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Examining the Possibilities of School Transformation forPeace in Northern Ireland from a Narrative Perspective

Ron SmithJune Neill

Against a backdrop of slow progress toward a more peaceful and pluralist society inNorthern Ireland, the research reported in this article addresses the transformativepotential of narrative modes of professional learning. Phrases such as the storied na-ture of human conduct admirably embodied our narrative stance. Peace poems wereelicited from children and young people, and a sample of these was then discussed in-terpretatively by groups of experienced teachers and educators supported by practicesfrom the organisational development approach called Appreciative Inquiry. Thestory-based approach proved to be an empowering and sensitive way to develop a lan-guage of possibility for action. Narrative ideas and approaches were found to be ex-tremely powerful tools for challenging that most obdurate of barriers to the transfor-mation of schooling for peacethe culture of silence that discourages opendiscussion within schools on the causes and consequences of social division.

Keywords: narrative analysis; poetry; appreciative inquiry; school improvement;peace/community relations education; Northern Ireland; cultures ofsilence; change

AAuutthhoorrss NNoottee:: The authors are two experienced educational practitioners havingdifferent but overlapping relationships with schools. Ron Smith is a chartered ed-ucational psychologist working in a Northern Irish Education and Library Board(similar to a Local Education Authority in England or Wales). June Neill works as anadviser for community relations and citizenship in the same Education and LibraryBoard. The authors would like to thank Chris Watkins, University of London, Insti-tute of Education, for all his help and support and Will McWhinney, editor of theJournal of Transformative Education, for his patience and helpful advice on earlierdrafts of this article.

Journal of Transformative Education Vol. 3 No. 1, January 2005 6-32DOI: 10.1177/15413446042708632005 Sage Publications6


School Transformation for Peace 7

Introduction

Do we want Peace? Is it something we want,or something that we reality need? its not just about theBombings, Shootings and Killing.

It doesnt have to be like this,Not if we join and make Peace, and stop all of the Bombings,Shooting and Killing.

Maybe when it gets here, well celebrate and laugh for once,Dont be immature be adults and stopBombings, shooting and killing.

N.I would be a start, then Europe, then the world,It can happen, if they grow up and stopBombing, shooting and killing.

Is it just a word or does it have a meaningMaybe we'll find out if all theBombing, shooting and killing ends

How do we know we've got itWill it tell us or is it afraid to happen until theBombing, shooting and killing stops

Stop and think about the younger generation and how it will affect us.

(Peace or War? Maeve, 2001: Year 8, average age 12, Catholic school)

This poem is the work of a 12-year-old student living in Northern Ireland (N.Ireland) who had experienced 8 or 9 years of formal schooling. Despite this back-ground and the existence in N. Ireland of an internationally endorsed Peace Ac-cord (the 1998 Belfast or Good Friday Agreement), Maeves understanding ofpeace revealed feelings of great powerlessness and appeared depressingly under-developed. Peace still seemed to be conceived of in terms of an either/or logic orbinary opposition between Peace or War? Maeve then asked, Do we wantpeace?Is it just a word or does it have a meaning?How do we know weve gotit? Finally, she pleaded for adults to Stop and think about the younger generation.

Michael Longley, one of N. Irelands most respected poets from the generationof Heaney, was reported to have said that it is up to artists in the community toforge a new dialogue to help resolve the Irish troubles (Lynch, 2001). Conse-quently, our ongoing research used the poetic art to shed light on the social andpolitical context within contemporary Ireland as seen by young people and thenused their writing to foster new dialogue among professionals in education. Ourwork was designed to make a difference to teaching and learning for communityrelations. It developed out of a shared interest and commitment to transforma-


8 Journal of Transformative Education / January 2005

tion of educational practice that would contribute to the politics of democraticcitizenship, social justice, and peace.

Relevant Themes From the Literature

Before offering an account of this work, we need to place it within somebroader ecological frameworks and relevant theoretical and empirical literatures.

THE NORTHERN IRELAND CONFLICT

The conflict in N. Ireland (known colloquially as the troubles) is a complexone, much more so than television coverage would suggest. In its present form,the conflict represents a tangle of interrelated issues (Dunn, 1995), a struggle be-tween divergent forms of nationalist aspiration, ethnicity, and oppression againsta background of widespread social and economic deprivation (Lovett, Gillespie,& Gunn, 1995). Dunn (1995) regarded it as an interethnic dispute, whereas Con-nolly (1999) made reference to conflict between ethnically defined Protestantsand Catholics.

The Belfast Peace Agreement ushered in a radically changed environment forcommunity relations in N. Ireland. However, to imagine that we had crossedsome invisible rubicon where social conflict magically disappeared would benave. A realistic assessment of the present peace process suggests that reconcili-ation remains as yet an unfulfilled dream. As a number of commentators havesuggested, the end to widespread violence and accompanying political accommo-dations were simply the very first steps in a long-term process of peacemaking.

SCHOOLING AND THE POLICY ENVIRONMENT FOR SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT

Segregation is a feature of almost every aspect of life in Northern Ireland. Peo-ple live, socialise, work, and shop in areas where they feel safe (Leitch & Kil-patrick, 1999). Consequently, a distinctive characteristic of the school system is itssegregated nature. The vast majority of children and teachers attend schools thatcan be described as either Protestant (controlled schools) or Catholic (main-tained schools). As Gallagher (1992) remarked, most schools were characterisedby the religious homogeneity of their staff and students. There has been a trendtoward integrated schools, although currently only 5% of the students attendsuch institutions (Naylor, 2003).

Given that the most pressing problems facing people within the province arefor peace, political stability, and reconciliation, one might have expected that thispriority would have been reflected in major initiatives to improve schooling. Notso! Under direct rule, the education system in N. Ireland is a replication of devel-opments in England. Consequently, during the late 1980s and 1990s there was agrowth in the influence of policy frameworks designed to align public sector or-ganisations with the methods, cultures, and ethical systems of private sector or-ganisations (see e.g., Smith, 1998). Ball (2003) described the processes and effects


of this realignment as the terrors of performativity. Privileged within perfor-mative cultures were discourses that emphasised technical-rational and structuralapproaches to school improvement, where, for example, success was defined innarrow instrumental terms and change was conceived of in terms of a mechani-cal journey along predetermined routes. Regimes of performativity encouragepractices and relationships antithetical to social justice and democratic schooloutcomes. As Ball suggested, within such cultures, what mattered were outputsrather than beliefs, values, or authentic relationships.

