This paper draws on ethnographic data from a project on peace education and reconciliation pedagogies in the conflict-affected context of Cyprus. Following a primary school teacher over the period of eight months in peace education workshops and in her classroom before and after the workshops, we trace critical moments that seem to have an impact…

This article examines what resources religious education teachers draw upon, in what ways, and under what conditions, to navigate between national religious/confessional ideology and interreligious values in education. The article is based on a year-long ethnographic research project on religious education in Greek-Cypriot schools. It shows the…

This article is based on a year-long ethnographic research project on religious education (RE) in Greek-Cypriot schools and provides empirical evidence about the complexities emerging from teachers' attempts to address peace and security issues in a 'conflict-affected society'. The study shows that the reproduction of peace and security issues…

The present paper examines the implementation of a particular human rights education approach--known as "critical hermeneutical" approach--in the context of two Greek-Cypriot classrooms. The study investigates whether and how an intervention grounded in this approach offers transformative possibilities to students and what kind of…

This paper describes a qualitative study that explored the understandings of human rights, pedagogical perspectives and practices in human rights teaching of three Greek-Cypriot elementary teachers. The study revealed some significant challenges in human rights teaching that seemed to be common for all three participating teachers. First, all of…

This paper draws on psychoanalytic and socio-political perspectives of trauma and emotion to examine how "critical emotional praxis" may serve as a pedagogical tool for reconciliation education. A major challenge for teachers in traumatized societies struggling to enact reconciliation education is that emotions of trauma are often…

This paper explores how "revolutionary love" may be a viable response in a teacher's pedagogical practices. To do so, we present an in-depth case study of one teacher in a reindeer herding village in Finnish rural north. The paper asks what does revolutionary love mean in teaching practice and what distinguishes loving from non-loving…

In this paper, the author shows that the issue of whether toleration promotes coexistence is controversial and therefore needs careful consideration in light of the complexities that are involved in understanding and teaching toleration in the schools of conflict and post-conflict societies. In particular, this paper offers a critique to the…

In this article, the author argues that it would be valuable to look into less paradigmatic manifestations of forgiveness in schools, that is, pedagogical approaches that acknowledge the complexity of forgiveness in socio-political contexts--namely, how forgiveness might be "ambivalent," intermingled with both positive and negative…

This article addresses the dilemmas emerging from efforts to integrate human rights values within a peace education programme being carried out in a conflict situation. Although the article is largely theoretical, it is grounded in the author's reflections on a series of teacher workshops and his overall experiences conducting ethnographic…

This article presents an in-depth analysis of two commemoration events in a first-grade classroom of a bilingual school in Israel. The two events presented--the commemorations of the Holocaust Day and the Memorial Day--derive from a longitudinal ethnographic study of integrated bilingual schools in Israel. The analysis of these events shows…

In troubled societies narratives about the past tend to be partial and explain a conflict from narrow perspectives that justify the national self and condemn, exclude and devalue the 'enemy' and their narrative. Through a detailed analysis, Teaching Contested Narratives reveals the works of identity, historical narratives and memory as these are…

This article explores the successes and failures of teachers' pedagogies and school policies to establish a culture of inclusion and reconciliation at a shared secondary school in Cyprus--a school in which students from the two conflicting communities (Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots) are co-educated. Drawing on an ethnographic study based on…

The present article explores how emotional spaces are racialized and ethnicized in a multicultural elementary school in Cyprus through the majoritized group's feelings of resentment. The data for this article are drawn from a two-month ethnographic study at this school in which the students enrolled come from the two historically conflicting…

Background/Context: Emotions often accompany discussions of ethnic matters, yet there have been few sustained investigations in education of how, and with what implications, emotional responses are (de)legitimized in the classroom, especially when conflicting historical narratives are involved. Emotions have remained in the margins of educational…