From Classrooms to Conflict in Rwanda

Based on fieldwork and comparative historical analysis of Rwanda, this book questions the conventional wisdom that education builds peace.

Elisabeth King (Author)

9781107039339, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 December 2013

226 pages, 2 b/w illus. 1 map 11 tables
23.1 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.48 kg

'While other analyses of the Rwandan genocide have mentioned education among the many factors making the violence possible, this is the first attempt to look systematically at the role of education in relationship to conflict in Rwanda. This is also one of very few texts to look at Rwanda both before and after the genocide, rather than focusing on one era or the other. King draws extensively on secondary sources but also on a number of interviews that she conducted with people who have been either students or teachers in Rwandan schools at different points of time as well as with experts in education in Rwanda. This book should have broad interest, appealing to those with interests in education, conflict, and African affairs.' Timothy P. Longman, Director, African Studies Center, Boston University

This book questions the conventional wisdom that education builds peace by exploring the ways in which ordinary schooling can contribute to intergroup conflict. Based on fieldwork and comparative historical analysis of Rwanda, it argues that from the colonial period to the genocide, schooling was a key instrument of the state in contributing to the construction, awareness, collectivization and inequality of ethnic groups in Rwanda - all factors that underlay conflict. The book further argues that today's post-genocide schools are dangerously replicating past trends. This book is the first to offer an in-depth study of education in Rwanda and to analyze its role in the genesis of conflict. The book demonstrates that to build peace, we cannot simply prescribe more education, but must understand who has access to schools, how schools are set up, and what and how they teach.

1. Moving education from the margins to the mainstream
2. Colonial schooling
3. Schooling under the Rwandan republics
4. Schooling after genocide
5. Education for peace building: Rwanda in comparative perspective
6. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Educational: History [YQH], International relations [JPS], Politics & government [JP]