The aim of this article is twofold: first, it seeks to discuss the relationship between democracy and colonization, and to examine the implications of this relationship for democratic education and, second, it turns to decolonial thinking as a resource for critiquing and reconstructing "radical democratic education." A decolonial…

The present study examines individuals' thinking during and after reading controversial historical accounts and the possible contribution of epistemic beliefs, emotions, and prior-knowledge in this context. Young adults (n = 39) were asked to read two accounts about a recent war in their country, an own-side account -- from a historian of their…

This article argues that there is an urgent need to engage with a deeper analysis of the contemporary culture of "political depression" and its affective implications in human rights education (HRE). In particular, the article focuses on the following questions: How might a theorization of political depression be relevant to efforts that…

This paper argues that a decolonising approach in human rights education (HRE) needs to examine human rights issues through a critical lens that interrogates the Eurocentric grounding of human rights universals and advances the project of re-contextualising human rights in the historical horizon of modernity/coloniality. This alternative…

The main objective of this article is to discuss the affective dimension of resistance in critical pedagogy in a way that would recognize neoliberalism's affective repercussions. The point is not merely to show that affect is involved in the emergence of resistance in critical pedagogy, but rather to expand the articulation of resistance in…

The aim of the article is to describe and analyze the strategies used by teachers in their everyday encounters with those who express concerns towards peace education--parents, colleagues, head teachers, and students. The analysis uses a theoretical framework that builds upon critical peace education and brings into conversation the notions of…

In this article we discuss how the design of a higher education language course can challenge the power of sentimentality in the classroom. In particular, the paper analyses the role of literature in intercultural language education through the lens of affect theory, while focusing on minimizing sentimentality in the classroom, especially when the…

This article explores the ways in which a group of primary school teachers in Cyprus interprets the relationship between religious and citizenship education. The contextualisation of the meaning of religious education shows the extent to which social, historical and political elements shape teachers' perceptions about the entanglements between…

This article explores some of the tensions that are created from the entanglement of religion and human rights and offers a possible response to these tensions in the context of religious education in conflict-troubled societies. It is suggested that a historicised and politicised approach in religious education in conjunction with human rights…

This article explores the ways in which a fifth-grade class of Greek Cypriot students and their teacher perceived and negotiated the meanings of empathy for the "other" in the context of ethnic conflict in Cyprus. The findings suggest that the process of engaging with empathy is full of fractures and failures, possibilities and…

In this essay, the author attempts to complicate the reading of nostalgia in the cultural politics of education, arguing that the blind rhetoric of nostalgia for an idealized past can and should be critiqued in productive ways. Despite some literature addressing the consequences of nostalgia in the context of teaching, little has been done towards…

In this paper we examine Greek-Cypriot teachers' positions towards the--largely unfamiliar--concept of reconciliation within the Greek-Cypriot community. Looking at a set of 40 interviews conducted in spring 2009, this study is set against the broader historical context of the continuing Cyprus Problem and the development of ethnic rivalry between…

How can educators and their students interrogate the ethics and politics of suffering in ways that do not create fixed and totalized narratives from the past? In responding to this question, this essay draws on J. M. Coeetze's "Disgrace," and discusses how this novel constitutes a crucial site for bearing witness to the suffering…