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This collective response paper concludes the Special Issue on "Revisiting 'Asia as Method' in Education Research: Toward Ontologies and Epistemologies of Difference." The paper provides reflections, constructive critiques, and key learnings from individual papers and the Special Issue as a whole. A key feature of the paper is the dialogue and inter-referencing it fosters among and between the discussants, authors, and academic journals. As decolonization in education is an ongoing struggle, this paper is a call to continue the work for ontological and epistemic justice in/through higher education.

This paper argues for a postcritical praxis in global citizenship education (GCE) and peace education (PE). The paper begins by critiquing the interlocking fields of GCE and PE as problematically framed around the three key pillars of liberal peace. Then, drawing on postabyssal thinking the paper illustrates that the Western-centricity of liberal peacebuilding is not only colonialist/imperialist but that it is an erasure of the other. The paper argues that in light of this realization epistemological pluralism as a transformative response is wanting. Instead new responses must focus on other ontological possibilities grounded in a postcritical response to postabyssal thought. Before concluding, the paper offers some pedagogic possibilities integrating the ontological for a new postcritical GCE and PE.

Higher education has become increasingly diverse in recent years as patterns of migration expand and grow. However, while different linguistic communities are brought together, English is often conceived as the de facto lingua franca for research, teaching and learning. This is perhaps especially so in ethnically diverse conflict-affected settings where English is perceived to be a neutral and unifying language. This study directs attention to two English medium instruction (EMI) universities in two conflict-affected contexts, Afghanistan and Somaliland. Four research questions related to language, conflict and education are proposed. Data for the study was collected through document analysis, interviews and artifacts with 12 university educators and analyzed through a critical cultural political economy and decolonial framework. Findings suggest that while English is strongly desired by various members of the universities, it is also deeply implicated in multiple sources of conflict, calling for a more sensitive approach to teaching.

Purpose: This comparative case study looks towards the diverse approaches of higher education to support peacebuilding, from policy and philosophy to pedagogical practices, in conflict-affected and post-conflict settings. The achievement of global development goals is dependent on addressing access to quality education in conflict-affected contexts, including higher education. However, in settings affected by conflict, higher education is often perceived to be a luxury, not a necessity. This study, then, explores whether and how higher education might support peace and development through the unique perspective of the "three faces" of higher education in conflict contexts. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is designed as a qualitative comparative case study. The research examines the work of university educators in two institutions in Afghanistan and Somaliland, highlighting the challenges and opportunities they face working in conflict-affected societies and their pedagogical responses to conflict. Data for the research were collected through in-depth interviews, documents, and digital artifacts with 12 university educators across the two institutions. The faculty teach a wide variety of subjects in the social sciences and humanities, subjects including and in addition to those specific to peace and development studies. To strengthen the interpretation of data, multiple coders were involved and intercoder reliability was conducted. Findings: Findings indicate a number of challenges and opportunities that university lecturers and their institutions face in teaching for peace in conflict-affected contexts, particularly as it relates to the "three faces" of higher education to support, impede, or reveal the complicated nuances of peacebuilding in conflict settings. Member-checking was employed with participants to enhance the reliability of the analysis. Originality/value: In the end, the paper contributes new empirical insights into higher education in conflict-affected contexts, particularly from the standpoint of faculty. Critical perspectives and implications for curriculum, pedagogy and research are offered.

Universities and scholars around the world teach and research extensively in the field of peace education; yet, despite a plethora of diverse scholarship, educational programs are often critiqued as dominated by the English-speaking world. This paper employs the intersecting lenses of decolonization and postcolonial theory to explore and challenge the perceived dominance of Western literature and practice. Using a criss-crossing comparison method, English and Korean literatures are compared to ascertain the extent of Western-centricity within Korean higher education peace studies, and to offer a critical discussion of liberal peacebuilding, and linear problem-solving models within the literatures. Counter-arguments and policy recommendations are considered. The paper concludes that for peace education to fulfill its mission, global educational decolonization movements need to be strengthened. It is argued that efforts toward decolonization of Korean peace education could support the global movement toward a more socially just peace education for the twenty-first century.

