Book Review: Teaching Peace and Conflict: The Multiple Roles of School Textbooks in Peacebuilding edited by Catherine Vanner, Spogmai Akseer, and Thursica Kovinthan Levi

Abstract

In Teaching Peace and Conflict: The Multiple Roles of School Textbooks in Peacebuilding, Catherine Vanner, Spogmai Akseer, and Thursica Kovinthan Levi present the Intersecting Roles of Education in Conflict framework as a tool for understanding education as a victim, accomplice, or transformer of conflict. In Myuri Komaragiri’s review of the edited volume, she underscores the analytical power of the framework, asserting that it suggests that education, as illustrated in textbooks, can occupy multiple roles simultaneously, can oscillate between roles, and that the various roles are not always mutually exclusive or at odds. Komaragiri points to the fact that the transformer role is often identified as an intention, but that it has not always been actualized sufficiently to argue that prioritizing and enabling this transformational role is crucial if education is to play a role in peacebuilding.