Only 3 months before the Good Friday Peace Agreement, the Education Min-ister (Tony Worthington) launched the N. Ireland School Improvement Pro-gramme (Department of Education N. Ireland, 1998), which was described as ablueprint for education in the millennium. It defined success in terms of a nar-row range of outputs such as success in mathematics and English and the pro-portion of students attaining higher grades in five subjects at General Certificateof Secondary Education.1 Absent from the programme was any vision of howschools were situated in the province or of the relationship between the practicesof schooling and the conditions of peace.

THE SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS (PHASE 1) STUDY

Gallagher (1995) remarked that we did not yet know what shape Education forMutual Understanding (EMU)2 and Cultural Heritage took in the classroom.However, our own school research threw some light on this (Smith, 2001a,2001b). Among a number of other issues, we asked teachers to describe one les-son, element, or unit of work they had delivered that met the EMU objectives.Given the declared purposes behind EMU work, an extraordinary feature of ourfindings was the widespread absence of classroom pedagogy that enabled stu-dents to discuss and reflect on issues directly related to the N. Ireland conflict andits religious or political ramifications. This confirmed what many others sus-pected. Furthermore, our results suggested that when it came to having a say orbeing allowed to air their views on issues of relevance to school-based commu-nity relations policy and practice, the voices of students were mostly silenced, dis-qualified, or subjugated.

On the other hand, when we gave young people the opportunity to dialogue,we found that they were not afraid or unable to discuss issues surrounding peaceeducation that most teachers seemed unwilling or unable to tackle. Their viewsand opinions on school-based work were extremely perceptive, albeit they variedin relation to such factors as the location of the school (in a more or less troubledarea), socioeconomic status, religion, age, and gender. The 11-year-old childrenfrom more politicised areas were most motivated to discuss divisive issues,whereas some male rural Protestants were extremely negative, fatalistic, and ex-hibited more sectarian exchanges in discussion than any others:

I think there should be more systems like EMU, there is not enough systems forthe childrens voice to be heard by adults, to say what we feel about it . . . moredifferent types of programmes. (Catholic primary school student)




If we were taught something about it we would understand, nobody tells usabout it so we dont understand . . . right and the agreement [Good Friday orBelfast] and stuff; its the childrens future you know and we should have a rightor get the choice whether or not to hear about peace or the agreement or what-ever . . . we should get the decisions to . . . its our future and we should get todecide. (Protestant primary school student)

The parents (mainly mothers) in this study also shared the characteristic of hav-ing their voices silenced when it came to participation in school-based communityrelations policy making. Contrary to the expectations of most teachers, there wasvery good support for work such as prejudice reduction, discussion of controver-sial issues, and the exploration of issues about ethnicity. This view was more preva-lent among urban parents of all socioeconomic circumstances, for example,

I want to say my point of view here [very forcefully] right, everybody says thatthe Anglo-Irish Agreement

3is a bit of historywhy not teach it, I cant under-

stand! My wee lad learnt about the Vikings . . . thats fair enough . . . but whathas the Vikings to do with us? Fair enough, this is a piece of history and every-body says the children are the generation that are growing up in peace buttheyre not taught about it . . . so how are they going to grow up in peace . . . theyare only taught our opinions. (Protestant primary school parent)

Catholic primary school parent: Its such an important thing [the Peace Agreement] andthey dont have a clue what it is about . . . if it was part of the curriculum it would help.

Interviewer: Would you have difficulty with children doing work at school which lookedat both sides of the N. Ireland troubles?

Parent: No . . . I think it would be brilliant . . . especially to see the other side . . . they havetheir opinions.

The factors mediating central government policy at the school level, as seen bythree key sets of players (teachers, students, and parents), were explored in somedepth. The indicators of what made a Good school for peace were found not tobe self-contained but interact in complex ways creating different patterns at dif-ferent organisational sites.

In one school for example, an extremely strong public story or local commu-nity narrative about being under siege mediated peace education practice. Thiswas a small coeducational Protestant institution situated in the rural northwest ofN. Ireland. The school catchment was overwhelmingly Republican, and as a con-sequence, the Protestant community was in a minority. This siege story definedcharacters (Catholics and Protestants) and an emplotment involving negative in-tentions toward Protestants by Catholics. Themes that emerged through this plotincluded the belief held by some Protestant students that participation in schoolapproaches designed to investigate the traditions and customs of the other maincommunity would only serve to position them as traitors amongst their own. Thestudent subculture in this school was also seen to play an important role in shap-ing the nature and form of teachers community relations practice, illustrating thecapacity of students to act as critical reality definers (Woods, 1990). For example,



When it comes to the 12th July [Protestant festival] all them [Catholics] are try-ing to burn you out and everything. They tried to burn this school down threetimes and still havent managed it . . . dirty f . . . rs. And you see our church hall,it was just built . . . it was a couple of months old and they burnt it. Plus, theyburnt the Orange hall . . . dirty brutes . . . peace will never be here, there is not ahope of stopping the fighting. Oh the school tries, but there is nothing they cando. Keep ourselves to ourselves, thats what I say. (Protestant rural secondaryschool student)

The culturally ubiquitous narrative that discourages open discussion on thecauses and consequences of division, particularly in the company of people fromthe other side (the other main cultural tradition), was reflected in the practice ofteachers. The following story was told by a Protestant student shortly before go-ing on a school visit to a Catholic school during the Christian festival of Lent:

Before we went we were warned very much not to say anything about the blackmarks on the heads of teachers or pupils; anyway, there was this Library ladywho had one on her head, I couldnt stop for looking and I asked my mum andGran because I didnt know about it and they said it had something to do withSt. Patrick.

