Researching the role of education and youth in sustainable peacebuilding

In this presentation Dr. Lopes Cardozo will share and discuss key insights from the work of the Research Consortium on Education and Peacebuilding, a recent partnership (July 2014 - June 2016) between UNICEF and the University of Amsterdam (AISSR Programme Group Governance and Inclusive Development) , the University of Sussex (Centre for International Education) and Ulster University (UNESCO Centre). This research was part of UNICEF’s Peacebuilding, Education and Advocacy Programme (PBEA) – which was funded by the Dutch government – and aimed to fulfill one of the key objective to ‘contribute to the generation and use of evidence and knowledge in policies and programming related to education, conflict and peacebuilding’. The Research Consortium worked closely with in-country partners in each research country - Myanmar, Pakistan, South Africa and Uganda. Dr. Lopes Cardozo will share the consortium’s 4Rs theoretical framework, as well as well as other key insights that informed its mostly qualitative methodology. She will share some main insights from our three comparative and thematic synthesis reports, with a focus on the study dealing with youth agency for peacebuilding: an analysis of the role of formal and non-formal education. This report aims to understand the ways in which the agency of youth – or their ‘space for manoeuvre’ – is impacted through a range of formal and non-formal education interventions, and how this enables or restricts young people to contribute to processes of peacebuilding and social cohesion, either in political, socio-cultural or economic ways. It combines a focus on youth agency, peacebuilding and education – an intersection that is often not addressed simultaneously. Recognising education’s potential to enhance or undermine processes of sustainable peacebuilding and social cohesion, this report brings together a focus on the role of formal and non-formal education initiatives that are available to (some) youth in four conflict-affected countries: Myanmar, Pakistan, South Africa and Uganda.

Dr. Mieke Lopes Cardozo is assistant professor at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research of the University of Amsterdam. She has an academic background in International Relations, Conflict Studies, Latin American Studies (University of Utrecht) and International Development Studies (University of Amsterdam). She lectures in several BA and MA courses within the International Development Studies department at the University of Amsterdam. She coordinates several international research partnerships, and recently completed a co-directorship of a research partnership with UNICEF’s Peacebuilding, Education and Advocacy (PBEA) programme, together with prof. Mario Novelli (University of Sussex), and prof. Alan Smith (Ulster University). She is involved in GLOBED, an EU Erasmus Mundus Plus-funded joint Masters on Education Policies for Global Development. She is a member of the Working Group on Education Policy of the International Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) and an appointed advisor for the Security Council mandates study on Resolution 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security. She has research experience in various contexts such as Bolivia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Aceh, which all revolve around the themes of education in relation to social justice and peacebuilding. Recent publications focused on issues relating to conceptual understandings and frameworks to study the role of education in relation to peacebuilding processes, with specific attention to the agency and professional development of teachers, gender (in)equalities, and the role of (non)formal education for youth empowerment and activism.

For more info please visit https://educationanddevelopment.wordpress.com/members/mieke-lopes-cardozo/.