Yulia Nesterova

Le guide #PaixparlesJeunes de l’Institut Mahatma Gandhi d’éducation pour la paix et le développement durable de l’UNESCO a été lancé par la directrice générale de l’UNESCO lors de la 39e Conférence générale, en 2017. Le guide était l’aboutissement d’un projet qui a rassemblé plus de 2 000 jeunes et intégré plus de 130 soumissions provenant de 57 pays. Une fois les opinions et les expériences analysées, bonifiées par la littérature existante, le guide met de l’avant un ensemble de lignes directrices concrètes pour les acteurs du monde de l’éducation. Dans cette version abrégée, les parties prenantes trouveront un ensemble d’idées critiques et de leçons tirées du guide complet, conçu pour être aussi accessible que possible. Il est souhaité que les enseignants, les parents, les mentors, les administrateurs scolaires, les décideurs, et toute autre personne engagée envers un changement positif trouveront dans ces pistes d’action une ressource ef cace pour orienter des actions immédiates et ef caces dans leurs communautés. Les directives d’action pour la prévention de l’extrémisme violent visent à identi er les occasions d’engagement pour toutes les parties prenantes. Certaines exigent du temps, de la préparation et des ressources. D’autres sont de petites étapes qui aideront à créer des sociétés plus sûres et des communautés plus fortes. Aucune action n’est trop petite pour contribuer à la construction d’une structure plus résiliente et d’un monde juste.

The paper aims to understand, challenge and deconstruct what the local means for the development of indigenous education in Taiwan. More precisely, it will question the idea of the ‘local’ in this context, as indigenous people do not necessarily all hold similar views about local indigeneity and its place in educational development in Taiwan. As research shows, indigenous people’s views are influenced by intersecting factors, such as class, gender, rural or urban location, education, and profession. While some indigenous people may identify ‘local’ as the identity and interests of their indigenous community, or as their family, others may seek allegiance, construction of identity, and learning with and from the transnational indigenous movement.

The paper starts with a philosophical overview of what is local and what is indigenous. It then analyzes the Taiwan case, from the historical context of indigenous people to contemporary views and perspectives on indigeneity, indigenous development and education. Indigenous perspectives on development and education are presented based on primary research conducted with indigenous people in eastern and western parts of Taiwan, including data from in-depth interviews, informal discussions, and observations. The paper concludes by considering the implications of these understandings for Taiwan’s development and education, and for what is meant by the local indigenous and its influence on education in this case.

Racial and ethnic minorities experience misrecognition, prejudice
and discimination in Hong Kong. In response to these challenges,
multicultural education there aims to enable young people to
recognize diversity in a more tolerant, open-minded way. Educators
have been encouraged to not rely only on textbooks, but to include
news and digital media in such teaching. This paper examines online
media representations of diversity in Hong Kong in the context of
multicultural education, focusing on Apple Daily (AD), a popular
liberal Hong Kong news source. We analyze how AD represents
ethnic minorities, contributing to the construction of a particular
multicultural environment and identity among Hong Kong people.
Despite its multicultural orientation, AD remains problematic as a
learning tool. In relation we recommend that more alternative digital
media be used to learn about diversity in Hong Kong. We give as
an example the use of student self-authored digital texts during the
Hong Kong Umbrella Movement, which enabled ethnic minorities to
engage in performative citizenship. We identify a focus on multiple,
self-authored perspectives as part of critical media literacy, which we
regard as essential for young people to better understand diversity,
in contrast to straightforward reliance on multicultural news sources.

This paper seeks to elaborate an alternative, empowering model of service learning for GCE that helps students relate to one another in more just ways. Our model emphasizes the student/global citizen as an autonomous, political subject, shifting concern from the ‘affective-moral’ to the ‘social-political’, drawing on ideas of justice propagated by John Rawls. Three principles we use to reframe GCE are (1) minimization of self-interest from moral choices, (2) respect for diversity of views, legitimate conflict of interests, and right to decide, and (3) recognition of others as autonomous. Such a model can frame South-North and South-South transfer as alternatives to North-South models, and can be useful for enhancing service learning dimensions of national-level citizenship. The paper begins with an analysis of service learning for GCE and some of the opportunities and challenges found in commonly used North-South transfer models. After that, it discusses Rawls’s ideas of justice and fair terms of cooperation for cross-cultural communication, and maps three principles for an alternative model for GCE. Each principle has educational implications, though each also poses new pedagogical challenges. The paper concludes with reflections on the kind of global citizen constructed and the implications of our model for students, their view of the world, and actions for social justice.

