The power of intergroup contact and experiential learning on individual perceptions in the United World College in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina : a path towards bottom-up reconciliation?
The post-conflict society of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), following the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995, is still politically, administratively and socially segregated between the three main national groups; the Bosniaks, the Croats and the Serbs. Hence, the public education systems are separated for children of different nationalities, who are thus learning under three different curricula, and in different languages. Additionally, the country is politically and socially vulnerable, unstable, and administratively inefficient.
This master’s thesis focuses on the United World College in Mostar (UWCiM); an international school of secondary education that integrates local students from all these main national groups to live and study together, under the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP). The college belongs to the broader United World College movement, which promotes experiential learning. The objectives of the college include the enhancement of peace and justice, intercultural understanding, celebration of difference, and the contribution to the post-conflict reconciliation in BiH. The aim of the present research is to analyse the experienced potential of the college’s educational model and setting in contributing to the process of reconciliation within the social context, by also reflecting on the Contact Hypothesis, proposed by Allport (1954), and other relevant educational concepts and theories. The research has been conducted by in-depth qualitative interviews with local students and both local and international staff members of the college.
The findings of the present master’s thesis indicate a clear transformation of the local students’ understanding of identity, as they expressed an enhanced comprehension of the complexity of individuals’ fundamental identities. This has also been found to occur in other contexts of nationally integrated education. Through the experiences of intergroup contact with students from the other local national groups, particularly during the social life outside class and with the experienced contrast to the international students within the small and intimate environment of the college, all local students have mutually come to experience a strong sense of shared cultural unity and belonging. Additionally, they have learned to understand and respect the identified religious differences between each other. However, the contested nationalist issues of the past and the contemporary intergroup tensions are to a certain extent avoided within UWCiM, and the members of the community experience an urgent need for the appropriate means to address the issues. Hence, the national identities are mostly segregated within the college community, but a clear sense of distance to them and the nationalist issues is evident in the students’ approach.
Additionally, the students have evidently gained skills in critical thinking and confidence to speak up, increased courage to face new challenges, and further motivation to take initiative. The students’ approach to reconciliation is clearly bottom-up. However, the broader social influence of these experiences and the intergroup contact, and the consequently gained skills, perspectives and knowledge, has been limited. The local students specifically experience difficulties in transferring the learned skills and perceptions to their home communities. Most of them also plan to go study and live abroad after graduation
