This book uses a series of case studies to examine the roles played by universities during situations of conflict, peacebuilding and resistance. While a body of work dealing with the role of education in conflict does exist, this is almost entirely concerned with compulsory education and schooling. This book, in contrast, highlights and promotes the importance of higher education, and universities in particular, to situations of conflict, peacebuilding and resistance. Using case studies from Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, this volume considers institutional responses, academic responses and student responses, illustrating these in chapters written by those who have had direct experience of these issues. Looking at a university’s tripartite functions (of research, teaching and service) in relation to the different phases or stages of conflict (pre conflict, violence, post conflict and peacebuilding), it draws together some of the key contributions a university might make to situations of instability, resistance and recovery. The book is organised in five sections that deal with conceptual issues, institutional responses, academic-led or discipline-specific responses, teaching or curriculum-led responses and student involvement. Aimed at those working in universities or concerned with conflict recovery and peacebuilding it highlights ways in which universities can be a valuable, if currently neglected, resource. This book will be of much interest to students of peace studies, conflict resolution, education studies and IR in general.

Dana Burde shows how aid to education in Afghanistan bolstered conflict both deliberately in the 1980s through violence-infused, anti-Soviet curricula and inadvertently in the 2000s through misguided stabilization programs

The Conflict over the Conflict offers a unique view of the threat to free speech, academic freedom, and the future of the academy posed by those on both sides of the Israel/Palestine campus debate.

The South African higher education system has historically been characterized by racial and gender inequities inherited from the discriminatory policies of the apartheid era. Emerging from a higher education history plagued with deeply entrenched racial disparities, Voices of Conflict examines how academic programs and structures at the historically white universities have responded to the increasing enrollment of black students since the enactment of the Universities Amendment Act in 1983. Dr. Mabokela specifically seeks to understand the perceptions and attitudes of students, faculty, and administrators and to determine how these respective constituents have responded to changes in student demographics. Her study brings to light, with clarity and thoroughness, many too often overlooked and neglected issues in higher education in South Africa.

A review of strategies for resolving conflict in higher education institutions looks first at traditional mechanisms, such as student conduct committees and grievance systems, faculty grievance mechanisms, arbitration, and litigation, and then examines conciliatory methods, including mediation systems for handling student, faculty, and staff disputes; use of ombudsmen; and institutional conflict resolution services conducted off campus.

Cultural Impact on Conflict Management in Higher Education shares information regarding conflict management and resolution in higher education from a global perspective. In this book, we introduced many conflict resolution methods from different regions in the world. You can borrow some successful strategies and examine the differences and similarities between contexts. The book shares a conflict resolution model which may direct the reader to start thinking about addressing and managing conflicts from different levels of organizations. This book is a collective work of authors coming from all over the world. We chose higher education as the context because it is a place where diverse thoughts, perspectives, and people come together. Because of the potential richness of diversity on a college campus, the opportunity for conflicts occurs. Managing conflict does not work when there is a “one-way only approach/model” for addressing conflict. Some conflict resolution encompasses multiple dimensions: (a) one’s personal beliefs or beliefs about an issue; (b) an individual’s personal history in terms of how the conflict was perceived as something to be discussed or not; (c) work culture of the conflict where if ‘one has a conflict,’ the person or unit is messing up or there is a problem person; (d) the unconscious strategies of ‘face saving’ (trying to maintain one’s image) present; (e) social hierarchies or relationships; and (f) the diversity dimensions and issues that may be present.

This book offers a critical review of higher education and post-conflict recovery. It provides the first systematic study with a global scope that investigates the role of higher education systems in conflict-affected contexts. The first part of the book analyses the long-standing neglect of higher education in post-conflict recovery, the impact that conflict can have on the sector, and efforts to rebuild and reform higher education systems affected by violent conflict. The second part of the book considers the positive and negative contributions that higher education can make to a range of areas of recovery including humanitarian action, forced displacement, post-conflict reconstruction, statebuilding, and peacebuilding. With its reasoned defence of the importance of higher education for post-conflict recovery, the book will appeal to researchers, university students, and humanitarian and development policy-makers and practitioners.

... This book provides step-by-step instruction for implementing a narrative-based approach as an alternative to traditional discipline strategies.

Drawing on recent international developments in criminal justice, Restorative Approaches to Conflict in Schools highlights the long-term ineffectiveness of punitive models of discipline in education contexts and examines an alternative approach, underpinned by the principles of restorative justice. This approach provides an opportunity for adults and young people to engage with a range of processes such as group conferencing and peer mediation, whereby: conflict and harm are confronted and repaired; a future rather than past orientation is developed; relationships are built upon the values and attitudes of respect, inclusion and equality; pupils learn inter-personal and problem solving skills as well as social responsibility; staff develop skills and confidence in working restoratively; the risk of future/repeat problems is minimised; and a positive school ethos is developed. These approaches have proven to be highly effective in criminal justice systems around the world, and are beginning to be applied more widely in educational contexts. This edited volume draws together for the first time contributions from an interdisciplinary field of international experts and practitioners on the subject, and offers both critique and guidance in order that the implementation of restorative approaches in schools may be undertaken thoughtfully and sustainably. This exciting new text will be a key reference book for locating contemporary, international and inter-disciplinary debate in the field.