Rejection and mutation of discourses in curriculum reforms: peace education(s) in Colombia and Germany

Abstract

ABSTRACT Previous work has not yet comparatively studied which forms of peace education (PE) have been adopted in national laws. Through content analysis of policy documents, we seek to find out why the Colombian Congress established PE as mandatory content across all educational levels in 2014 in a postwar phase, while the German Standing Conference of Ministers of Education rejected attempts to implement PE since the Cold War. Whereas the German school curriculum has maintained a strong disciplinary structure that leads to the rejection of the local version of PE developed in the Federal Republic of Germany, either as military indoctrination or critical pedagogy, Colombia’s curriculum based on classical education is now influenced by educational standards and citizenship education—both influences from the United States. Therefore, it was easier for Colombian policymakers and educators to mutate the local fusion of citizenship competences into a psychological version of PE to solve national conflicts at the expense of promoting moral, historical, and political thinking in connection with traditional school subjects. We conclude by reflecting on how socio-political context and didactic traditions matter in explaining why some educational discourses are rejected or mutate with previous institutionalized educational rhetoric.