This paper argues for a decolonial praxis in critical peace education. Drawing on an integrative review method, the paper synthesises approaches, practices, and theories from peace and peace education literature with special attention paid to the concepts of critical peace education, cosmopolitanism, postcolonial thought, and decolonial action. The paper particularly explores the philosophical contributions of postcolonial and decolonial thought and how each could help toward decolonising approaches for critical peace education. The concept of 'structural violence' is critiqued as obfuscating individual responsibility. Insights are drawn here from the closely related field of global citizenship education that argues for a focus less on empathy and more on causal responsibility. Before concluding, the paper discusses a 'pedagogy for the privileged' and 'pedagogy of discomfort' that both might better support a decolonial praxis for critical peace education in theory and practice.

Peace and conflict studies (PACS) higher education is a blossoming field. Literature (both conceptual and conjectural) and research (theoretical and empirical) has proliferated in recent decades. This paper details case findings from an ethnographic study with university-based PACS educators completed at one University of The United Nations in 2015. The six-month ethnography involved document analysis, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews with 25 peace scholars and 108 postgraduate students. Data was thematically coded and analyzed using concepts from critical race/critical Whiteness studies. This paper outlines the study and explores the theme of Whiteness that emerged from data. Findings point toward the cultural reproduction of Whiteness in the faculty, pedagogy, and institution. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications concerning global equity and 'post-structural violence' in PACS education, as well as a call for further research into the role of peacebuilding education in broader social change.

Three gaps seem to be present within the literature of peace education: relatively little self-critique of the internal workings of the field; a dearth of studies featuring the personal narratives of peace educators; and an underrepresentation of peace educators from the Global South. To address these three gaps, this qualitative investigation explores the personal narratives of Latin American, Asian and African peace educators and critiques certain assumptions and norms underlying the field. We primarily draw on Galtung's concept of cultural violence, Bajaj's critical peace education and Connell's Southern Theory to make our critiques. We examine 13 semi-structured interviews using grounded theory analysis. Three themes relating to cultural and structural violence emerge from these interviews: discriminatory hurdles for Southern peace educators, intercultural tensions in the classroom and linguistic inequality in opportunities for professional mobility. These may or may not reflect the experiences of other peace educators from the Global South or minority practitioners working within the Global North. But by discussing these forms of violence, we hope to show the value of foregrounding the perspectives and lived experiences of underrepresented groups -- not only in peace education but also in academia more broadly.

Peace in and through education has become an important educational development agenda. It has been included in human rights frameworks since 1948, and is emphasized in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Yet, there are few studies examining how Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) scholars, and by extension the institutions they embody, translate this agenda into the classroom. This paper then critically examines how PACS scholars from one United Nations higher education peace institution understand, practice and experience the challenges and contradictions of teaching for peace in the twenty-first century. In the study, data were collected through semi-structured interviews, participant observations, and document analysis with 25 PACS lecturers and 108 postgraduate students. Findings suggest that despite aspirations toward the liberal peace ideals of international understanding, equity and democratic peacebuilding as expressed by scholars and in peace studies literature, the practice of higher education peace pedagogy is instead imbued with ethnic, cultural, and gendered inequities. Some scholars articulated awareness of this while many others were more optimistic of the positive social change proclaimed through peace studies. Theoretical implications and two pedagogic strategies for peace are discussed.

This paper draws on the theoretical lens of diffraction to conceptualize a new approach to transrational peace education theory and praxis in the post-2016 posttruth political era and Industry 4.0 economic period. The paper reviews foundational concepts and approaches from key founders of the field -- Paulo Freire and Betty Reardon -- before turning to two contemporary peace education scholars -- Wolfgang Dietrich and Hilary Cremin -- to investigate the contributions of recent scholarship toward diverse diffractive possibilities for transrational peace education. In this sense, diffraction offers pluralistic views and transformative possibilities for transrational peace education in varied contexts. Transrational peace education builds upon peace education to integrate affective and aesthetic perspectives into peace education theory and praxis. Before concluding, we offer some theoretical implications and pedagogic responses for scholars seeking to work at diffractive transrational intersections. The contribution of the paper is toward theorizing new perspectives for transrational peace education theory and praxis in the 21st century.

This research is a philosophical study into the potentialities of realising a poststructural democratic education through considering the reflections of educators involved in various "democratic" educational programmes. Utilising the conceptual tools of Biesta (2006), as inspired by Arendt (1998), this study explores what it would entail to create a non-individual, non-instrumental, "action"-oriented democratic education. It seeks to do this motivated by a lacuna of research into the question of translating a poststructural educational theory into practice. The findings reveal that the educational programmes that the educators are involved with resemble poststructural ideas in their pedagogy, and most notably in their educational structures, but the guiding philosophy and overall aims of the programmes appear to endorse more moderate visions of democratic education. In taking this idea further, this study suggests that the enactment of poststructural democratic education demands a social context that too is democratic in the poststructural way envisioned. In this way, it can be said that this research exposes the limitations and challenges of the realisation of such a philosophy where the surrounding climate is not in harmony with its ideals, as it would remain disconnected from the very society it seeks to democratically interact with.

