Journal of Transformative

Education
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Examining the Possibilities of School Transformation for Peace in

Northern Ireland from a Narrative Perspective
Ron Smith and June Neill
Journal of Transformative Education 2005; 3; 6
DOI: 10.1177/1541344604270863
The online version of this article can be found at:
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Examining the Possibilities

of School Transformation for
Peace in Northern Ireland
from a Narrative Perspective
Ron Smith
June Neill
Against a backdrop of slow progress toward a more peaceful and pluralist society in
Northern Ireland, the research reported in this article addresses the transformative
potential of narrative modes of professional learning. Phrases such as the storied nature of human conduct admirably embodied our narrative stance. Peace poems were
elicited from children and young people, and a sample of these was then discussed interpretatively by groups of experienced teachers and educators supported by practices
from the organisational development approach called Appreciative Inquiry. The
story-based approach proved to be an empowering and sensitive way to develop a language of possibility for action. Narrative ideas and approaches were found to be extremely powerful tools for challenging that most obdurate of barriers to the transformation of schooling for peacethe culture of silence that discourages open
discussion 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 of
silence; change

Authors Note: The authors are two experienced educational practitioners having
different but overlapping relationships with schools. Ron Smith is a chartered educational psychologist working in a Northern Irish Education and Library Board
(similar to a Local Education Authority in England or Wales). June Neill works as an
adviser for community relations and citizenship in the same Education and Library
Board. The authors would like to thank Chris Watkins, University of London, Institute of Education, for all his help and support and Will McWhinney, editor of the
Journal of Transformative Education, for his patience and helpful advice on earlier
drafts of this article.
Journal of Transformative Education Vol. 3 No. 1, January 2005 6-32
DOI: 10.1177/1541344604270863
2005 Sage Publications
6
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School Transformation for Peace

Introduction
Do we want Peace? Is it something we want,
or something that we reality need? its not just about the
Bombings, 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 stop
Bombings, shooting and killing.
N.I would be a start, then Europe, then the world,
It can happen, if they grow up and stop
Bombing, shooting and killing.
Is it just a word or does it have a meaning
Maybe we'll find out if all the
Bombing, shooting and killing ends
How do we know we've got it
Will it tell us or is it afraid to happen until the
Bombing, 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 background and the existence in N. Ireland of an internationally endorsed Peace Accord (the 1998 Belfast or Good Friday Agreement), Maeves understanding of
peace revealed feelings of great powerlessness and appeared depressingly underdeveloped. Peace still seemed to be conceived of in terms of an either/or logic or
binary opposition between Peace or War? Maeve then asked, Do we want
peace? Is it just a word or does it have a meaning? How do we know weve got
it? Finally, she pleaded for adults to Stop and think about the younger generation.
Michael Longley, one of N. Irelands most respected poets from the generation
of Heaney, was reported to have said that it is up to artists in the community to
forge a new dialogue to help resolve the Irish troubles (Lynch, 2001). Consequently, our ongoing research used the poetic art to shed light on the social and
political context within contemporary Ireland as seen by young people and then
used their writing to foster new dialogue among professionals in education. Our
work was designed to make a difference to teaching and learning for community
relations. It developed out of a shared interest and commitment to transformaDownloaded from http://jtd.sagepub.com by simona ponea on October 4, 2009

Journal of Transformative Education / January 2005

tion of educational practice that would contribute to the politics of democratic

citizenship, social justice, and peace.

Relevant Themes From the Literature

Before offering an account of this work, we need to place it within some
broader ecological frameworks and relevant theoretical and empirical literatures.
THE NORTHERN IRELAND CONFLICT

