IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/jic/wpaper/187.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Second Chance for Education: Examining the Roles of Education in Conflict and Peace based on Life Stories from Bosnia and Herzegovina

Author

Listed:
  • Mari Katayanagi

Abstract

This study focuses on the second chance for education (SCE) experienced by children whose secondary education was at some point interrupted by the armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s. Individual war experiences in that country had a significant impact depending on location, ranging from limited destruction to complete and violent ethnic cleansing. The availability of educational opportunities was similarly varied. Many schools continued to operate, some functioned intermittently depending on the intensity of local fighting, and others were shut down. Although few studies have specifically addressed the issue, a significant number of children who experienced interruption of their education were still able to obtain a second chance through their and their family’s efforts. This study applies the life story method to better understand how their education was interrupted, how and why SCE was obtained and discusses what SCE meant for them. 31 individuals were interviewed either face-to-face or by Skype, and this paper focuses on 13 of these individuals as detailed case studies. By bringing these neglected to date voices into the research on education, conflict and peace, the study determined that four roles can be played by education ? including SCE - in a conflict-affected society. First, education may provide children with protection and help to sustain some partial normalcy in life. Second, it may help sustain hope for the future. As a third and related point, education offers an opportunity for self-realization, as students can obtain knowledge and skills that may help them to survive their ordeal. And finally, with the education and skills obtained, youth may be in a better position to contribute to social transformation as agents for peacebuilding. Therefore, for the sake of peacebuilding, more attention is required to support and sustain education in conflict-affected countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Mari Katayanagi, 2019. "A Second Chance for Education: Examining the Roles of Education in Conflict and Peace based on Life Stories from Bosnia and Herzegovina," Working Papers 187, JICA Research Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:jic:wpaper:187
    DOI: 10.18884/00000974
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://doi.org/10.18884/00000974
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://jicari.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=993&file_id=22&file_no=1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.18884/00000974?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jic:wpaper:187. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Japan International Cooperation Agency Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/jicgvjp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.