre

Appendix
Notes
References
Index

The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for "Teaching About the Violent Past" is 10.11116/9789461666697.