Transitions in Education and Peacebuilding across Bosnia and Herzegovina
Since the end of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, scholars have extensively commented on the country’s political (dis)engagements with peacebuilding, including in the education sector. This article explores in detail how the country’s transitions have underpinned exclusive, multilayered and divergent trajectories in BiH’s collective experience. Particular attention is given to fundamental changes in education associated with political-ideological transitions, structural and policy shifts, and socio-cultural adaptations, which have all created new paths, challenges and opportunities for the development of peace pedagogies across the curriculum and in various spheres of formal education. The article highlights deeper aspects of education including methodological questions in pedagogy by examining the role of power, agency, social values, ideology, culture and authority and by reaffirming the notion that education is never politically neutral. The underlying argument of the article concerns the need to (re)humanize education in the face of resurgent violence, political fragmentation, emerging technocratic trends in pedagogy and dominant neoliberal and profit driven motives in Bosnian society.