Troubles With Identity: Obstacles to Coexistence Education in Conflict Ridden Societies

Abstract

This article questions the redeeming power of education and intergroup educational initiatives and their potential to contribute to coexistence and reconciliation. We critically analyze the apparent perspectives that guide intergroup educational initiatives today. We show these perspectives to rest on monological understandings of identity and culture and uncover their historical roots as they evolved within positivism and within the historical development of the nation-state. We posit that, as such, they stand little chance of serving as factors of change and can, for the most part, only support a reproductive mode. Finally, we consider educational approaches based on postpositivist realist perspectives, aided by liberatory pedagogies, as a possible new paradigm through which to approach educational work for coexistence.