Ruptured Identities: Affective Needs in PostAccord Education for Bosnia–Herzegovina

Abstract

This study, while centered within the scholarship of education reform in postconflict Bosnia–Herzegovina (BiH), shifts the locus of focus from large‐scale debates between international organizations and national political bodies toward a consideration of the individuals within the system on the ground. Through the voices of primary school teachers, directors, and pedagogues across eight cities in BiH, this analysis casts light on the struggles facing children and educators in postconflict BiH today, and administrators and reformers within the education frame these struggles. The article concludes that the shifting and ruptured identities of a postwar generation, combined with the economic and social‐emotional struggles facing these populations, point toward affective challenges encountered on a daily basis as both educators and children make their lives in the day‐to‐day reality of today’s BiH. This framework suggests that dichotomies such as monoethnic/multiethnic and segregated/integrated may be eclipsing more nuanced issues within the practice of education and education reform in BiH. The conversations presented in these pages officer a renewed perspective, critical for scholars of peace studies, as we consider the role of education systems in postaccord societies and the effects they can be expected to bring about.