Engaging Teachers in Peacebuilding
in Postconflict Rwanda and South Africa
Research Overview
Inequalities based on, for example, gender, ethnicity, race or religion, can be both a key driver and
outcome of conflict. Structural inequalities in the distribution of education opportunities in particular, are
a main cause and symptom of unrest and fragility (cf. Dupuy, 2008; Novelli & Smith, 2011; Novelli, 2011;
Smith et al 2011; UNESCO GMR 2011; Save the Children, 2012), impeding the achievement of
Millennium Development Goals (O’ Gorman 2011; Matsumoto 2011). Equality of access to good quality
education contributes to peacebuilding and poverty reduction and restores trust in state functions (World
Bank 2005; Davies, 2011a; McCandless 2011).
Teachers are key determinants of education quality (Mourshed et al., 2010; Sayed et al. 2012) and play
a key role in nation building, identity construction and peace and reconciliation (Durrani and Dunne,
2010; Smith et al. 2011). What teachers do with what learning resources shapes what children and
young people learn, influencing their identities as well as providing them with skills for employment and
peace building (Barrett 2007). Teachers’ agency “in developing values of mutual respect and tolerance”
is important in “a postwar context characterized by persisting division and mistrust” (Davies, 2011b: 47).
Teacher training is evidently seen as a fundamental element of post-conflict reconstruction but there
are doubts about both its relevance and effectiveness (Dladla and Moon, 2013).
The research will explore how teachers are framed and supported in their roles as peacebuilders: how
they experience this support; how their practices and attitudes are influenced by national and
international educational policies, and the outcome for learners.
The research is imperative for several reasons: we know little about how teachers are trained and
deployed; how and what teachers teach; what textbooks they use; and the conditions they teach in, in
relation to peacebuilding. By strengthening the evidence basis in these areas this research project will
assist government, donor and international institutions to target programmes and investment in
education most effectively.
This research will be embedded in UNICEF’s Peacebuilding, Education and Advocacy Programme
(2012-2016) and will be conducted in partnership with local UNICEF Country offices.
The project is funded by the ESRC/DfID Joint Fund for Poverty Alleviation to research the role of
teachers in peacebuilding in the post-conflict contexts of Rwanda and South Africa and links with a
wider five-country research consortium on education and peacebuilding, which in addition to Rwanda
and South Africa looks at Myanmar, Uganda and Pakistan in the areas of teachers, youth and
educational policy.
Professor Yusuf Sayed, Centre for International Education (CIE) at Sussex is leading the ESRC/DfID
project (see www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cie/peacebuilding) together with colleagues from CIE and
partners at the University of Bristol, the University of Rwanda and Cape Peninsula University of
Technology in South Africa.
Engaging Teachers in Peacebuilding in Rwanda and South Africa
Research Aims
The core aim of the research is to:
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examine how teachers and teaching are supporting education for peacebuilding
enhance national and global policy dialogue and understanding about teachers as agents of
peacebuilding
create and communicate new knowledge to policy experts, policy makers, civil society
organisations at local, national, regional and international level on the effects of education
peacebuilding interventions and
develop indicators and a metrics system for evaluating the efficacy of educational interventions
concerned with teachers as agents of peacebuilding.
To achieve these aims the project explores six inter-related themes:
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Global and national policy contexts framing teachers’ work
Teacher recruitment, deployment and management
Curriculum and textbook reform
Teacher professional development (initial and continuing)
Teacher accountability and trust
Teacher pedagogy
Research Questions
The main research question that guides this study is: To what extent do education peacebuilding
interventions in countries promote teacher agency and capacity to build peace and reduce inequalities?
In answering this question we will pay particular attention to how they seek to mitigate gender, ethnic,
religious and socio-economic inequities to, in and through education.
The overarching research question will be explored through the following sub-questions:
RQ1. What is the global and national policy context within which the education interventions are
located with particular reference to teachers?
RQ2. How have the selected interventions attempted to ensure that teachers are trained for
peacebuilding?
RQ3. How have the selected interventions attempted to ensure that teachers are recruited and
deployed to remote and rural post-conflict contexts?
RQ4.
How, and in what ways, do textbooks and curricula teachers use promote peace and tolerance?
RQ5. What is the pedagogy of teachers in classrooms and what strategies do they use in developing
peacebuilding skills and attitudes for reducing conflict, both between boys and between girls and boys?
RQ6. How have the selected interventions managed to ensure that teachers build trust and
enhance accountability to the local community?
www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cie/peacebuilding
Engaging Teachers in Peacebuilding in Rwanda and South Africa
Research Design
The research will be conducted in partnership with local academics in Rwanda and South Africa to
provide context sensitive insights on the efficacy of education peacebuilding innovations in these
countries. Field work will take place in three sites in each country, including a rural location. Using a
mixed-methods approach data will be collected through interviews, lesson observations (both teacher
training lessons and schools lessons), focus groups, teacher profiling, textbook and curriculum analysis,
and school records. This will produce rich, multi-layered data that will allow for in-case and cross-case
evaluation of the different dimensions in Rwanda and South Africa and between them.
Field data will be complimented by a literature review exploring the rationale, theories of change,
conceptions of equity, and teacher agency in peacebuilding interventions and analyse global and
national policy discourses in the two countries.
Outcomes and Outputs
The project will have significant academic, practitioner, and policy impacts through the production of a
range of outputs including
i) Academic outputs targeted at national and international academics and international agency staff (e.g.
journal articles, policy briefs, seminars)
ii) Policy workshops including with selected policy makers and teacher training institutes to disseminate
findings and discuss strategies for promoting effective peacebuilding
iii) Popular engagement through publications of findings in accessible formats (e.g. news briefs for
newspapers, radio and TV journalists).
Project Team
Principal Investigator:
Professor Yusuf Sayed (University of Sussex)
Co-Investigators
Professor Mario Novelli (University of Sussex)
Dr Angeline Barrett (University of Bristol)
Dr Naureen Durrani (University of Sussex)
Research Support and Communications Officer:
Thomas Salmon (Cape Peninsula University of Technology)
Research Partners:
Professor Eugene Ndabaga (University of Rwanda)
Dr Jolly Rubagiza (University of Rwanda)
Professor Azeem Badroodien (Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa
- Centre for International Teacher Education)
General inquiries:
Professor Yusuf Sayed
Centre for International Education, Department of Education
School of Education and Social Work
Room 145, Essex House
University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, UK
BN1 9QQ
E: [email protected]