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TRANSCRIPT
Peace, Reconciliation and Restorative
Approaches in Schools
Dr Hilary Cremin
Faculty of Education
Cremin, H. & Bevington, T. (2016 in press) Positive Peace in
Schools: Tackling conflict and creating a culture of peace in the
classroom, London: Routledge
A Definition of Peace Education
“Peace education is the process of teaching people about the threats of
violence and strategies for peace. Peace educators strive to provide
insights into how to transform a culture of violence into a peaceful culture.
They have to build consensus about what peace strategies can bring
maximum benefit to the group”.
Harris, I. (2009). A Select Bibliography for Peace Education. Peace &
Change, 34(4), 571-576.
Peace Education in Crisis?
Issues for peace education:
• A lack of engagement with structural and cultural violence in schools;
• A lack of clarity about how peace-keeping, -making and -building fit
together holistically in schools;
• A misunderstanding of the role of peace-keeping;
• An unsophisticated application of peace-making;
• An over-reliance on peace-keeping and -making, without due regard for
peace-building;
• An out-dated view of peace-building.
Positive Peace Framework
• Engages with structural and cultural violence in schools;
• Clarifies how peace-keeping, -making and -building fit together
holistically in schools;
• Integrates peace-keeping with more proactive methods;
• Enhances peace-making through the concept of ‘conflict literacy’;
• Shifts the balance from peace-keeping and -making towards peace-
building;
• Updates notions of what peace-building might entail, including, for
example, concepts such as wellbeing and inner peace.
Theoretical Grounding of Positive Peace
• Three forms of violence:
Direct
Structural
Cultural
• Positive and negative peace
Negative – absence of direct violence
Positive – absence of structural and cultural violence
• Three ways of bringing about peace:
Peace-keeping
Peace-making
Peace-building
Galtung, J. (1970). Pluralism and the future of human society. Challenges for the future: Proceedings
from the Second International Futures Research Conference, Norway, 271-308.
Structural and Cultural Violence in Schools
• In 2013, 37.9% of FSM students achieved five GCSEs including English
and Maths at grades A*-C, compared to 64.6% of non FSM
• The gap has barely changed over a ten-year period (28% difference in
2004 and 26.7% in 2013)
• Students of Black Caribbean and mixed White and Caribbean heritage
have over a 30% chance of experiencing exclusion, compared to 15%
for White British students and 9% for students of Indian heritage
Strand, S. and Fletcher, J. (2014). A Quantitative Longitudinal Analysis of Exclusions from English
Secondary Schools. Oxford: University of Oxford.
• Workload, burn-out, stress, disengagement through high stakes testing,
league tables and regimes of accountability and inspection
The Global Education Reform Movement
“GERM is an unofficial education policy orthodoxy that many formal institutions, corporations
and governments have adopted as their official program in educational development. This
global movement includes some welcome elements that have strengthened the focus on
learning, encouraged access to education for all, and emphasised the acquisition of
knowledge and skills that are relevant in the real world. But GERM also has symptoms that
indicate it may be harmful to its host; driving education reforms by competition,
standardisation, test-based accountability, fast-track pathways into teaching and privatisation
of public education.”
Sahlberg, P. (2014). A conversation on lessons from Finland with John Graham, Professional Voice, 10(1), 46-53.
[online] Retrieved 20 September 2016, from http://www.aeuvic.asn.au/pv_10_1_complete_web.pdf
“Ball suggests that reforms grounded in a performative culture represent ‘a struggle over the
teacher’s soul’…within this culture: ‘We become ontologically insecure: unsure whether we
are doing enough, doing the right thing, doing as much as others, or as well as others”
Francis, B. and Mills, M. (2012). Schools as damaging organisations: instigating a dialogue concerning alternative
models of schooling, Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 20(2), 251-271.
iPEACE Model of Peace-keeping, making, and building
Responsive iPEACE
• identify conflict
• Pick the right strategy
• Enable voices to be heard
• Attack problems not people, and Acknowledge feelings
• Create options
• Evaluate
Responsive iPEACE Peace-keeping and making Checklist
The Proactive iPEACE Peace-building Model
Moving Schools from this…..
“Today at school there is a police… police
officers come in and that and they wanted to
talk to me. So I talked to the hand. I just
walked away. I go, 'Sorry I can't talk to you'.