According to a United Nations report (2004), educational institutions have curriculum and teaching methods that are culturally inappropriate for Indigenous children and aim to assimilate them instead of promoting their cultures and languages. Such a process leads to language and culture loss, and alienation from both the mainstream and home societies and discourses. The teachers who work with Indigenous children are often representatives of the dominant group whose knowledge, culture, and language dominate the classroom. Not to contribute further to the estrangement of Indigenous communities, teaching and learning must be re-thought and re-shaped to include Indigenous cultures and knowledges so that education becomes relevant to Indigenous lives and sustainable for their communities.
How can we prepare teachers for re-constructing such environments and developing and maintaining just classrooms in which no child is made to feel his/her knowledge, culture, language, and contribution are irrelevant and inferior? How can teachers of a dominant group learn to relate to Indigenous children whose cultural differences are immense, and whose relations with that group have historically been of an unequal and unfair nature? How can teachers contribute to revitalization of Indigenous cultures and their further development?
The entry aims to discuss a possible strategy that has a potential to help institutions educate future and current teachers. Drawing on Indigenous and Postcolonial theories and methodologies that are used for research with culturally different others, it is suggested how they can be used as a framework that help teachers who educate Indigenous children. Such a framework will address power relations that affect what and whose knowledge and values students learn and how the process is carried out; and negate harmful effects of interaction among groups of different socio-cultural backgrounds.

In Fabricating an Educational Miracle: Compulsory Schooling Meets Ethnic Rural Development in
Southwest China, Jinting Wu posits that the global image of China’s educational success and the
national discourse of harmony conceal the “crisis-ridden terrain” of the country’s rural education (p.
xvi). In this terrain, ethnic minority youth become disenchanted by schooling that limits their life
opportunities, while teachers feel demoralized and trapped by reforms that are far removed from local
realities and thus ineffective and harmful. Wu identifies how problematic policies, discourses, and
practices contribute to stagnation and mediocrity in rural development. These include the official
educational discourse focused on access, quality, and accountability (through audit), the state’s
development agenda (ethnic tourism), and labor migration to urban spaces. The book is built around
these critical matters.

Teacher Education in Taiwan: State Control vs Marketization was written and edited by experts involved in research, practice, and consultancy within the field of teacher education in Taiwan. It is a collection of in-depth and critical analyses of teacher education development and improvement approached from different angles and perspectives. They include the history of teacher education; changes in education policies, laws, and regulations; major theories and philosophies that affected education thought; planning of diverse programs and practices for pre- and in-service teachers; evaluation of professional performance and development; and strategic alliances of key actors, among others.

Women are generally perceived as victims of violent extremism, terrorism, and armed-conflicts. This is largely true whenever women are forced to join violent groups or are abused in various ways in conflict and post-conflict zones. Here violence against women multiplies exponentially, including trafficking in women and girls who are forced to take on domestic and sex work for extremists and militants.

Women of different age, ethnicity, religion, and socio-economic background, however, also join such groups voluntarily for a whole spectrum of reasons. Here I shall explore  the roles of women and girls in violent extremist and armed groups and what pushes them to take on these roles; the often overlooked role of women as peacebuilders and peacekeepers in their communities will also be discussed.

September 13, 2017 will mark 10 years of the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Although it is the most comprehensive universal framework that outlines the minimum standards to safeguard indigenous peoples’ freedoms, well-being, dignity, and survival, the Declaration is not the only international standard-setting instrument that sets to protect the rights of indigenous peoples. International Labor Organization (since 1957), The World Bank (since 1991), and Asian Development Bank (since 1998) have all established their own mechanisms to work towards the well being of indigenous groups across the world.

Decades have passed since the recognition of indigenous peoples and their rights, but what has been achieved and why do these international instruments matter?

THE LEGACY OF COLONIZATION

When discussing the problems of development many indigenous communities face, I always make a point that the root of such disastrous conditions is, in part, in the colonial legacy affecting indigenous peoples even now. I often, however, get to hear that (1) I should get over it as colonialism is in the past; (2) it’s not the first time it happened that a weaker group was colonized and abused; or (3) governments have apologized (e.g., New Zealand, Canada, Taiwan), they have been pouring resources to those areas, what else do you want?

I personally want such individuals to understand that:

1. Colonialism may well be in the past, but its effects are not: indigenous peoples worldwide lost their land, resources, connection to ancestors in burial places, and control over their lives. This in turn broke down traditional structures, institutions, and families. Residential schools established to ‘civilize’ indigenous people destroyed indigenous education, cultures, languages, identities, and ties to communities.

Reconciliation efforts have been superficial and on the terms established by dominant groups – those who colonized and created top-down racist power structures in the first place. Apologies are window-dressing – Taiwan’s president apologized last year (2016) and promised the establishment of a historical and transitional justice commission. Qualitatively nothing has changed. Not in Taiwan, not anywhere else.

A continuing injustice is what indigenous people have been suffering from despite the fact that on paper colonization ended.
2. The fact that this happened in the past only means it shouldn’t happen again. For this we need to ensure that minority rights are protected, past legacies and their impacts are assessed and addressed.

3. In spite of the aid proffered, who owns the land and control the resources? Once a Chinese person in Taiwan told me everyone would like to be indigenous in Taiwan because of all the perks indigenous people get. Let’s take a look at the so-called perks and development projects and aid.

Sustainable Development Goal 11 aims toward making urban settlements “inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.” It was developed in response to the growth of urban population that has resulted in environmental degradation, shortage of quality housing, unemployment, and deteriorating quality of life, among other issues such as an increase in urban conflict.

To see what sort of tensions migration to urban areas creates, and how these tensions have been and should be addressed, I had a discussion with Agnese Macaluso, a researcher at The Hague Institute for Global Justice in the Netherlands.