The conflict in N. Ireland (known colloquially as the troubles) is a complex

one, much more so than television coverage would suggest. In its present form,
the conflict represents a tangle of interrelated issues (Dunn, 1995), a struggle between divergent forms of nationalist aspiration, ethnicity, and oppression against
a background of widespread social and economic deprivation (Lovett, Gillespie,
& Gunn, 1995). Dunn (1995) regarded it as an interethnic dispute, whereas Connolly (1999) made reference to conflict between ethnically defined Protestants
and Catholics.
The Belfast Peace Agreement ushered in a radically changed environment for
community relations in N. Ireland. However, to imagine that we had crossed
some invisible rubicon where social conflict magically disappeared would be
nave. A realistic assessment of the present peace process suggests that reconciliation remains as yet an unfulfilled dream. As a number of commentators have
suggested, the end to widespread violence and accompanying political accommodations 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. People live, socialise, work, and shop in areas where they feel safe (Leitch & Kilpatrick, 1999). Consequently, a distinctive characteristic of the school system is its
segregated nature. The vast majority of children and teachers attend schools that
can be described as either Protestant (controlled schools) or Catholic (maintained schools). As Gallagher (1992) remarked, most schools were characterised
by the religious homogeneity of their staff and students. There has been a trend
toward integrated schools, although currently only 5% of the students attend
such institutions (Naylor, 2003).
Given that the most pressing problems facing people within the province are
for peace, political stability, and reconciliation, one might have expected that this
priority would have been reflected in major initiatives to improve schooling. Not
so! Under direct rule, the education system in N. Ireland is a replication of developments in England. Consequently, during the late 1980s and 1990s there was a
growth in the influence of policy frameworks designed to align public sector organisations with the methods, cultures, and ethical systems of private sector organisations (see e.g., Smith, 1998). Ball (2003) described the processes and effects
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School Transformation for Peace

of this realignment as the terrors of performativity. Privileged within performative cultures were discourses that emphasised technical-rational and structural
approaches to school improvement, where, for example, success was defined in
narrow instrumental terms and change was conceived of in terms of a mechanical journey along predetermined routes. Regimes of performativity encourage
practices and relationships antithetical to social justice and democratic school
outcomes. As Ball suggested, within such cultures, what mattered were outputs
rather than beliefs, values, or authentic relationships.
Only 3 months before the Good Friday Peace Agreement, the Education Minister (Tony Worthington) launched the N. Ireland School Improvement Programme (Department of Education N. Ireland, 1998), which was described as a
blueprint for education in the millennium. It defined success in terms of a narrow range of outputs such as success in mathematics and English and the proportion of students attaining higher grades in five subjects at General Certificate
of Secondary Education.1 Absent from the programme was any vision of how
schools were situated in the province or of the relationship between the practices
of schooling and the conditions of peace.
THE SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS (PHASE 1) STUDY

Gallagher (1995) remarked that we did not yet know what shape Education for
2
Mutual Understanding (EMU) 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 lesson, element, or unit of work they had delivered that met the EMU objectives.
Given the declared purposes behind EMU work, an extraordinary feature of our
findings was the widespread absence of classroom pedagogy that enabled students to discuss and reflect on issues directly related to the N. Ireland conflict and
its religious or political ramifications. This confirmed what many others suspected. Furthermore, our results suggested that when it came to having a say or
being allowed to air their views on issues of relevance to school-based community relations policy and practice, the voices of students were mostly silenced, disqualified, 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 peace
education that most teachers seemed unwilling or unable to tackle. Their views
and opinions on school-based work were extremely perceptive, albeit they varied
in relation to such factors as the location of the school (in a more or less troubled
area), socioeconomic status, religion, age, and gender. The 11-year-old children
from more politicised areas were most motivated to discuss divisive issues,
whereas some male rural Protestants were extremely negative, fatalistic, and exhibited more sectarian exchanges in discussion than any others:
I think there should be more systems like EMU, there is not enough systems for
the childrens voice to be heard by adults, to say what we feel about it . . . more
different types of programmes. (Catholic primary school student)
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10 Journal of Transformative Education / January 2005

