Contesting forms of capital: using Bourdieu to theorise why obstacles to peace education exist in Colombia

ABSTRACT

Critical peace education literature has focused attention on how programmes that promise to teach peace contribute to and contest existing power relations. However, using social theory to work out the relationship between peace education programmes and their context is only beginning. This paper uses a document review and interviews with experts to examine the expectations for peace education in Colombia and the challenges these programmes face. It finds there is a coherent set of demands that constitute peace education, which primarily focus on developing empathy and critical thinking. These aims face material restrictions of a lack of time and space in the curriculum, but also the problem of embedded competitive behaviour between pupils. Bourdieu’s toolkit of habitus, field and capital frames this obstacle as part of the struggle to determine what constitutes legitimate capital within a field. This framing has two benefits. It prevents the problem of competitive inter-pupil relations being located within the actions of individual teachers and students. It also allows for solutions that address the structural challenges facing peace education. This use of Bourdieu focuses attention on the systemic obstacles facing peace education and so helps move the literature away from problem-solving and individualised analysis.

KEYWORDS:

• Peace education
• Colombia
• Bourdieu
• peace education theory
• critical peace education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The article was written and the research conducted during the second Santos government (2014–2018). Ivan Duque won the presidential election in 2018 and is expected to lead a government that is significantly more right-wing, as well as being sceptical towards the peace agreement negotiated by its successor. The effects of this change on the government’s education policies are unknown. However, this paper builds theory from the empirical data and so its analysis and conclusion remains valid for the field of peace education.

2. For an explanation of Common World Education Culture (CWEC), which is different to GSEA but has overlaps about the movement towards more homogenous education systems across the world, see Dale (2000, 428–433). For more discussion of the trend towards a world culture of education, see work by Meyer and colleagues, such as (Meyer et al. 1977; Ramirez and Boli 1987; Meyer, Kamens, and Benavot 2017) and Carney, Rappleye, and Silova (2012). For discussions on how education is organised according to the competition for credentials, see work by Brown (2000, 2003) and Brown, Lauder, and Ashton (2010).

3. Catedra de la Paz translates to chair of the peace, but it does not refer to an official position within schools or universities.

4. Bajaj (2016, 109), for example, lists conflict-resolution skills alongside critical thinking and empathy as part of seven key competencies for peace education and Cunningham (2014) discusses the need for pupils to learn about rights and responsibilities.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Robert Skinner

Robert Skinner is a Postgraduate Researcher at the University of Birmingham. His research interest are in peace and post-conflict education, Colombia, peace education theory and post-conflict reconstruction. He has taught at both postgraduate and undergraduate levels and has previously worked as a secondary school teacher.