Promoting Peace Through Education in the Former Yugoslavia

Promoting Peace Through Education in the Former Yugoslavia

With continued unrest threatening to boil over in corners of the former Yugoslavia, a professor at a small New Hampshire college is working to plant seeds for peace and stability there. Douglas Challenger, professor of sociology at Franklin Pierce College in Rindge, N.H., is helping educators in the former Yugoslavia learn how to promote concepts of democracy in the classroom.

Challenger studies democratic communities and civic issues. As a Fulbright Scholar, his research recently took him to Slovenia, which is currently the most stable of the breakaway republics that were once part of Yugoslavia. While serving as a senior research and lecturing scholar at the University of Ljubljana last year, Challenger became aware of a lack civic education in that nation's schools. Since then, he initiated and is organizing an international conference to be held in the former Yugoslavia later this year that will lay the foundation for civic education in Slovenia and in other parts of Eastern Europe.

The conference "Citizenship and Education in Democracies" will be held in Ljubljana October 22-24 and will bring together teachers, university professors, educational administrators, governmental and civic officials from the former Yugoslavia, the United States, Canada, Eastern and Central Europe, and Israel. Speakers will include professors from Syracuse University, Texas A&M, the University of Washington, and the University of Tel Aviv. The immediate purpose of the conference will be to prepare public school teachers and education professors from Slovenia to implement civic education and democracy studies in their classrooms. The long-term mission will be to establish a program of civic education in Slovene public schools that can be easily adapted by educators in Croatia, Bosnia and other nations in the region. "The best way to establish a tradition of democracy is through education," says Challenger.

"People [in Slovenia] are beginning to value democracy," he notes, "but it seems to be a difficult concept for many in the post-communist world to really understand and embrace." He adds: "Many countries that were once part of Yugoslavia have no democratic traditions or institutions to draw from; they've had a history of authoritarian rule in one form or another for centuries. If we can support those in Slovenia who want to build a framework for democracy through education, I believe that other countries in the region will have a model and will follow." One outcome of the conference: published texts in Slovene and in English that will serve as guides for implementation of civic education. "The civic education materials developed through the conference will be the first of their kind, and will be very adaptable to be used by educators in other countries," says Challenger.

"Under Tito, civic education consisted of a high school course in the fundamentals of Marxism and Yugoslavia's particular version of communism, followed up with summer work camps," says Challenger. "There's a vacuum there now, " he says, "they don't have anything in the public school curriculum that examines different forms of government, the philosophy of democratic citizenship, or active political participation." He adds: "The time is perfect for this now. They have had a period of time, since their independence in 1991, where they have been able to put their energies into changing structures, economically and politically, but have done little to really embrace the challenges of democracy and to build a culture that can sustain it."

It is appropriate that a professor from Franklin Pierce College has been tapped to organize this conference. The college's nationally recognized integrated curriculum, organized around the theme of "The Individual and the Community," requires students to examine the role of citizen in communities ranging from the local to the global through a series of classes and seminars during all four undergraduate years.

Why has Challenger, who is not of Slovenian descent (his ancestors were English and Welsh), dedicated so much time and effort to promote democracy in that corner of the world? "Central and Eastern Europe are places where great social transformations are occurring," he notes, "and as a sociologist and political philosopher, the chance to observe and help influence the social change that is going on there was irresistible."

"So when a friend from graduate school invited me to Slovenia," he recalls, "I eventually found the means to go through the Fulbright Scholar program." Once he arrived, "I really became fond of the people and the country itself." He adds: "Although Slovenia does not have a history of tolerant pluralism, I feel they're so close to achieving something good. At least half the population deeply and sincerely wants to work out a system of liberal democracy--and that's good for peace in the entire region. I really want to see them succeed."

The lessons of democratic education, Challenger believes, are just as important back in the United States. "Our political culture today is deeply impoverished," he says, "and attending, in civic education courses, to the positive potential in public life and the citizenship responsibilities and virtues conducive to it, can greatly help address the contemporary problems of civic culture in both Slovenia and America." Challenger is practicing this advice in his own local community as a volunteer member of two regional civic action initiatives that promote public deliberation and political participation.

Challenger can be contacted in his Franklin Pierce College office, 603-899-4263, at home, 603-924-2161, or by e-mail: [email protected].