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

The parents (mainly mothers) in this study also shared the characteristic of having their voices silenced when it came to participation in school-based community
relations policy making. Contrary to the expectations of most teachers, there was
very good support for work such as prejudice reduction, discussion of controversial issues, and the exploration of issues about ethnicity. This view was more prevalent among urban parents of all socioeconomic circumstances, for example,
I want to say my point of view here [very forcefully] right, everybody says that
3
the Anglo-Irish Agreement is a bit of historywhy not teach it, I cant understand! My wee lad learnt about the Vikings . . . thats fair enough . . . but what
has the Vikings to do with us? Fair enough, this is a piece of history and everybody says the children are the generation that are growing up in peace but
theyre not taught about it . . . so how are they going to grow up in peace . . . they
are only taught our opinions. (Protestant primary school parent)
Catholic primary school parent: Its such an important thing [the Peace Agreement] and
they 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 looked
at both sides of the N. Ireland troubles?
Parent: No . . . I think it would be brilliant . . . especially to see the other side . . . they have
their opinions.

The factors mediating central government policy at the school level, as seen by
three key sets of players (teachers, students, and parents), were explored in some
depth. The indicators of what made a Good school for peace were found not to
be self-contained but interact in complex ways creating different patterns at different organisational sites.
In one school for example, an extremely strong public story or local community narrative about being under siege mediated peace education practice. This
was a small coeducational Protestant institution situated in the rural northwest of
N. Ireland. The school catchment was overwhelmingly Republican, and as a consequence, the Protestant community was in a minority. This siege story defined
characters (Catholics and Protestants) and an emplotment involving negative intentions toward Protestants by Catholics. Themes that emerged through this plot
included the belief held by some Protestant students that participation in school
approaches designed to investigate the traditions and customs of the other main
community would only serve to position them as traitors amongst their own. The
student subculture in this school was also seen to play an important role in shaping the nature and form of teachers community relations practice, illustrating the
capacity of students to act as critical reality definers (Woods, 1990). For example,
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School Transformation for Peace

11

When it comes to the 12th July [Protestant festival] all them [Catholics] are trying to burn you out and everything. They tried to burn this school down three
times 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, they
burnt the Orange hall . . . dirty brutes . . . peace will never be here, there is not a
hope of stopping the fighting. Oh the school tries, but there is nothing they can
do. Keep ourselves to ourselves, thats what I say. (Protestant rural secondary
school student)

The culturally ubiquitous narrative that discourages open discussion on the

causes and consequences of division, particularly in the company of people from
the other side (the other main cultural tradition), was reflected in the practice of
teachers. The following story was told by a Protestant student shortly before going 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 black
marks on the heads of teachers or pupils; anyway, there was this Library lady
who had one on her head, I couldnt stop for looking and I asked my mum and
Gran because I didnt know about it and they said it had something to do with
St. Patrick.

Then there was the staff in another school who referred to the difficulties of
doing more focused or cutting-edge work because we hide behind a lot of political correctness in N. Ireland and not wanting to cause offence. By not mentioning controversial issues related to conflict value-laden issues such as politics and
religion, people in everyday interaction concentrate on interpersonal or nongroup-related issues (Gallagher, 1998). The aforementioned anecdote concerning
the Protestant boys visit to another school also illuminated the way in which
myths could easily be perpetuated by the failure to address controversial issues in
the classroom. As one parent remarked, If they dont get it from the school then
they are going to get it somewhere else.
Teachers beliefs about community relations practice and their views about
childrens social and cognitive abilities (or inabilities) were strongly associated
with community relations outcomes. The construction of learners and learning
for peace in terms of individual experience appeared to be greatly overvalued.
This was reflected in teachers beliefs in the power of personality development to
influence change in wider social relationships between groups in conflict and the
widely held connected view that prejudice was an intraindividual characteristic.
Across all case study schools, students understanding of the N. Irish political
situation and conflict was found to greatly exceed the expectations of most teachers. 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; a
lot of them would be completely lost so you might be shaping things and you
could be inculcating things by approaching the subject too early.

