6 - Learning Convivencia at School: Lessons on Peaceful Coexistence Policy Enactment from El Salvador

Summary

Introduction

In the last few decades, education policy in Latin America has moved from focusing primarily on increasing school enrolment and improving education quality to education as a force for transforming broader culture. Many policies and programmes related to school convivencia, defined as peaceful coexistence or positive school environment, have been promoted in the last two decades (Morales and Lopez, 2019). An important characteristic of education reforms in Latin America is that they are generally encouraged by regional and global institutions, with homogeneous agendas offered to multiple countries, in the hopes of adapting them to local and national contexts (Gillies, 2010). An ongoing field of research is how national policies – that is, macro-policies – are enacted and the kinds of results that are achieved in generating change at the school or micro-policy level (Ball, 1987; Blase, 2002).

The emphasis on the school as a place to learn convivencia can be traced back to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report by Jacques Delors on the four pillars of education for the 21st century, which states that learning to live together is just as important as learning to learn (Delors, 1996). Learning to live together, or getting along, is considered an aim of education to combat violence, promote participation, cooperation, acceptance of diversity, etc. More recently, UNESCO has proposed fostering child-friendly schools and an improved learning environment, both in terms of physical school infrastructure and social interactions, while also highlighting that school-related, genderbased violence seriously undermines attempts to achieve gender equality in education (UNESCO, 2015). By late 2015, the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals underscored the need for learners to obtain knowledge and skills considered nondisciplinary: human rights, gender equality, peace culture, nonviolence, global citizenship, cultural appreciation, and sustainable development (United Nations, 2015, Goal 4.7).

Another force behind the promotion of school convivencia policies is the situation of violence and inequality in the Latin American region. More than a third of intentional homicides occur in the Americas (UNOCD, 2013