Education, Conflict and Peace

Much of my work examines the politics of education in conflict-affected contexts. Through original research, I question and complicate the dominant discourse that education is a straightforward solution for peacebuilding. For example, much of my scholarship - including my book From Classrooms to Conflict in Rwanda - challenges the common wisdom that schooling necessarily builds peace to explore the ways that ordinary education, through both its structure and content, can help set societies on paths to conflict.  In other recent studies, I investigate the impacts of specific education approaches on peace and conflict, such as the effects of access to higher education on youth’s hope, attitudes and behaviors in Kenya or the impact of Liberia’s first primary school civics curriculum on civic outcomes among children. Much of my work also aims to amplify youth voices that are too often left out. Some of my newest research considers informal education spaces including arts, sports, and food. I am also interested in investigating how we teach about peace and conflict in university settings in the US.