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12 Journal of Transformative Education / January 2005

A colleague expressed the view that it would probably be the brighter ones that
you would ever think about say, trying to explain the issue of stereotyping. This
sort of professional discourse supported Rudduck, Chaplain, and Wallaces (1996)
conclusion that children in school were not normally regarded as socially competent when it came to making decisions on a range of issues and this bracketing
out of their voice was founded upon an outdated view of childhood which failed
to 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 particularly ill-suited to meeting the challenges of contributing toward school transformation for a peaceful and democratic society. Instrumental strategies having
narrow interpretations of performance and technical-rational performance management approaches focused on increased efficiency and reliability appeared to
dominate the improvement agenda (see e.g., Clarke, Lodge, & Reed, 1998; Lodge
& Reed, 2001; Smith, 1998). Consequently, we argued that an alternative improvement paradigm was necessary, one that opened vistas for action taking account 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 and
whose knowledge is sequestered or hidden from view);
the need to engage the voices of those who have been silenced, disqualified, or
subjugated (see also Lodge & Reed, 2001);
the social and micropolitical nature of schooling, its multiple perspectives, and
complexities;
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 encourage the development of an optimistic frame within the management of
change (see also Daiute & Lightfoot, 2004; Gergen, 1996).

Narrative thinking was considered to best capture the aforementioned design

features. This is a viewpoint or stance within psychology that is interested in the
storied nature of human conduct (Sarbin, 1986). The stance that met our understanding and intentions was something much more substantive than the traditional understanding of narrative as limited to a form of representation that
made sense (see Somers & Gibson, 1998). Our position is reflected in phrases
such as the storied nature of human conduct (Sarbin, 1986) and is more appropriately abbreviated as the narrative construction of reality (Wagner &
Watkins, in press). This is the idea that all human beings live their lives according

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School Transformation for Peace

13

to stories that reflect the meanings they make of events; stories both describe and
shape peoples lives (Nylund, 2002).
In the narrative metaphor, stories have recognisable elements such as events
and 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 (and
act in) their own lives and those attached to larger cultural and institutional formations such as the family or school. Somers and Gibson (1998), for example, referred 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 that
narrative accounts conformed to foundational story forms such as the tragedy,
comedy, satire, or romance. Later he concluded that it was more realistic to think
in terms of some rudimentary narratives, such as the stable, regressive, and progressive, which underpinned a potentially infinite variety of stories (Gergen,
1999).
Narrative beliefs and practices share the theoretical underpinnings of postmodern social constructionist thought. Social constructionist views are characterised by commonalities such as a critical stance toward taken-for-granted
knowledge, the view that truths are constructed by people and sustained by social
processes, and the belief that such constructions of the world sustain some patterns of social action and not others (Burr, 1995, 2002). Postmodernism indexes,
for example, multiple identities and sociohistoric contingencies that position
people in power systems (Gergen, 1996; Kvale, 1994).
The narrative construction of reality suggests that the way stories construct experience can be examined by deconstructing the texts (written, spoken, visual,
etc.) in which they appear; taking them apart and showing how they work to
present people with a particular version of the world (Burr, 2002). The aim is to
analyse the language, stories, and narratives that constitute selves and consider
the implications and permutations of these for individuals and society. This involves interpretation and the investigator engaging in an interpretative relationship with the transcript (Crossley, 2000, p. 88).

Plotting Transformation: Taking a Narrative View

This section describes how knowledge was constructed in relation to the following research questions:
What are the dominant stories used by children and young people to construct
peace?
Do the poetic narratives children and young people write about peace tell us
about the social construction of individual experience?
What happens when poetic narratives derived from children and young people
are presented to educationalists for interpretation and analysis in the spirit of Appreciative Inquiry (AI)? What practical propositions for change are created? Can

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14 Journal of Transformative Education / January 2005

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

Reconfiguring our research approach to maintain consistency with narrative

thinking, as well as advance a concept of humanity aimed at transforming community relations, presented us with an interesting challenge. Inspiration for a creative way forward came from Gergen (1996, 1999) and postmodern literary theory (e.g., Fish, 2000). Gergen suggested that constructionism placed no particular
constraints or demands on scholars in terms of preferred visions of the future.
There was, however, a tendency to develop practices that favoured communalism
over individualism, independence over individualism, and participation over hierarchical decision making. Two improvement projects were developed using poetic narratives as catalysts for dialogue with ideas from the collaborative (AI)
model of social inquiry. With the first author as coparticipant or active agent, experienced educators and teachers were asked to take part in interpretative and appreciative communities of narrative analysts.
PROJECT 1