Then there was the staff in another school who referred to the difficulties ofdoing more focused or cutting-edge work because we hide behind a lot of polit-ical correctness in N. Ireland and not wanting to cause offence. By not mention-ing controversial issues related to conflict value-laden issues such as politics andreligion, people in everyday interaction concentrate on interpersonal or non-group-related issues (Gallagher, 1998). The aforementioned anecdote concerningthe Protestant boys visit to another school also illuminated the way in whichmyths could easily be perpetuated by the failure to address controversial issues inthe classroom. As one parent remarked, If they dont get it from the school thenthey are going to get it somewhere else.

Teachers beliefs about community relations practice and their views aboutchildrens social and cognitive abilities (or inabilities) were strongly associatedwith community relations outcomes. The construction of learners and learningfor peace in terms of individual experience appeared to be greatly overvalued.This was reflected in teachers beliefs in the power of personality development toinfluence change in wider social relationships between groups in conflict and thewidely held connected view that prejudice was an intraindividual characteristic.

Across all case study schools, students understanding of the N. Irish politicalsituation and conflict was found to greatly exceed the expectations of most teach-ers. The view of this teacher was not untypical when suggesting that

some of them maybe [age 11] would be fit for it but a lot of them would not; alot of them would be completely lost so you might be shaping things and youcould be inculcating things by approaching the subject too early.



A colleague expressed the view that it would probably be the brighter ones thatyou would ever think about say, trying to explain the issue of stereotyping. Thissort of professional discourse supported Rudduck, Chaplain, and Wallaces (1996)conclusion that children in school were not normally regarded as socially compe-tent when it came to making decisions on a range of issues and this bracketingout of their voice was founded upon an outdated view of childhood which failedto acknowledge childrens capacity to reflect on issues affecting their lives (p. 172).

THE NARRATIVE APPROACH TO SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT

The prevailing assumptions and forms of school improvement seemed partic-ularly ill-suited to meeting the challenges of contributing toward school trans-formation for a peaceful and democratic society. Instrumental strategies havingnarrow interpretations of performance and technical-rational performance man-agement approaches focused on increased efficiency and reliability appeared todominate the improvement agenda (see e.g., Clarke, Lodge, & Reed, 1998; Lodge& Reed, 2001; Smith, 1998). Consequently, we argued that an alternative im-provement paradigm was necessary, one that opened vistas for action taking ac-count of

the prevailing meaning structures that arise in schools out of human interchange;that is, the taken-for-granted discourses having connections to issues of power(such as whose/what knowledge is privileged, admitted as real, and valuable andwhose knowledge is sequestered or hidden from view);

the need to engage the voices of those who have been silenced, disqualified, orsubjugated (see also Lodge & Reed, 2001);

the social and micropolitical nature of schooling, its multiple perspectives, andcomplexities;

the need to engender genuine collaborative working relationships; the need to develop a shared language about community relations education and

processes of change; the need to encourage generative talk, processes of imagination, and alternatives

to problem stories (see also Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987); the need to examine phenomena, issues, and teachers lives holistically and en-

courage the development of an optimistic frame within the management ofchange (see also Daiute & Lightfoot, 2004; Gergen, 1996).

Narrative thinking was considered to best capture the aforementioned designfeatures. This is a viewpoint or stance within psychology that is interested in thestoried nature of human conduct (Sarbin, 1986). The stance that met our un-derstanding and intentions was something much more substantive than the tra-ditional understanding of narrative as limited to a form of representation thatmade sense (see Somers & Gibson, 1998). Our position is reflected in phrasessuch as the storied nature of human conduct (Sarbin, 1986) and is more ap-propriately abbreviated as the narrative construction of reality (Wagner &Watkins, in press). This is the idea that all human beings live their lives according



to stories that reflect the meanings they make of events; stories both describe andshape peoples lives (Nylund, 2002).

In the narrative metaphor, stories have recognisable elements such as eventsand characters linked in sequence across time according to a plot (A. Morgan,2002). A distinction is made between stories used by people to make sense of (andact in) their own lives and those attached to larger cultural and institutional for-mations such as the family or school. Somers and Gibson (1998), for example, re-ferred to the former as ontological stories and the latter as public stories. Gergens(1994, 1996) earlier research and theorising led him to contemplate the view thatnarrative accounts conformed to foundational story forms such as the tragedy,comedy, satire, or romance. Later he concluded that it was more realistic to thinkin terms of some rudimentary narratives, such as the stable, regressive, and pro-gressive, which underpinned a potentially infinite variety of stories (Gergen,1999).

Narrative beliefs and practices share the theoretical underpinnings of post-modern social constructionist thought. Social constructionist views are charac-terised by commonalities such as a critical stance toward taken-for-grantedknowledge, the view that truths are constructed by people and sustained by socialprocesses, and the belief that such constructions of the world sustain some pat-terns of social action and not others (Burr, 1995, 2002). Postmodernism indexes,for example, multiple identities and sociohistoric contingencies that positionpeople in power systems (Gergen, 1996; Kvale, 1994).

The narrative construction of reality suggests that the way stories construct ex-perience can be examined by deconstructing the texts (written, spoken, visual,etc.) in which they appear; taking them apart and showing how they work topresent people with a particular version of the world (Burr, 2002). The aim is toanalyse the language, stories, and narratives that constitute selves and considerthe implications and permutations of these for individuals and society. This in-volves interpretation and the investigator engaging in an interpretative relation-ship with the transcript (Crossley, 2000, p. 88).

Plotting Transformation: Taking a Narrative View

This section describes how knowledge was constructed in relation to the fol-lowing research questions:

What are the dominant stories used by children and young people to constructpeace?

Do the poetic narratives children and young people write about peace tell usabout the social construction of individual experience?

What happens when poetic narratives derived from children and young peopleare presented to educationalists for interpretation and analysis in the spirit of Ap-preciative Inquiry (AI)? What practical propositions for change are created? Can


14

story-based approaches using collaborative modes of enquiry act as incentives orlevers for organisational transformation?

Reconfiguring our research approach to maintain consistency with narrativethinking, as well as advance a concept of humanity aimed at transforming com-munity relations, presented us with an interesting challenge. Inspiration for a cre-ative way forward came from Gergen (1996, 1999) and postmodern literary the-ory (e.g., Fish, 2000). Gergen suggested that constructionism placed no particularconstraints or demands on scholars in terms of preferred visions of the future.There was, however, a tendency to develop practices that favoured communalismover individualism, independence over individualism, and participation over hi-erarchical decision making. Two improvement projects were developed using po-etic narratives as catalysts for dialogue with ideas from the collaborative (AI)model of social inquiry. With the first author as coparticipant or active agent, ex-perienced educators and teachers were asked to take part in interpretative and ap-preciative communities of narrative analysts.

