Educating teachers for peace in a context of violence

Abstract

Arising from violent community conflicts in 2021 in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, an action research project was launched with the aim of developing people in educational roles – tutors, teachers, students, activists – as facilitators of dialogues and discussions on sensitive issues that often involve questions of violence. The overarching research question was, ‘In a society that has experienced historical violence, how can understandings of contexts, of students and of ourselves inform the pedagogy of a teacher education that aims to build peace?’ The emphasis was thus on pedagogy; there is very limited scholarship regarding the pedagogy used to promote peace within teacher education, and much less still on this work in a context of extreme violence. South Africa meets the criteria for what is termed chronic violence. Such violence is evident not only in the broader society, but specifically within education. The study took a critical paradigm and used dynamic realism as the philosophical basis, which combined process ontology and phenomenology. An eclectic theoretical framework drew on Galtung, Freire, Bronfenbrenner, Bourdieu and Zembylas; this focused attention on how violence or peace become part of the dispositions or habitus in specific fields of practice, and the role of transformative learning in advancing positive change. A pilot over six weeks in 2021 and one session in 2022, much of which was constrained by the need to work online during the Covid19 lockdowns, was followed by a much longer intervention phase from April to October 2023, with roughly 30 participants completing the programme in each phase. Thematic analysis was used to develop themes from the data that was generated. This data drew in part also on my experiences within the course and the ways in which I understood the continuity from my history as an educator. Arising from the synthesis of themes from both phases of the study, the final themes were as follows: The pervasiveness and costs of violence and trauma in this context; the significance of a safe space; the centrality of emotions; the value of questioning; embracing diversity; ‘beyond facilitation’: education as personal development and healing; the time taken to develop depth. The implications are spelt out for teacher education, though with some caution with regards to how readily transferable the findings are to the context of formal teacher education: first, teacher education in such contexts needs to take recognition of the reality and consequences of violence. Secondly, it needs a vision of teacher education as an oasis of peace that develops a habitus of peace amongst staff and students. Developing teacher educators as agents of peace as a logical first step because their role in the system is of critical importance. It is acknowledged that the recommendations are far-reaching and a strategy for implementation is touched on. The study contributes to knowledge, first, by being one of the few studies on pedagogy for peace in a context of violence and by its emphasis on the consistency of pedagogy between education and teacher education. The need for investing in the development of teacher educators is a key point made. A specific theoretical contribution is the notion of teacher education in a context of violence as a ‘benign order’, given the chaotic interactions across fields of practice. This would also be a productive area for further research.