He goes 'Why can't you talk to me?' I goes,
'Because you are police officer. I don't like
talking to people who have got body armour
on and that’. Do you know what I mean? I
ain't really happy with that. A man has just
come up to me with a big body armour and
that. I ain't got a gun. I ain't gonna shoot
him or nothin' do you know what I mean?
What has he got that on for? It is not right”.
Cremin, H. (2012). The impact of intergenerational conflict
on the civic action and volunteering of disadvantaged youth
in the UK. Paper presented at the American Educational
Research Association Conference, Vancouver, April 2012.
To this….. Holte Secondary School Lozells, Birmingham
The most significant changes that have been seen as a result of the work include:
•iPEACE has helped reduce fixed term exclusions and repeat incidents of internal and
external exclusions and incidents of low level disruption in the classroom. Most notably over
the course of the academic year the number of incidents where students have been removed
from lessons has reduced significantly indicating that there is greater ownership of student
behaviour.
•Incidents of physical aggression, bullying and discrimination have reduced as a result of
mediation.
•There is an appreciation from staff and students alike that behaviour must be taught at
school and that relationships are paramount in its management. Behaviour management is
reflective rather than overly punitive. It is less likely that staff will use a system to manage
behaviour, and greater ownership from them.
•Peer mediation provides an excellent opportunity for students to make a difference in their
community as leaders and to develop socially morally, spiritually and culturally.
From Holte’s Inclusion Quality Mark (IQM) Award
“The important thing, however, is that iPeace involves not just pupils, but
teachers, parents and community workers and develops a better
understanding of conflict in the school, including low level disruption in the
classroom and uses appropriate conflict resolution strategies that can be
used in the classroom, working towards more peaceful and productive
learning environments, homes and communities while promoting an
authoritative approach to behaviour management that is based on
education, relationships and actively promotes social skills.
As such the school will continue to organise fully accredited mediation
training for peers and staff to ensure that iPeace is sustainable. This is a
fantastic programme that should be rolled out across the UK and delivered
in more school settings.”
Queensbridge Primary School, Hackney, London
Restorative approaches are now fully embedded in the school and this has created a culture
where children are listened to and able to talk about their feelings and to think about others.
Children report that they are able to be more honest and they feel that situations are dealt
with fairly. This culture is evident in the way children and staff communicate with each and
also in social and emotional interventions such as circle time.
The number of high level incidents has dropped as incidents are dealt with through
restorative approaches as an early intervention, before things escalate. Staff and children
report being happy and there is a consistently settled learning environment across the
school.
A partner school with whom we worked to develop their restorative practice, received this
recognition in their Ofsted report:
Restorative justice, which encourages pupils to discuss issues where there have been
disagreements or conflict, is a formidable tool for ensuring that there is no discrimination
and that pupils make carefully considered moral choices and develop the range of social
skills needed to move on to the next phase of their education.
Restorative Approaches
Restorative Questions:
•What happened?
•What were you thinking and feeling at the time?
•What are your thoughts and feelings since?
•Who has been affected?
•In what way?
•What do you need [to do] to put things right?
•
There are two ways that these questions can be used:
• As part of a restorative conversation;
•As part of a restorative meeting.
Mediation
Stage One: Introductions
Welcome everyone and remind them that:
•You are impartial, what is discussed is confidential, your role is to facilitate not to offer solutions
•You need agreement from the people involved that they will
•Speak respectfully, listen without interrupting, focus on how they have been affected by the problem, not on blame
Stage Two: What has happened?
Each person has uninterrupted time to talk about the problem from their own point of view
Ask about feelings if not forthcoming
Summarise what has been said
Stage Three: Acknowledging feelings and perspectives
Ask each person if they can acknowledge the feelings of the other person (even if they don’t agree) and then to communicate this to the
other person
•Try: X has said that he is feeling …… about what has happened. I wonder if you can acknowledge that he is feeling ……
Stage Four: Creating options
Ask each in turn to say what they would like to happen next.
Ask for offers rather than requests at first.
Stage Five: Agreement
Get them to agree a course of action based in the possible solutions they have generated.
What do they need to formalise the agreement? Do they need to meet again to discuss progress?