PROJECT 1

The interpretative community of peace activists (ICPA), formed by five teach-ers, joined this project because they held positions of some strategic importancein terms of developing community relations policy across N. Ireland. With estab-lished track records in cross-community development in contexts characterisedby high levels of communal conflict, poverty, and disadvantage, they also hadgreat street credibility. The ICPA included two Education and Library BoardCommunity Relations Advisers, the Coordinator of a cross-border (N. Ireland-Republic of Ireland) Citizenship Development Project, the Education Officer fora unique creative arts centre providing multimedia training and educationthroughout N. Ireland, and the Development Worker for a citizenship project or-ganised by a well-known nongovernmental organisation.

Despite widespread communal tensions resulting from conflict in parts of theprovince, the ICPA met five times during the summer months of 2001. The meet-ings typically lasted in excess of 4 hours. All the sessions were recorded and latertranscribed by the first author. Within both projects a low-moderator-involvedfocus group style of facilitation was adopted (see D. L. Morgan, 1997). In otherwords, except for posing a small number of questions following the appreciativeinquiry approach, the group sessions were unstructured. The questions includedthe following: What strikes you most about the poems? What can we learn fromthese? What practices could develop from your learning?

PROJECT 2

This project involved collaborative work with professionals who were engagedwith school-based peace education. They were all middle or senior managers whoheld responsibility for the coordination of the closely related and statutory cur-riculum elements called Education for Mutual Understanding and Cultural Her-itage. Our involvement followed a request to help with the preparation, presenta-

Journal of Transformative Education / January 2005



tion, and follow-up of two centrally organised professional development whole-day courses on the theme Developing EMU and Citizenship in the PrimarySchool. On both days, for a considerable part of each day, we worked separatelywith groups of approximately 15 teachers to facilitate the narrative analyses. Ple-nary sessions always followed group sessions. The first authors group gave per-mission to have their discussions recorded and the transcripts used for researchpurposes.

THE PEACE POEMS

Childrens poetry was collected during the first phase of our work. Teacherswere invited to ask students to write a short poem titled What Peace Means to Me.Because of the very large numbers of poems collected, all were numerically codedand used in conjunction with the the numbers in a hat process (random selec-tion procedure) to choose a small number for narrative analysis at the beginningof each session.

APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY

AI is a radically different approach to organisational development and themanagement of change, deeply conjoined with social constructionist thinking(Cooperrider, Sorensen, & Whitney, 2000). In distinction to conventional changeprocedures, AI lays less emphasis on problem solving and more on fostering in-novation in social-organisational arrangements. The emphasis on appreciationsprings from the concept of the appreciative eye in art, where it is said thatwithin every piece of art one might locate beauty (Gergen, 1999). In the AI ap-proach, the framework for collective action includes asking a series of questionsbeginning with one designed to foster an appreciation of the best of what there iswithin an organisation (or a particular theme or issue) and a vision based onwhat the institution might look like. The process continues with participants col-laborating and dialoguing over what should be and finally what can be. Vo-cabularies of hope serve to act as catalysts or resources for this set of questions,such as stories, metaphors, or as in this case, poems.

RESULTS: POETIC NARRATIVES, POETIC ACTIVISM, AND TRANSFORMATION

Gergen (1999, 2000) argued that social life required poetic activists to stim-ulate transformation. He adopted poetry as a basic instrument for transformingsocial life and social institutions because change was felt to depend on processesor functions having some features in common with the qualities possessed bypoetry; he referenced features such as

1. catalytic processes: the unsettling of common habits of mind or moving peopleinto new spaces of meaning;

2. imaginative processes: the stimulation of imagination in oneself and othersnot just an unfreezing of the settled but the generation of a discourse that created animage of the future that excited, enticed, and enthused;



3. aesthetic/metonymic reflection: processes or functions bearing some similarityto the counselling concept of empathy where

One persons moves in a conversation will validate, affirm or reflect the othersmoves . . . ones actions or utterances will help to constitute the others action intheir own terms, and in so doing, also re-constitute oneself. This does not meanduplicating or agreeing fully with what the other has done or said. Rather, onesactions will be a partial, provisional, and ambiguous reverberation of the otherreflecting the other in oneself. In effect, the other is aligned more fully with one-self. (Gergen, 2000, p. 6)

Gergens theorising inspired us to use his poetic functions in a content analy-sis of the transcribed group discussions (fuller details are contained in Smith,2003). Due to the limitations of space, we are only able to include a small sampleof dialogue from the extensive and rich data we collected to illustrate our argu-ment, that is, that narrative dialogues provided supportive contexts for poetic aswell as peace activism. Included as Appendices A and B are summaries of the con-tent analyses relevant to Gergens imaginative function.

Peace Stories as Underdeveloped and Problematic Thin Descriptions

Peace, what is peace?Will the children here ever know?The bombing and killing is not helping us live,Instead it is tearing our country apart,And teaching us to hate.Peoples deaths on the news again,And we just sit there and listenWe are no different from each otherBut may be different religionWe are forgetting that children are the futureBut how can they live like thisPeace, what is peace?

(Rachaels text: Year 7, average age 11, Catholic school)

Michael White (1995), a pioneer in the field of narrative therapy, describedunderdeveloped problem-saturated stories as thin descriptions. Likewise, hecoined the term rich descriptions to refer to alternative stories that created newpossibilities for living (A. Morgan, 2002). It was illuminating and alarming to dis-cover that only one out of eight randomly selected poems could be read as pro-jecting a hopeful trajectory. The remainder spoke to regressive and tragic plots.Figure 1 is a summary of the key elements of childrens peace stories in schoolyears 5 through 7.

