ERIC Number: EJ1263207
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020-Jul
Pages: 21
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0033-1538
EISSN: N/A
South Sudanese Primary School Textbooks: Transforming and Reinforcing Conflict
Vanner, Catherine; Kovinthan Levi, Thursica; Akseer, Spogmai
Prospects: Quarterly Review of Comparative Education, v48 n3-4 p193-213 Jul 2020
Primary school textbooks can provide space for learning about peace and inclusion but can also reinforce messages of inequality and division. This article describes a thematic analysis of South Sudan's textbooks for pupils in Grade 4 Social Studies, English, and Christian Religious Education. The analysis uses a conceptual framework that positions education as having multiple potential overlapping roles in relation to conflict--victim, accomplice, and transformer--to show that the textbooks' content contains some motions toward social change, but more often passively reinforces the status quo. While peace and social acceptance of diversity and gender equality are sometimes explicitly promoted, there is an overarching emphasis on maintaining and accepting social norms without critically interrogating the social structures that can foster inequality and lead to conflict. This analysis positions the textbooks primarily as accomplices to conflict, with some movement toward transformation, across the themes of religion and ethnicity, governance, gender, and conflict.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Elementary School Students, Grade 4, Textbook Content, Social Studies, English, Christianity, Religious Education, Role of Education, Conflict, Social Change, Social Behavior, Behavior Standards, Social Differences, Religion, Ethnicity, Governance, Sex
Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-348-4505; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2123/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Elementary Education; Grade 4; Intermediate Grades
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Sudan
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A