Blog post archive

Tuesday, 19 Dec 2023
Optics as Politics: Culture, Language and Learning with UiO ChatGPT

Discussing the case of the University of Oslo ChatGPT and the plight of Palestinians, this blog calls for educators and researchers in peace and conflict studies, to consider the communicative politics of generative AI in their work. Introduction The adoption and adaptation of generative AI in higher education raises important ...

Thursday, 13 Jan 2022
Even at Times of Crisis, Children Must Go to School

The most recent debate concerning school closures has focused on vulnerable children and how school closures will cut them off from a place of safety. While the Children’s Ombudsperson and others are concerned about the impact of school closures on the most vulnerable children, others express doubts as to what ...

Tuesday, 16 Nov 2021
Protection of Education in Conflict Zones – a Step in the Right Direction

On Friday October 30, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution on the protection of education in conflict zones. This is one of the most important matters on which Norway has facilitated negotiations in the Security Council and the resolution is a major step in the right direction for protecting ...

Thursday, 17 Jun 2021
Agents of Change? How to fulfill the promise of education to refugees

Education in situations of conflict and crisis is central in efforts to protect children and youth in the near-term and fostering peaceful coexistence over the longer-term. But how can education enable individuals and communities to build durable futures when there is great uncertainty about where these futures will be? Education ...

Monday, 25 Jan 2021
COVID-19: Towards a Digital Fragmentation of the Right to Education?

COVID-19 lockdowns have had momentous impact on children’s lives worldwide and in particular on the right to education. Save the Children reports that more than 1.6 billion learners globally have faced school closures due to the pandemic, resulting in at least 10 million children not returning to school.[1] Among key international stakeholders, there ...

Friday, 21 Feb 2020
Teaching transitional justice after conflict and terror: Cases of Kosovo and Norway

Kristin Bergtora Sandvik and Kjersti Lohne ask: How can education help to realize the multiple goals and visions of transitional justice, and how can transnational justice be adapted to new educational objectives? This is the first post in an occasional series on the legal, bureaucratic and political aftermaths of the July ...

Friday, 22 Jun 2018
New Education Policy in Burundi Could Halve Teenage Pregnancy

As of 2014, the Burundi government has pledged that children can continue their basic schooling until grade 9. The fertility impact of this new schooling policy is potentially strong. However, there are three important elements in this story that are less well understood: what will be the magnitude of this ...

Thursday, 14 Sep 2017
Education and Systematic Group Inequalities in Nigeria

On the night between 14 and 15 April, 2014, 276 girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram from their school in Chibok in Borno State in Northeastern Nigeria. The Islamist terrorist group does not believe that girls should attend school, and these girls were targeted precisely because they were in school. However, conservative views on gender and education is only ...

Wednesday, 13 Sep 2017
Education and Conflict: What the Evidence Says

These are the key conclusions from the first systematical review of the empirical, quantitative literature on the relationship between education and civil conflict. Evidence from 30 statistical studies indicate that Increasing education levels overall have pacifying effects Rapid expansions of higher education is not a threat Education inequalities between groups ...

Wednesday, 10 Dec 2014
Education Creates Peace

On 10 December Nobel’s Peace Prize 2014 is awarded to Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai. Critical voices have claimed that their work is more about rights activism than promoting peace and that there is no obvious association between education and peace. Research into the causes of war suggests, however, that ...

Friday, 10 Oct 2014
Peace for the Next Generation

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to two people, from two countries with shared challenges. But the award raises questions: Does India have the will to abolish child labour? And can Malala Yousafzai influence Pakistani women and girl’s rights from abroad? The two candidates who were awarded this year’s ...

Tuesday, 10 Jun 2014
The Unintended Consequences of Education among Pakistani Migrants to the UK

The field of education has been at the forefront of social policy concerns for at least three decades in the UK. The debate around integration and education revolves mainly around two aspects: the ability of migrants to integrate, depending on their level of education; and the challenges brought by migrants ...