The interpretative community of peace activists (ICPA), formed by five teachers, joined this project because they held positions of some strategic importance
in terms of developing community relations policy across N. Ireland. With established track records in cross-community development in contexts characterised
by high levels of communal conflict, poverty, and disadvantage, they also had
great street credibility. The ICPA included two Education and Library Board
Community Relations Advisers, the Coordinator of a cross-border (N. IrelandRepublic of Ireland) Citizenship Development Project, the Education Officer for
a unique creative arts centre providing multimedia training and education
throughout N. Ireland, and the Development Worker for a citizenship project organised by a well-known nongovernmental organisation.
Despite widespread communal tensions resulting from conflict in parts of the
province, the ICPA met five times during the summer months of 2001. The meetings typically lasted in excess of 4 hours. All the sessions were recorded and later
transcribed by the first author. Within both projects a low-moderator-involved
focus group style of facilitation was adopted (see D. L. Morgan, 1997). In other
words, except for posing a small number of questions following the appreciative
inquiry approach, the group sessions were unstructured. The questions included
the following: What strikes you most about the poems? What can we learn from
these? What practices could develop from your learning?
PROJECT 2

This project involved collaborative work with professionals who were engaged
with school-based peace education. They were all middle or senior managers who
held responsibility for the coordination of the closely related and statutory curriculum elements called Education for Mutual Understanding and Cultural Heritage. Our involvement followed a request to help with the preparation, presentaDownloaded from http://jtd.sagepub.com by simona ponea on October 4, 2009

School Transformation for Peace

15

tion, and follow-up of two centrally organised professional development wholeday courses on the theme Developing EMU and Citizenship in the Primary
School. On both days, for a considerable part of each day, we worked separately
with groups of approximately 15 teachers to facilitate the narrative analyses. Plenary sessions always followed group sessions. The first authors group gave permission to have their discussions recorded and the transcripts used for research
purposes.
THE PEACE POEMS

Childrens poetry was collected during the first phase of our work. Teachers
were 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 coded
and used in conjunction with the the numbers in a hat process (random selection procedure) to choose a small number for narrative analysis at the beginning
of each session.
APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY

AI is a radically different approach to organisational development and the

management of change, deeply conjoined with social constructionist thinking
(Cooperrider, Sorensen, & Whitney, 2000). In distinction to conventional change
procedures, AI lays less emphasis on problem solving and more on fostering innovation in social-organisational arrangements. The emphasis on appreciation
springs from the concept of the appreciative eye in art, where it is said that
within every piece of art one might locate beauty (Gergen, 1999). In the AI approach, the framework for collective action includes asking a series of questions
beginning with one designed to foster an appreciation of the best of what there is
within an organisation (or a particular theme or issue) and a vision based on
what the institution might look like. The process continues with participants collaborating and dialoguing over what should be and finally what can be. Vocabularies 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 stimulate transformation. He adopted poetry as a basic instrument for transforming
social life and social institutions because change was felt to depend on processes
or functions having some features in common with the qualities possessed by
poetry; he referenced features such as
1. catalytic processes: the unsettling of common habits of mind or moving people
into new spaces of meaning;
2. imaginative processes: the stimulation of imagination in oneself and others
not just an unfreezing of the settled but the generation of a discourse that created an
image of the future that excited, enticed, and enthused;
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16 Journal of Transformative Education / January 2005

3. aesthetic/metonymic reflection: processes or functions bearing some similarity
to the counselling concept of empathy where
One persons moves in a conversation will validate, affirm or reflect the others
moves . . . ones actions or utterances will help to constitute the others action in
their own terms, and in so doing, also re-constitute oneself. This does not mean
duplicating or agreeing fully with what the other has done or said. Rather, ones
actions will be a partial, provisional, and ambiguous reverberation of the other
reflecting the other in oneself. In effect, the other is aligned more fully with oneself. (Gergen, 2000, p. 6)

