Peace, Reconciliation and Restorative

Approaches in Schools

Dr Hilary Cremin

hc331@cam.ac.uk

Faculty of Education

Cremin, H. & Bevington, T. (2016 in press) Positive Peace in

Schools: Tackling conflict and creating a culture of peace in the

classroom, London: Routledge

A Definition of Peace Education

“Peace education is the process of teaching people about the threats of

violence and strategies for peace. Peace educators strive to provide

insights into how to transform a culture of violence into a peaceful culture.

They have to build consensus about what peace strategies can bring

maximum benefit to the group”.

Harris, I. (2009). A Select Bibliography for Peace Education. Peace &

Change, 34(4), 571-576.

Peace Education in Crisis?

Issues for peace education:

• A lack of engagement with structural and cultural violence in schools;

• A lack of clarity about how peace-keeping, -making and -building fit

together holistically in schools;

• A misunderstanding of the role of peace-keeping;

• An unsophisticated application of peace-making;

• An over-reliance on peace-keeping and -making, without due regard for

peace-building;

• An out-dated view of peace-building.

Positive Peace Framework

• Engages with structural and cultural violence in schools;

• Clarifies how peace-keeping, -making and -building fit together

holistically in schools;

• Integrates peace-keeping with more proactive methods;

• Enhances peace-making through the concept of ‘conflict literacy’;

• Shifts the balance from peace-keeping and -making towards peace-

building;

• Updates notions of what peace-building might entail, including, for

example, concepts such as wellbeing and inner peace.

Theoretical Grounding of Positive Peace

• Three forms of violence:

Direct

Structural

Cultural

• Positive and negative peace

Negative – absence of direct violence

Positive – absence of structural and cultural violence

• Three ways of bringing about peace:

Peace-keeping

Peace-making

Peace-building

Galtung, J. (1970). Pluralism and the future of human society. Challenges for the future: Proceedings

from the Second International Futures Research Conference, Norway, 271-308.

Structural and Cultural Violence in Schools

• In 2013, 37.9% of FSM students achieved five GCSEs including English

and Maths at grades A*-C, compared to 64.6% of non FSM

• The gap has barely changed over a ten-year period (28% difference in

2004 and 26.7% in 2013)

• Students of Black Caribbean and mixed White and Caribbean heritage

have over a 30% chance of experiencing exclusion, compared to 15%

for White British students and 9% for students of Indian heritage

Strand, S. and Fletcher, J. (2014). A Quantitative Longitudinal Analysis of Exclusions from English

Secondary Schools. Oxford: University of Oxford.

• Workload, burn-out, stress, disengagement through high stakes testing,

league tables and regimes of accountability and inspection

The Global Education Reform Movement

“GERM is an unofficial education policy orthodoxy that many formal institutions, corporations

and governments have adopted as their official program in educational development. This

global movement includes some welcome elements that have strengthened the focus on

learning, encouraged access to education for all, and emphasised the acquisition of

knowledge and skills that are relevant in the real world. But GERM also has symptoms that

indicate it may be harmful to its host; driving education reforms by competition,

standardisation, test-based accountability, fast-track pathways into teaching and privatisation

of public education.”

Sahlberg, P. (2014). A conversation on lessons from Finland with John Graham, Professional Voice, 10(1), 46-53.

[online] Retrieved 20 September 2016, from http://www.aeuvic.asn.au/pv_10_1_complete_web.pdf

“Ball suggests that reforms grounded in a performative culture represent ‘a struggle over the

teacher’s soul’…within this culture: ‘We become ontologically insecure: unsure whether we

are doing enough, doing the right thing, doing as much as others, or as well as others”

Francis, B. and Mills, M. (2012). Schools as damaging organisations: instigating a dialogue concerning alternative

models of schooling, Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 20(2), 251-271.

iPEACE Model of Peace-keeping, making, and building

Responsive iPEACE

• identify conflict

• Pick the right strategy

• Enable voices to be heard

• Attack problems not people, and Acknowledge feelings

• Create options

• Evaluate

Responsive iPEACE Peace-keeping and making Checklist

The Proactive iPEACE Peace-building Model

Moving Schools from this…..

“Today at school there is a police… police

officers come in and that and they wanted to

talk to me. So I talked to the hand. I just

walked away. I go, 'Sorry I can't talk to you'.

