Past Research Projects

Obtaining a Second Chance: Education during and after Conflict

There is a growing concern about the interaction between violent conflict and education. Among a wide variety of issues existing in the emerging field, this research focuses on the generations of people who missed out education due to violent conflict. It is critical to ensure a second chance of education for them as education is a part of basic human rights and also functions as an “enabling right" of other fundamental rights of individuals. It is also significant from the perspective of peacebuilding, since those generations of people, mostly youth, can play a key role in war-torn societies either as bearers of peaceful transition and reconstruction or as a major source of violence by being recruited as combatants. Despite the importance, however, how to provide them with second chance education has received little attention both in research and practice. This research attempts to fill the gap by exploring the way to overcome the issue of lost education caused by violent conflict through collecting and analyzing life stories of those who once experienced educational interruptions but obtained second chance education afterward. The knowledge to be acquired through the research is expected to contribute to improving policies and programs on educational development in conflict-affected societies.