Critical peace education and critical hope: co-researching with middle school students in India to imagine possibilities for social change

Abstract

ABSTRACT An existing culture of conflict tends to shape practices within schools, which often maintain and in turn, contribute towards perpetuating stratifications at the societal level. Through this study, the author seeks to challenge this culture of conflict by creating a pedagogical space and facilitating possibilities of collective thinking, relationality, and action, with a focus on nurturing a culture of peace. With a goal of gaining insight into how middle school students from two school sites in New Delhi, India, are embodying and interacting with notions of peace and conflict as they make meaning of their social worlds, the author conducts a youth participatory action research (YPAR), which is complemented with semi-structured interviews. A total number of 12 participants collectively engage in a YPAR process across 13 virtual sessions, which were held on a bi-weekly basis. Guided by a critical peace education and critical hope framework, the author examines a ‘moment’, which reveals complexities around how pedagogies of critical hope can engage young people in affective, ethical, and political sensibilities to imagine possibilities for social change.