He goes 'Why can't you talk to me?' I goes,

'Because you are police officer. I don't like

talking to people who have got body armour

on and that’. Do you know what I mean? I

ain't really happy with that. A man has just

come up to me with a big body armour and

that. I ain't got a gun. I ain't gonna shoot

him or nothin' do you know what I mean?

What has he got that on for? It is not right”.

Cremin, H. (2012). The impact of intergenerational conflict

on the civic action and volunteering of disadvantaged youth

in the UK. Paper presented at the American Educational

Research Association Conference, Vancouver, April 2012.

To this….. Holte Secondary School Lozells, Birmingham

The most significant changes that have been seen as a result of the work include:

•iPEACE has helped reduce fixed term exclusions and repeat incidents of internal and

external exclusions and incidents of low level disruption in the classroom. Most notably over

the course of the academic year the number of incidents where students have been removed

from lessons has reduced significantly indicating that there is greater ownership of student

behaviour.

•Incidents of physical aggression, bullying and discrimination have reduced as a result of

mediation.

•There is an appreciation from staff and students alike that behaviour must be taught at

school and that relationships are paramount in its management. Behaviour management is

reflective rather than overly punitive. It is less likely that staff will use a system to manage

behaviour, and greater ownership from them.

•Peer mediation provides an excellent opportunity for students to make a difference in their

community as leaders and to develop socially morally, spiritually and culturally.

From Holte’s Inclusion Quality Mark (IQM) Award

“The important thing, however, is that iPeace involves not just pupils, but

teachers, parents and community workers and develops a better

understanding of conflict in the school, including low level disruption in the

classroom and uses appropriate conflict resolution strategies that can be

used in the classroom, working towards more peaceful and productive

learning environments, homes and communities while promoting an

authoritative approach to behaviour management that is based on

education, relationships and actively promotes social skills.

As such the school will continue to organise fully accredited mediation

training for peers and staff to ensure that iPeace is sustainable. This is a

fantastic programme that should be rolled out across the UK and delivered

in more school settings.”

Queensbridge Primary School, Hackney, London

Restorative approaches are now fully embedded in the school and this has created a culture

where children are listened to and able to talk about their feelings and to think about others.

Children report that they are able to be more honest and they feel that situations are dealt

with fairly. This culture is evident in the way children and staff communicate with each and

also in social and emotional interventions such as circle time.

The number of high level incidents has dropped as incidents are dealt with through

restorative approaches as an early intervention, before things escalate. Staff and children

report being happy and there is a consistently settled learning environment across the

school.

A partner school with whom we worked to develop their restorative practice, received this

recognition in their Ofsted report:

Restorative justice, which encourages pupils to discuss issues where there have been

disagreements or conflict, is a formidable tool for ensuring that there is no discrimination

and that pupils make carefully considered moral choices and develop the range of social

skills needed to move on to the next phase of their education.

Restorative Approaches

Restorative Questions:

•What happened?

•What were you thinking and feeling at the time?

•What are your thoughts and feelings since?

•Who has been affected?

•In what way?

•What do you need [to do] to put things right?

•

There are two ways that these questions can be used:

• As part of a restorative conversation;

•As part of a restorative meeting.

Mediation

Stage One: Introductions

Welcome everyone and remind them that:

•You are impartial, what is discussed is confidential, your role is to facilitate not to offer solutions

•You need agreement from the people involved that they will

•Speak respectfully, listen without interrupting, focus on how they have been affected by the problem, not on blame

Stage Two: What has happened?

Each person has uninterrupted time to talk about the problem from their own point of view

Ask about feelings if not forthcoming

Summarise what has been said

Stage Three: Acknowledging feelings and perspectives

Ask each person if they can acknowledge the feelings of the other person (even if they don’t agree) and then to communicate this to the

other person

•Try: X has said that he is feeling …… about what has happened. I wonder if you can acknowledge that he is feeling ……

Stage Four: Creating options

Ask each in turn to say what they would like to happen next.

Ask for offers rather than requests at first.

Stage Five: Agreement

Get them to agree a course of action based in the possible solutions they have generated.

What do they need to formalise the agreement? Do they need to meet again to discuss progress?