Gergens theorising inspired us to use his poetic functions in a content analysis 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 sample
of dialogue from the extensive and rich data we collected to illustrate our argument, that is, that narrative dialogues provided supportive contexts for poetic as
well as peace activism. Included as Appendices A and B are summaries of the content 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 listen
We are no different from each other
But may be different religion
We are forgetting that children are the future
But how can they live like this
Peace, what is peace?
(Rachaels text: Year 7, average age 11, Catholic school)

Michael White (1995), a pioneer in the field of narrative therapy, described

underdeveloped problem-saturated stories as thin descriptions. Likewise, he
coined the term rich descriptions to refer to alternative stories that created new
possibilities for living (A. Morgan, 2002). It was illuminating and alarming to discover that only one out of eight randomly selected poems could be read as projecting 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 school
years 5 through 7.
Like Maeve, whose text opened this article, Rachael wrote about feelings of
helplessness and powerlessness. However, Rachael was a final-year primary student, and recognition by the ICPA and EMU coordinators that children could
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School Transformation for Peace

17

Figure 1: A Summary of the Key Elements of Childrens Peace Stories in Years 5

Through 7 (Average Ages 9 to 11)

leave primary schooling without even being able to imagine a peaceful future was
alarming. Furthermore, notwithstanding the high levels of social understanding
and knowledge demonstrated by our young poets, critical reflection led us to
conclude that their stories portrayed a very weak sense of peace as any sort of positive, active, or dynamic process (see e.g., Galtung, 1969, 1985). This suggested
that 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 process
of what peace might be and whether I [student] have any role in it or is anything
there I can do that makes any bloody odds . . . theres nothing in there . . . they
do not see peace as a journey or process, something thats an ongoing striving
for not necessarily always achieved.
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18 Journal of Transformative Education / January 2005

The improvement projects provided supportive contexts for productive professional dialogue and poetic activism. A number of very practical suggestions for
developing a more richly described peace education were created that we later
formulated as a set of principles titled 13 Propositions for Improving School-Based
Peace 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 be
very useful. Im thinking about the structure in some of the schools Im working 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 drive
this because its very difficult to draw them into it. . . . I think these poems would
help generate these sorts of discussions.
DOMINANT DISCOURSES CONSTRUCTING INSTITUTIONAL LIFE:
RECOGNISING FORMS OF OPPRESSION

Whether society and their schools should concentrate on achieving historical

commonality (assimilationist story) or celebrate cultural diversity (diversity and
inclusivity story) arose as a strong difference of perspective among some of the
teachers within our Phase 1 study. One head teacher, for example, said that he
would rather his pupils heard about how we were all the sameall Gods children. On the other hand, two other school leaders articulated a position of
needing to acknowledge difference and not make students feel difference was
wrong (Smith, 2001b). The following phrase in Rachaels poem engendered
much discussion on account of the suggestion that she had internalised an assimilationist story as a subtext to her view of the world: Protestants and
Catholics were really no different from each other, just different religions. J had
absolutely no doubt that schools played a significant part in this type of identity
development: You could see that theyve been told that we are no different from
each other; teachers plant these ideas very strongly in kids heads . . . oh, we are
no different from each other.
The ICPA considered the minimising of religious and political differences inherent in the assimilationist story to be the flip side of the coin to the magnification of difference (separation story). Where these existed, both were felt to be instances of institutional sectarianism and very thin stories that held back peace
education. As Freire (1972) recognised, sectarianism in any quarter was an obstacle to the emancipation of people. Consequently, work in schools that enabled
teachers to recognise and then debate the dominant social discourses constructing social life was thought to be essential. Without this degree of attention to the
deep level of school cultures, then no amount of surface-level curricular innovation (e.g., citizenship or values education) was thought likely to be capable of
penetrating the pervasive and problematic culture of silence or lead to transformed educational institutions. This led to some very creative reflection on the
advantages of using the narrative or story-based approach more widely through-

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School Transformation for Peace

