This month, I’m delighted to be hosting a series of workshops with leading experts on Truth Commissions and Education in Global Perspective. Comparative research is vital to bring specific challenges into sharper perspective, as well as to draw out similar and shared experiences.
Education is of vital concern in truth commission (TC) processes and their aftermath. TCs increasingly investigate systemic wrongdoings produced through and within educational institutions, as well as make recommendations for education reform as key pillars of peacebuilding and social transformation.
While TCs are limited and finite processes, education is often imagined as the domain where longer-term impact might be realised. In its perennial concern with shaping citizens, the education sector is well-positioned to support official processes of state and civic rebuilding, but education actors also challenge, obstruct, and innovate policy mandates, influencing the trajectory of reforms across time and space.
Workshop 1
| Education and Transitional Justice in Solomon Islands and Bougainville David Oakeshott, Australian National University When moral and civic education produces silences in New Caledonian history: an analysis of the transmission of the ‘Events’ period (1981-1989) Clara Filippi, UC Louvain Truth Commissions and Collective Memories in South Korea: Achievements and Challenges Hun Joon Kim, Korea University Truth commissions and education in Africa: Cross-national trends and shifts Denise Bentrovato, University of Pretoria & Catholic University of Leuven Nordic truth commissions and the Sami: Scholarly reflections on research, history, education, history of education, academic debate, and impacts on professional self-understanding Björn Norlin, Umeå University “It’s like apartheid, but in reverse”: Coloured youth’s narratives of reparative redress in South Africa Natasha Robinson, University of Oxford The Labyrinths of Memory: Testimonial Narratives, Truth Commissions, and Counter-Pedagogies in Colombia and Peru Goya Wilson Vásquez, University of Bristol and Yesid Paez, Bath Spa University Truth and Reparative Action Commission: The British Empire Kevin Myers, University of Birmingham and Katherine Wall, University of Bristol |
Workshop 2
| Commissioning the truth: Interviews with truth commissioners on history and education in the search for truth after mass violence Michelle Bellino, University of Michigan and Julia Paulson, University of Saskatchewan The educationalization of difficult knowledge: How the Never Again report was translated into school materials in Argentina (1996-2016) Inés Dussel, DIE-Cinvestav, Mexico Conceptualized Peace: A Developmental Psychological Framework for Teaching about Conflict, Peace, and Reconciliation Gabriel Velez, Marquette University Putting Truth Before Reconciliation? Reconsidering reforms to Canadian Curricula in the Wake of the TRC James Miles, University of Alberta No Terra Firma: Education without Transitional Justice in Northern Ireland Elizabeth Anderson Worden PhD, American University and Clare McAuley PhD, Ulster University Education Reform and Truth Commissions in Australia Matthew R. Keynes, University of Melbourne |
The workshops are the foundation of a Special Issue of Globalisation Societies and Education – a Q1 journal in comparative and international education, edited by Profs. Susan Robertson and Mario Novelli – that I will be guest editing through 2025-26.
Stay tuned for updates!
Dr. Matthew R. Keynes 
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