Clive Harber

Schooling for violence and peace: how does peace education differ from ‘normal’ schooling?

This article reviews literature on the roles of schooling in both reproducing and actively perpetrating violence, and sets out an historical explanation of why schools are socially constructed in such a way as to make these roles possible. It then discusses notions of peace education in relation to one particular project in England before using empirical data from research on the project to examine contrasts between peace education approaches and ‘normal’ schooling from the viewpoints of project workers, pupils and teachers. It concludes that such contrasts and tensions do indeed exist and that this raises serious questions about the compatibility of peace education and formal schooling.

The job of headteacher in Africa: Research and reality☆

It is almost a platitude to state that the headteacher is central to the success or failure of a school. However, despite a mountain of published writing on school management, we still know relatively little about what headteachers do. Why is this? Ball, argues that it is because theoretical writing on school organisation has been overwhelmingly influenced by systems theory and has not been sufficiently grounded in empirical reality:

Perpetrating disaffection: Schooling as an international problem

This paper argues that, despite evidence of widespread disaffection, school is often regarded as the default position for educational provision, a given good. If there is disaffection with, and resistance to, schooling, then it is pupils and parents that are the problem, not school itself. Yet there is considerable evidence that schooling does not necessarily or automatically benefit either society as a whole or the individuals who attend and that, as a result, it creates disaffection with itself. Rejection of schooling is therefore very far from being an irrational or ill‐considered act. The paper reviews evidence supporting this argument including both the failure of schools to protect young people from danger and violence and also their direct role in actively perpetrating violence and threatening the safety of those they are there to protect. The paper ends by arguing that disaffection with schooling stems from its fundamental nature and purposes which have been shaped by its historical origins. While schooling remains as it is, disaffection and resistance will continue to be an inbuilt and often logical response.

Democratic Learning in Teacher Education: a review of experience at one institution

Abstract The authoritarian approach adopted in most initial teacher training courses rejects the possibility of obtaining a mandate from the learners. The methods course described adopts a consultative approach at the outset so that some shared responsibility and some mandate is established. The students may opt for authoritarian or autonomous or democratic approaches to their learning. The experience of implementing the democratic approach in the case of five of the courses is described and evaluated. Both students and tutors had to adjust to a different theory of learning since both had previously been used to authoritarian styles. Students were able to bridge back into the authoritarian styles of schools with the positive effect that they were well able to cope with schools as they are but also having had experiences and visions of possible alternatives and modifications to the status quo should the situation require them. They were prepared both for survival and for alternative futures. Of a good lead...

International Contexts for Political Education.

Abstract This article argues that schools are political as well as educational institutions. It examines the nature of political learning in three different contexts — political indoctrination, political socialisation and political education. It provides international examples of the ways in which political learning takes place in all three contexts and suggests that genuinely open and democratic political education is not very common, often even in those countries that term themselves democracies. Taught courses of politics in three different national and ideological contexts are compared to illustrate the distinction between political socialisation and political education.

Teaching Controversial Issues and Teacher Education in England and South Africa.

This paper argues the importance in and for a democratic state and society of discussing controversial issues in education. In particular it analyses two national educational contexts, that of England and South Africa. It considers both whether they provide a suitable framework for teaching controversial issues in school classrooms and if they prepare teachers to be able to organise discussions of controversial issues in schools. The paper then examines interview data on teaching controversial issues with university tutors and student teachers in four universities, two in England and two in South Africa. The data suggest that there are still serious obstacles in both countries to teaching controversial issues in schools and in preparing teacher education students to teach about controversial issues.

A Case Study of Democratic Learning in Teacher Education.

Students training to be teachers on a one year post‐graduate course are presented with a choice of course methodologies. This paper is a case study of one group that chose to operate as a democratic learning co‐operative. The students wrote their own syllabus, selected teaching methods, shared the tasks of teaching and organising course sessions, located appropriate resources and evaluated the outcomes. The tutors were able to take on the roles of participant observers and to monitor the evolution and development of the course. The efficacy of this approach in preparing teachers for work in local secondary schools is discussed.

Education for critical consciousness?: Curriculum and reality in African social studies education

Abstract This paper uses the ideas of Paulo Freire to explore the role of social studies in African schools. In particular it examines the extent to which social studies can achieve a key aim of the African Social Studies Programme—the development of a critical perspective on society. The evidence does not give rise to a great deal of optimism in this regard. Factors such as the political environment, the content of teaching materials, school and classroom organisation, teacher training and resource provision severely hamper the potential of social studies to educate for critical consciousness.

Politics and Political Education in 1984.

Abstract This paper provides an introduction to developments in political education in Britain in the 1970s and early 1980s and in so doing notes how each of the other contributions in this collection relates to the political education debate. The suggestion is made that there are different ideologies of political education and that these are reflected in party political differences. From this it is argued that schools should move from their current role in partisan political socialisation to a more open form of political education.

Ethnicity and education for democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract This article reviews recent global political changes and describes how they have helped to recreate interest in a democratic agenda in Africa. In the past, two of the major obstacles to democracy in post-independence Africa have been ethnic conflict and the resulting authoritarian political systems. However, there have been exceptions to this and neither authoritarianism nor democracy have become fully institutionalised. If, in the future, democratic political institutions in Africa are going to be sustained by a supportive political culture, then schools will have to consciously educate for democracy rather than support authoritarianism as they tend to do at the moment. In particular they will need to educate for ethnic tolerance and mutual respect and this will require changes both in classroom and whole school organisation.