Kevin Kester (Seoul National University, Korea)
Abstract
Peace education has been practiced as a form of global citizenship education for several decades. Since the establishment of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, this overlap between the two fields has been further amplified amid enduring and escalating conflicts that now emerge as key components of the contemporary global order. Through ethnographic data collected in four divided and conflict-affected settings — China/Taiwan, Cyprus, Korea, and Somalia/Somaliland — I examine how contextualized curriculum and pedagogical practices of university educators in contexts fraught with division and conflict function to produce particular ideas about peace and global citizenship. Specifically, I seek to answer the following questions: Can peace as a form of global citizenship be taught in universities in settings where the legacies of war, division, and colonialism remain deeply rooted? How might discourses of peace and global citizenship in divided and conflict-affected contexts amplify or mitigate sentiments of disenfranchisement? How can education for peace and global citizenship engage productively with local and global dimensions of conflict? In what ways might peace and global citizenship education empower communities? Drawing on field work, document analysis, and interviews with 40 faculty across the divided settings, I show how university educators in these contexts support peacebuilding and efforts toward global citizenship through their work. I analyze data through the conceptual framework of post-critical (peace and global citizenship) education. Findings indicate that educators in conflict-affected contexts are divided on issues of peace, reconciliation, and citizenship. Finally, I discuss the implications of the findings in relation to curriculum, pedagogy, and policy.
KOTESOL Featured Workshop; In Person; 50 minutes
Peacebuilding / Peace Studies / Peace Linguistics
General Interest
About the Presenter
Kevin Kester is an associate professor at Seoul National University and director of the university’s Education, Conflict and Peace Lab. His research interests lie in the sociology and politics of education with a focus on comparative international education; education, conflict, and peacebuilding; and decolonizing education. His most recent papers are published in Asia Pacific Education Review, International Journal of Comparative Education and Development, International Journal of Multicultural Education, and Teaching in Higher Education. He holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge. More on his background can be found here: https://kevinkester.weebly.com/