Like Maeve, whose text opened this article, Rachael wrote about feelings ofhelplessness and powerlessness. However, Rachael was a final-year primary stu-dent, and recognition by the ICPA and EMU coordinators that children could


leave primary schooling without even being able to imagine a peaceful future wasalarming. Furthermore, notwithstanding the high levels of social understandingand knowledge demonstrated by our young poets, critical reflection led us toconclude that their stories portrayed a very weak sense of peace as any sort of pos-itive, active, or dynamic process (see e.g., Galtung, 1969, 1985). This suggestedthat children in N. Ireland had been badly let down by adults. As Duane Elgin(1991) remarked, We cannot build a future we cannot imagine (p. 139).

J: For me, as an educator, it is depressing, theres no idea of any kind of processof what peace might be and whether I [student] have any role in it or is anythingthere I can do that makes any bloody odds . . . theres nothing in there . . . theydo not see peace as a journey or process, something thats an ongoing strivingfor not necessarily always achieved.


Figure 1: A Summary of the Key Elements of Childrens Peace Stories in Years 5Through 7 (Average Ages 9 to 11)



The improvement projects provided supportive contexts for productive pro-fessional dialogue and poetic activism. A number of very practical suggestions fordeveloping a more richly described peace education were created that we laterformulated as a set of principles titled 13 Propositions for Improving School-BasedPeace Education (see Appendix C). At the end of our reading of Rachaels poem,for example, E had the following exciting and imaginative thought to share with us:

How would another group of teachers discuss this I wonder . . . this would bevery useful. Im thinking about the structure in some of the schools Im work-ing in here [E worked in a N. Ireland-Republic of Ireland, cross-cultural context]and how to get them to actively engage with the . . . they need experience to drivethis because its very difficult to draw them into it. . . . I think these poems wouldhelp generate these sorts of discussions.

DOMINANT DISCOURSES CONSTRUCTING INSTITUTIONAL LIFE: RECOGNISING FORMS OF OPPRESSION

Whether society and their schools should concentrate on achieving historicalcommonality (assimilationist story) or celebrate cultural diversity (diversity andinclusivity story) arose as a strong difference of perspective among some of theteachers within our Phase 1 study. One head teacher, for example, said that hewould rather his pupils heard about how we were all the sameall Gods chil-dren. On the other hand, two other school leaders articulated a position ofneeding to acknowledge difference and not make students feel difference waswrong (Smith, 2001b). The following phrase in Rachaels poem engenderedmuch discussion on account of the suggestion that she had internalised an as-similationist story as a subtext to her view of the world: Protestants andCatholics were really no different from each other, just different religions. J hadabsolutely no doubt that schools played a significant part in this type of identitydevelopment: You could see that theyve been told that we are no different fromeach other; teachers plant these ideas very strongly in kids heads . . . oh, we areno different from each other.

The ICPA considered the minimising of religious and political differences in-herent in the assimilationist story to be the flip side of the coin to the magnifica-tion of difference (separation story). Where these existed, both were felt to be in-stances of institutional sectarianism and very thin stories that held back peaceeducation. As Freire (1972) recognised, sectarianism in any quarter was an obsta-cle to the emancipation of people. Consequently, work in schools that enabledteachers to recognise and then debate the dominant social discourses construct-ing social life was thought to be essential. Without this degree of attention to thedeep level of school cultures, then no amount of surface-level curricular innova-tion (e.g., citizenship or values education) was thought likely to be capable ofpenetrating the pervasive and problematic culture of silence or lead to trans-formed educational institutions. This led to some very creative reflection on theadvantages of using the narrative or story-based approach more widely through-



out the education system as a socially transformative school improvement initia-tive (Mayo, 2003).

In peace there wont be any fighting and there will be no shouting,In peace you will have to be quiet,In peace no guns and bombs are allowed,In case people dies.In peace you are not allowed to smash glass bottlesLike Lucozade bottles and milk bottles.Lots of people die by guns and bombs.

(Josephs text: Year 2, average age 6, Catholic school)

Yates (2002) suggested that a bureaucratised ideology of the individual domi-nated school knowledge, with important consequences for the self-understandingof students. Because of the negation of the social or of what passed between peo-ple, such conditions were antithetical to the promotion of peace as social har-mony. Narrative modes of professional learning were found to provide effectivecontexts for the critique of mainstream institutions. Within the ICPA, it led to arecognition that routine classroom activities could easily become value-laden actsused unwittingly to recruit children into a citizenship of passive conformity, a cit-izenship that represented the antithesis of empowerment and democratic citizen-ship. Here J elaborated on the theme of peace as compliance, which all agreed wasthe dominant plot constructing peace in Josephs case:

J: Yes, theres a negativity about this isnt there and also the order . . . its like rules, evenlike a list of regulations, discipline or order. You could just imagine . . . even in hisitemising of it . . . like the ten commandments! I would imagine that this is a con-struction that would be available to children, for example, by their experience ofclassroom rules . . . so I think they read it in that way [agreement here from others].

A-M: Yes, youre right, you have to be quiet, which is what the kids hear in class too, isntit. You have to be quiet too in order to become a good boy.

Jo: Yes, its the ten commandments stuff, isnt it . . . youre right. Its all compliance stuff.God, thats frightening.

Adult Images of Childhood and Adolescence

Freire (1972) distinguished between domesticating and liberating education,the latter enabling people to deal critically and creatively with reality and em-powering them to participate in the transformation of their world (Shaull, 1972).Prout (2003) wrote about the crucial connection between the representations ofchildhood and adolescence held by educators and different models of education.Relevant here was our Phase 1 work where teachers perceptions of students com-petencies were found to represent a very partial and underdeveloped notionabout the known person or learner. Our data spoke to a mindset that greatly over-valued individual experience and greatly undervalued the understanding of peo-


20

ples behaviour as socially embedded and socially meaningful. Furthermore, thisindividual model of community relations/peace education, like its sister dis-course in the domain of educational special needs, was found to be an uncriticallyassimilated professional discourse that framed the possibilities for teacher action.Such mindsets and images, as intimated earlier, were antithetical to the develop-ment of a transformative approach to education as well as the promotion ofpeace (Mayo, 2003; Yates, 1992).

However, the following exchanges illustrate the power of our improvementprojects to provide a context for senior professionals to engage in transformativedialogue, to critically reflect on taken-for-granted assumptions, and to develop alanguage of possibility for action (Giroux as cited by Mayo, 2003).

