What can Student Community Engagement programmes contribute to the development of citizenship in a society recovering from conflict?

This paper looks at the contribution that higher education might make to the development of citizenship and civic responsibility in a society recovering from conflict. Drawing on some preliminary research undertaken within a student community engagement project at the Dzemal Bijedic University in East Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, it raises questions about the role of higher education in post conflict recovery, the kind of citizens and young people needed to build and maintain peace and the ways in which participatory and transformational learning might be integrated into an otherwise more formal HE curriculum.Peer Reviewe

Education and Stability Learning Journey: Lessons Learned and Emerging Issues

This document brings together key findings from a Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) Learning Journey designed to explore the relationship between education, conflict, and stability. Prepared by the Knowledge, Evidence and Learning for Development Programme (K4D), it responds to questions from FCDO on how education interventions can build peace and stability, drawing together research and lessons from FCDO posts, and input from leading academics. The Key messages are: 1) Education matters for peace. 2) At the same time, education can exacerbate conflict. 3) All education interventions need to be grounded in robust political economy and conflict analyses. 4) To avoid instrumentalising education simply as a tool for security. 5) Taking a pragmatic inter-sectoral approach to maximise opportunities. 6) Recogniseing the links between education and inclusive economic development 7) Acknowledging unavoidable trade-offs in meeting the needs of different groups. 8) Aiming for nationally owned systemic change rather than piecemeal interventions 9) To consider the importance of different educational sectors, 10) Recognising that the recommendations set out by the global education agenda are difficult to achieve in situations of extreme instability.FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Transformative learning through service-learning: no passport required

Purpose – This paper aims to explore student learning within a local service-learning initiative that forms part of an Education Studies undergraduate programme at an HEI in the UK with a history of international service-learning programmes. Design/methodology/approach – This paper outlines the context for this form of community engagement in the UK and reflects on the experiences of student participants and the nature of their learning. Ethnographic research into the student experience of international service-learning (ISL) provides a useful framework for this study. Findings – This research draws on transformational learning theory to describe how students experience a shifting of their world-view through service-learning locally. It reveals that challenges to stereotypes and personal values, as well as other previously accepted presuppositions, in a domestic context, are not dissimilar from those experienced by students involved in international service-learning initiatives. Research limitations/implications – The framework presented here is used to explore the dynamic relationship between local and international volunteering and student learning. This particular case study has the potential to add to our understanding of critical pedagogy theory in practice. Originality/value – This article presents evidence of the complexity of identifying transformative learning. In order to elevate the outcomes of service-learning towards their transformative potential, the opportunities for learning that are afforded by such ventures must be pursued with vigour. The authors advocate a model of community engagement that embeds local service-learning within the curriculum

Re-defining Post-Literacy in a Changing World

Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,