Education for peacebuilding and social justice: a case-study of an elite school in Jordan

The capacity of education to promote or inhibit peace is widely documented (Bush & Saltarelli, 2000; Crisp et al., 2001; Lopes Cardozo et al., 2015; Novelli & Smith, 2011). This scholarship tends to focus on the education of marginalised youth from lower socioeconomic contexts. More recently, there have been calls to examine the education of dominant or powerful groups (Bajaj, 2008; Choules, 2007b). Such calls are grounded in peacebuilding literature that asserts all socioeconomic groups have a shared responsibility for peacebuilding (Gawerc, 2006; Lederach, 1999; Miall et al., 1999). This literature is in its naissance stage, with most studies examining social justice education of elite youth in the West (Howard, 2013; Kenway & Fahey, 2015; Swalwell, 2013a). This study focuses on the education of elite youth from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)—a region affected by conflict stemming from authoritarianism, corruption, and cronyism (Alatassi, 2018; Dodge et al., 2017; Gelvin, 2015). It focuses its attention on Jordan, a country that has experienced protests against inequality and corruption and one in which a number of affluent families from across the MENA region have found themselves as a result of conflict in their home countries. The case-study specifically explores how staff and students perceive the role of elite youth in peacebuilding, the nature of elite students’ engagement in peacebuilding, and educational policies and practices that contribute to or inhibit peace. It employs a number of theoretical lenses, including Galtung’s (1967) positive and negative peace, Crenshaw’s (1989) intersectionality, and Rothberg’s (2019) implication.