When Im watching TV. my brothernever gives me peace to watch it. Peacealso means no more fighting and people not getting hurt anymore. Everyone in

the world should want peacePlease, lets have peace

(Emers text: Year 2, average age 6, Protestant school)

In the case of Emers poem, it was the narrative dimensions of style (or tone)and the list of characters and settings that really captured the attention of theEMU coordinators. Group Member 1 (GM 1) opened the discussion:

GM 1: For this child the context into which she is setting her peace story is in terms of per-sonal relationships, about N. Ireland and then to the more global picture! So, from meto the world in three sentences . . . this is not much different from the first poem . . . itsjust amazing isnt it, how children of even this age, 5 or 6, have peace stories to tell andare able to see peace in their individual personal relationship world and in theirbroader world as well . . . this child is in Year 2! [tone of exasperation]. . . . Most of mycolleagues back at school wouldnt, I bet you, recognise that children would have con-cepts of peace that were much more global.

GM 2: And you know, I think curricular projects are still being based on this sort ofanalysis . . . on the view that youngsters go through a sequence of stages in their think-ing . . . this child is relatively young and still has a peace story which is at a societallevel, they are aware of things like bombs, and guns, and also about their mates inclass.

Childrens social awareness and ability to comprehend controversial issuesarose as a theme for discussion at some stage during every group session. Narra-tive analysis allowed the interpretative groups to gain a much more nuanced un-derstanding of childrens social development.

Why cant everybody have peace?Its the simplest thing to ask for.



A ceasefire doesnt do any goodBecause people just ignore it.Catholics and Protestants fightWhen its their turn to march.Everyone will be happy if there is peaceSo why cant we have peace?Some politicians must be stupid,Take Ian Paisley for instance,He expects people to vote for himYou would have to be mad to vote for himHe really forgets the point,You have to be good to get votes

(Eugenes text: Year 5, average age 9, Catholic school)

Eugenes text was illuminating for the story it told about peace in N. Ireland.However, this poem was not only read for high levels of social awareness but alsofor the way in which it demonstrated well-developed and ingrained sectarian at-titudes from the ages of 8 or 9.

GM 1: This is very N. Irish in setting isnt it! Big Ian [reference to Ian Paisley] gets a pum-melling here!

GM 2: Hes probably from the wrong side of the fence to be giving much support to Ian.GM 1: Theres probably no probably about that!GM 3: One thing we can say about this is that its totally political, the child has no other

notion of peace except for marching, ceasefires, getting votes, Paisley, Prods andCatholics . . . its very knowledgeable . . . quite outstanding really.

GM1: The child is living within a highly political context [others: Of course it is] and ob-viously they dont like Paisley . . . hes stupid, and hes going to be the bogey that up-sets this . . . so people ignore this ceasefire . . . the child is not now expecting the cease-fire to . . . its funny to see it so young.

GM 5: Prods are responsible for the whole lot . . . isnt it amazing . . . but still this child istalking about something that is not discussed in an educational context . . . teachersin our school, at the moment, wouldnt touch this with a Bargepole!

Narrative analysis drew attention to the influence on the developing person ofa variety of different levels of the social formation on childrens social develop-ment, in particular to the influence of the discursive processes and practices as-sociated with living within particular and specific communities and to the con-tribution made by cultural contexts such as ethnicity, class, and gender to theplots people lived by. In contrast to the ideology of the individual or to the argu-ment that social situations had a dramatic influence on the individual, this wasmuch more consistent with a relationally embedded concept of social beingwhere knowledge was maintained in the meanings that passed between people intheir interactions.



22

The Culture of Silence: My Colleagues Wouldnt Touch That With a Bargepole

Northern Reticence, the tight gag of placeAnd times, yes, yes. Of this wee six I singWhere to be saved you only must save faceAnd whatever you say, you say nothingSmoke signals are loud-mouthed compared with us:Manouvrings to find out name and schoolSubtle discriminations by addressWith hardly any exception to the rule

(Heaney, 1990, pp. 78-80)

Questions of partnership, of building bridges, bonding and linking relation-ships and of dialogue around the most difficult conversations must now becomecentral to how we do business in N. Ireland (Duncan Morrow, Chief Executiveof the Community Relations Council; Morrow, 2004, p. 4). Highlighted by Mor-row (2004) and succinctly and eloquently described by Seamus Heaney (1990),the issue of how to encourage school-based dialogue around the difficult conver-sations lies at the heart of the problem of school transformation for the 21st cen-tury in N. Ireland.

As illustrated earlier, throughout our Phase 2 study, narrative inquiry incor-porating appreciative inquiry methodology proved to have enormous transfor-mative potential for facilitating difficult conversations around ethnopolitical con-flict. The following quote illustrates the imaginative potential of the process:

Maybe as primary teachers we should be more responsive for tackling some is-sues, either the cultural or home issues about Derry, Omagh, Enniskillen,etcetera and educating them as to what is going on within our own situation,who these people are we hear talked about on television, who Martin McGuinessis, who Trimble is. Or the Secretary of State . . . you know things like that arebandied about and they dont have a notion, certainly the Year 7s I have donthave a notion . . . I dont think we try, Im sorry, I just dont think we try hardenough [yes, from others] . . . I think we avoid it and run away from it. Im notsurprised we run away from it . . . because parents will come down around yourneck; but you know . . . Im past caring about that anymore.

An important principle of the transformative and emancipatory approach toeducation is participation, enabling, for example, the voices of children andyoung people to be more influential in shaping policy at all levels (see e.g., Mayo,2003). The following comment by one of our EMU coordinators suggested thatsome members of our communities of discourse had as a result of their interpre-tative experiences begun to think more imaginatively and move into new spacesof meaning with respect to this issue:



I dont know, I wonder should we do the exercise you [the group facilitators] didwith us . . . of asking children their thoughts. I think the last time I would haveasked children to do something like that was a long time ago . . . if ever, Im sure.How many times would you sit down and set that sort of exercise for youryoungsters? Never . . . but it makes you think doesnt it!