This study examines the contribution of university educators toward prefiguratively creating tomorrow today in the higher education classroom. Educators often teach for peace and social justice through a variety of normative pedagogical frameworks. Yet, this linkage of pedagogy and prefigurative politics in university classrooms is frequently under-examined. Moreover, such research has not yet been conducted within the context of Korea. Hence, this paper investigates – through a qualitative case study methodology – the varied approaches to pedagogy for social change in Korean universities today, including but not limited to: (a) democratic pedagogy, (b) critical pedagogy, (c) peace and social justice pedagogy, and (d) decolonial pedagogy. The paper examines these intersectional pedagogies through the lens of prefigurative politics, which is understood as a form of praxis that attempts to (re)construct through education a more just society. Findings indicate challenges and opportunities that Korean university educators face today in teaching for social change in higher education classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines higher education for peace inside the United Nations (UN). It offers an overview and synthesis of core concepts, organizing frameworks and theoretical premises in the field of peace and conflict studies (PACS) higher education and in the UN universities in particular, as the field aspires toward transformative learning and social justice. The article then critically analyzes the ways in which the field might perpetuate structural and cultural violence and offers implications for the UN universities. In these critiques, I call for further inquiry into the taken-for-granted assumptions of the field and suggest greater criticality along with enhanced empathy and hope for PACS education in the 21st century.

This paper examines the role of United Nations (UN) peace academics in teaching for peace within the UN higher education system, and questions what contribution, if any, UN peacebuilding education makes to the broader field of peace and conflict studies education, and in the lives of the people it touches. The study draws on ethnographic data collected over a six-month period at one UN university in 2015. The data collection period involved participant observation, interviews with faculty and postgraduate students, document analysis, and surveys with learners. Findings suggest tensions and contradiction in the university around issues of UN mimicry, Western-centrism, state domination, and institutional capitalism. Implications are briefly addressed and recommendations provided.

Peace and conflict studies (PACS) education in recent decades has become a popular approach to social justice learning in higher education institutions (Harris, Fisk, and Rank 1998; Smith 2007; Carstarphen et al. 2010; Bajaj and Hantzopoulos 2016) and has been provided legitimacy through a number of different United Nations (UN) declarations (UNESCO 1974, 1995; UN 2000, 2015). To explore and map the field of PACS, this article examines the intersections of higher education peace studies and UN-inspired peace and human rights education. The author designed an ethnographic case study to explore lecturers' understandings and enactments of peace teaching (Stake 1995; Denzin 1997; Yin 2003). The study involved participant observation and semi-structured interviews with 25 higher education peace scholars and 108 postgraduate students. The article first details the outcomes of the integrative and multilingual literature review, then outlines the university context and analytic tenets of neoliberalism. Following that, classroom observations and interviews were drawn to bring forward three emergent ideas for discussion. Three critiques and possibilities for higher education peace studies in the 21st century are presented.

Higher education has become an important agenda in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. A major aspect of this agenda is the conceptualization of education as a tool not just for development but for peacebuilding. Yet there are few studies examining how university educators might be equipped as frontline peace workers. This study explores: How might conflict affect teaching in higher education, especially in and with students from conflict-affected contexts? In what ways does higher education pedagogy serve to ameliorate or exacerbate conflict? How could the practices of academics working with students in conflict-affected contexts inform approaches to higher education pedagogy? Data for the study was collected through interviews with university educators working in Afghanistan and Somaliland, and analyzed through the lens of Santos's 'post-abyssal thinking'. Findings indicate that educators who work in conflict-affected contexts have numerous practical strategies that inform their thinking, curricular decisions, teaching, and policymaking. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Korean society has rapidly experienced increasing multiculturalism for over two decades. This qualitative case study explores Korean teachers' conceptualizations and implementation of multicultural education with/for multicultural students in middle schools in Seoul, Korea. Interviews were conducted with six Korean middle school teachers experienced in teaching multicultural students. The findings reveal diverse perspectives and practices of multicultural education with the teachers demonstrating increased pedagogical flexibility and reflexivity in their teaching practices. This contributes to a more inclusive learning environment that embraces diversity and fosters inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]