Discussion

According to Mayo (2003), any assessment of the transformative potential ofan educational initiative would have to focus attention on the following ques-tions: Does it contain a language of critique? Does it expose forms of institu-tional oppression? Does it provide a language of possibility (p. 44). Likewise,Gergen (2000) referred to the need to develop poetic activism. In light of our ev-idence, only some of which was presented here, we would argue strongly that thestory-based approach and appreciative mode of school improvement met thesebenchmarks.

Our work identified a number of contextual constraints that served to frus-trate the work of democratic educators in N. Ireland, maintain the status quo,and present a very powerful barrier to change. There appeared to be, for example,an overlapping or imbrication of the taken-for-granted societal convention con-nected with the culture of silence, the individuating cultural story (ideology ofthe individual) that strongly influenced school knowledge and institutional sec-tarianism. Then there were the silences and gaps in the story forms available toteachers within schools to help them make better sense of life, that is, from par-ents, children, and young people themselves. Yet, despite contextual restraintssuch as these, the improvement projects pointed to the power of narrative dia-logue for helping to open the status quo to possible transformation. Our work il-luminated the potential of narrative dialogues for creating more open learningorganisations where adults could engage in critical self-reflection about the dom-inant institutional stories underpinning organisational life as well as engageproactively with the divisions between the two main identity groups in N. Ire-land. It demonstrated the way in which intergroup relationships and conflict weredefined in identity terms and encoded in aspects of community culture, in thiscase, stories within the poetic genre. Consequently, as Senehi (2000) suggested,because they were accessible, flexible, and used contextually, stories and otherpopular expressive genres could be a means of reformulating cultural notions inorder to comment critically and persuasively on community life (p. 97). Or, asGergen (2003) remarked, people were very susceptive to accounts of what gavepersonal meaning to the lives of others. Stories, he remarked, could form an ex-tremely effective part in the successful outcomes of a socially transformative ini-tiative.

Apple and Beane (1999) suggested that the frustrations involved in creatingdemocratic schools were only exceeded by the more ambitious task of maintain-



24

ing them in the face of nondemocratic currents in public opinion and educa-tional policy. Within a divided society, work to develop school effectiveness forpeace requires refined qualities, including an abundance of hope and optimism.For us as professional educators, the story of this phase of our work did indeedserve to reinforce an optimistic frame of mind, in tune with the message of nar-rative psychology taken from a constructionist frame that was itself profoundlyoptimistic (Gergen, 1996). Despite the contextual constraints, the improvement


Figure 2: Gerards text: Year 6, average age 10, Catholic school


projects pointed to the power of narrative dialogue for improving the quality oforganisational life for social transformation. As Cooperrider and Srivastva (1987)suggested,

Accepting for a moment the argument of the social constructionists that socialreality, at any given point, is a product of broad social agreement (shared mean-ings), and further granting a linkage between the conceptual schemes of a cul-ture and its other patterns of action, we must seriously consider the idea that al-terations in conceptual practice, in ways of symbolising the world, holdtremendous potential for guiding changes in the social order . . . the most pow-erful vehicle communities have for transforming their conventionstheiragreements on norms, values, policies, purposes and ideologiesis through theact of dialogue made possible by language . . . alteration in linguistic practices,therefore have profound implications for change in social practice. (pp. 6-7)

We end this article the way we started, with another peace poem (see Figure2). Gerards poem was the first to be drawn out of the hat combining both verbaland visual texts. This made it possible to undertake a limited amount of inte-grated analysis around the meaning structures of both mediums.4 Gerards textwas read by the interpretative group as a local political story drawing on Repub-lican community narratives, what we labelled peace with a big P. Teachers re-marked on the list of characters, Weve got flags there, guns, shaking of handsand there I presume prisoners. I wonder what that prisoner has got around theside of his head, peace dead in 1999? This list of characters appeared to accu-rately reflect the internal debate within the Republican movement at this time.

As well as the narrative elements of drama, plot, and characterisation, groupdiscussion also focused on the narrative feature of detachment or distancingmarked by the elision of the personal pronoun indexical device or I. This was afeature common to all of the poems and was interpreted in a number of ways.5

Group discussion encouraged us to consider a narrative and constructionist in-terpretation that recognised the central position language played in the strategicwork of people having various purposes in mind. Specifically, it caused us to re-flect on the place and function of rhetoric in communication as described by the-orists within the discursive psychology strain of social constructionism. We in-terpreted detachment as an example of the silence that was part of the problemin N. Ireland, that is, an example of the ability of children as young as 5 or 6 tounderstand the socially accepted conventions of narrative accounting (see therhetoric of the real; Gergen, 1999)6 connected with the culture of silence andavoidanceWhatever you say, say nothing! Since, a number of commentatorsregard the community culture of silence and avoidance as central to understand-ing the way the sectarian system reinforces itself; this was a very imaginative in-terpretation having profound practical implications. It reinforced our view that acritical pedagogy in N. Irish schools designed to facilitate difficult conversations,incorporating narrative work with students as well as teachers, had to beginearlyvery early.



26

Notes

1. General Certificates of Secondary Education is the public examinations taken at theend of compulsory schooling; approximate age 16.

2. Following the Education Reform (NI) Order 1989, Education for Mutual Under-standing (popularly known as EMU) and Cultural Heritage became closely related andstatutory cross-curricular themes in the North Irish curriculum. Their inclusion withinthe statutory curriculum carried an explicit expectation that teachers would attempt to ad-dress issues relevant to community divisions within contemporary Irish society.

3. Under the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, consent was required for any (unspecified)change in the status of North Ireland (N. Ireland); the Republic of Ireland Governmentwas also given a role, albeit a consultative one, as advocate for North Irish Nationalists(Anderson & Goodman, 1998).

4. The visual text analysis drew on some ideas from the social semiotic approach de-scribed by Gunter Kress (1997).

5. We named this detached peace or peace with a small p.6. Gergens theorising can be located within the discursive strain of constructionism.

Discursive psychologists are interested in the way people employ linguistic resources tobring off versions of events that have desired consequences. Gergen (1999, 2000) was par-ticularly interested in the social rules through which social intercourse was able to takeplace; in other words, the tool bag of conventions (rhetorical or narrative devices) withinsocial groups that people learn to use to fashion socially acceptable accounts or accountsthat sound real to others. He called these conventions the rhetoric of the real. Gergenidentified a number of such conventions within Western cultures, including the use of dis-tancing devices because reality talk was supposed to be about a world out there. How-ever, social rules change from social group to social group. Our tentative yet very imagi-native move was to apply this thinking to the culture of silence process in N. Ireland, theprocess reinforcing sectarianism (Liechty & Clegg, 2001). This issue had not previouslybeen reported in the literature.

APPENDIX AThe Interpretative Community of Peace

Activists and Gergens Imaginative Function:Summary of Content Analysis

ID Theme

IM1 Focused community relations work in schools (all discourse suggesting this was desirable/essential)

IM2 Implications for teaching-learning of childrens early awareness of the levelor the cultural protocols governing communication over sensitive issues

IM3 The desirability of cross-community contact (because e.g. children had diffi-culties envisioning peace)

IM4 Recognition of the desirability of dialogical pedagogy


(continued)



IM5 The teaching-learning implications of primary school children having a global perspective on peace

IM6 Recognition of gender stereotyped views about peace

IM7 Childrens peace stories viewed as underdeveloped thin descriptions and the need for alternative stories that created new possibilities

IM8 The place of storytelling in educational practice, for example, meeting attain-ment targets, developing generative talk, and potential for recognising emotions

Note: An approach to content analysis described by Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach, and Zi-bler (1998) was followed. First, Gergens three functions were regarded as predeter-mined categories, and information units from the participants utterances were as-signed to these categories by two data analysts working separately. The data analyststhen worked together to identify utterances that were jointly assigned, which resultedin units of information being joined together to form categories or themes. They alsoassigned each theme a code or identifying mark. For example, in Appendix A, the iden-tifier IM1 stood for the first theme or category relevant to the imaginative function. Thethemes and codes included in the tables represent the voice of the data analysts.

APPENDIX BThe Education for Mutual Understanding (EMU) andCultural Heritage Coordinators, Appreciative Inquiry,

and Imaginative Thinking: Summary of Content Analysis

ID Theme Example Dialogue

IM1 Need for focused community relations I dont think we try [to shift the bias],work and Im sorry, I dont think we try hard

enough [agreement from others], I think we avoid it and run away from it I would put the case for at least trying to take the bias out, Im not sure that we tackle this Ignorance breeds contempt How can citizen-ship be part of our programme ofstudy when we cant teach our children to be citizens in N. Ireland

IM2 Listening to the students voice I wonder should we do the exercise ofasking the children their thoughts . . . Ithink the last time I would have asked

(continued)

APPENDIX A (continued)

ID Theme



children to do something like that was a long time ago, if ever What type ofpeople are we trying to produce . . . for peace in N. Ireland we need something else . . . the quiet and gentle dont get anywhere

IM3 Collaboration with parents A key requisite for development was the relationship between a school and its parent body . . . this has to be a pre-requisite to doing anything meaning-fulOur practice would need to reflect some partnership with parents in those issues There was a good sug-gestion from one of our group how work could be negotiated with parents in the same way as sex education is introduced . . . that you couldnt take off on this work without that sort ofdialogue with parentsWe had parents in [on a cross-community basis] for a dance . . . the schools came together and did a series of lessons around a cultural dance [again, on a cross-community basis] it was actually re-ceived very well

IM4 Role for the practitioner psychologist Imaginative thinking stimulated in me working in an educational setting (with my participant researcher hat

on) concerned the role of the educa-tional psychologist working in an ed-ucational setting. This referred to the application or transfer of construc-tionist practices used within therapeutic contexts to organisational change processes, such as narrative therapy (White & Epston, 1990) and solution-focused therapy (Berg & de Shazer, 1993)

Note: Where included, the example utterances or dialogue represent the voice of theparticipants. However, the dialogue included in row IM4 represents the voice of the re-searcher as participant.

APPENDIX B (continued)

ID Theme Example Dialogue



APPENDIX C13 Propositions for School-Based Peace Education

Develop teaching-learning approaches that do not avoid controversial issues and that al-low students to engage critically and reflectively with their own background and thatof the other main ethnic and cultural group

Introduce appropriate work such as the aforementioned at an early stage in the nursery/primary school

Expose, name, identify, and understand the conventions within the local community sur-rounding what can and cannot be said, talked about, or done

Have well-organised and -planned cross-community contact programmes where at somestage group membership is made salient and a topic of discussion rather than ignored

Use active/collaborative learning methodsInclude the study of distant places and the local environment from an early ageGive equivalent time to the study of peacekeeping and peacebuilding to that of conflict

and war in the past (see also, Hicks & Holden, 1995)Raise awareness among teachers of institutional sectarianism as well as other institutional

practices that disempowerWork collaboratively with parents to plan, develop, and implement peace education poli-

cies and practicesAllow students to have their voices heard in the design of the curriculumMake storytelling a significant part of curriculum development and the professional de-

velopment of teachers for peacemakingDevelop within schools a personal-communal set of cultural norms rather than rational-

bureaucratic (see also Watkins, 1999)Encourage school improvement approaches that focus as much on learning for change in

self and society as much as on narrowly defined attainment targets and performance

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Ron Smith has spent the past 15 years working as a Northern Irish Local EducationAuthority chartered educational psychologist and educational adviser. He previouslyworked as a youth worker and secondary school teacher. In September 2003, Ron com-pleted his doctoral studies at the University of London, Institute of Education. He iscoauthor of a forthcoming book titled Improving School Effectiveness for Peace. Ad-dress correspondence to Ron Smith, 2 Drumcraig Road, Drumagore, County Londonderry,Northern Ireland, BT47 2SE; E-mail: [email protected].

June Neill is an adviser for community relations and citizenship in a Northern IrishLocal Education Authority. She is a member of a Department of Education NorthernIreland Working Party concerned with improving community relations work in schools.She is also a member of the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) Work-ing Group, devising student materials in preparation for the introduction of a new statu-tory citizenship strand within the Northern Irish curriculum. June is coauthor of a forth-coming book, Improving School Effectiveness for Peace. E-mail: [email protected].



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