19

out the education system as a socially transformative school improvement initiative (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 bottles
Like 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 dominated school knowledge, with important consequences for the self-understanding
of students. Because of the negation of the social or of what passed between people, such conditions were antithetical to the promotion of peace as social harmony. Narrative modes of professional learning were found to provide effective
contexts for the critique of mainstream institutions. Within the ICPA, it led to a
recognition that routine classroom activities could easily become value-laden acts
used unwittingly to recruit children into a citizenship of passive conformity, a citizenship that represented the antithesis of empowerment and democratic citizenship. Here J elaborated on the theme of peace as compliance, which all agreed was
the dominant plot constructing peace in Josephs case:
J: Yes, theres a negativity about this isnt there and also the order . . . its like rules, even
like a list of regulations, discipline or order. You could just imagine . . . even in his
itemising of it . . . like the ten commandments! I would imagine that this is a construction that would be available to children, for example, by their experience of
classroom 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, isnt
it. 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 empowering them to participate in the transformation of their world (Shaull, 1972).
Prout (2003) wrote about the crucial connection between the representations of
childhood and adolescence held by educators and different models of education.
Relevant here was our Phase 1 work where teachers perceptions of students competencies were found to represent a very partial and underdeveloped notion
about the known person or learner. Our data spoke to a mindset that greatly overvalued individual experience and greatly undervalued the understanding of peo-

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20 Journal of Transformative Education / January 2005

ples behaviour as socially embedded and socially meaningful. Furthermore, this

individual model of community relations/peace education, like its sister discourse in the domain of educational special needs, was found to be an uncritically
assimilated professional discourse that framed the possibilities for teacher action.
Such mindsets and images, as intimated earlier, were antithetical to the development of a transformative approach to education as well as the promotion of
peace (Mayo, 2003; Yates, 1992).
However, the following exchanges illustrate the power of our improvement
projects to provide a context for senior professionals to engage in transformative
dialogue, to critically reflect on taken-for-granted assumptions, and to develop a
language of possibility for action (Giroux as cited by Mayo, 2003).
When Im watching TV. my brother
never gives me peace to watch it. Peace
also means no more fighting and people not getting hurt anymore. Everyone in
the world should want peace
Please, 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 the
EMU 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 personal relationships, about N. Ireland and then to the more global picture! So, from me
to the world in three sentences . . . this is not much different from the first poem . . . its
just amazing isnt it, how children of even this age, 5 or 6, have peace stories to tell and
are able to see peace in their individual personal relationship world and in their
broader world as well . . . this child is in Year 2! [tone of exasperation]. . . . Most of my
colleagues back at school wouldnt, I bet you, recognise that children would have concepts of peace that were much more global.
GM 2: And you know, I think curricular projects are still being based on this sort of
analysis . . . on the view that youngsters go through a sequence of stages in their thinking . . . this child is relatively young and still has a peace story which is at a societal
level, they are aware of things like bombs, and guns, and also about their mates in
class.

Childrens social awareness and ability to comprehend controversial issues

arose as a theme for discussion at some stage during every group session. Narrative analysis allowed the interpretative groups to gain a much more nuanced understanding of childrens social development.
Why cant everybody have peace?
Its the simplest thing to ask for.

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School Transformation for Peace

21

A ceasefire doesnt do any good

Because people just ignore it.
Catholics and Protestants fight
When its their turn to march.
Everyone will be happy if there is peace
So why cant we have peace?
Some politicians must be stupid,
Take Ian Paisley for instance,
He expects people to vote for him
You would have to be mad to vote for him
He 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 also
for the way in which it demonstrated well-developed and ingrained sectarian attitudes 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 pummelling 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 and
Catholics . . . its very knowledgeable . . . quite outstanding really.
GM1: The child is living within a highly political context [others: Of course it is] and obviously they dont like Paisley . . . hes stupid, and hes going to be the bogey that upsets this . . . so people ignore this ceasefire . . . the child is not now expecting the ceasefire to . . . its funny to see it so young.
GM 5: Prods are responsible for the whole lot . . . isnt it amazing . . . but still this child is
talking about something that is not discussed in an educational context . . . teachers
in our school, at the moment, wouldnt touch this with a Bargepole!

Narrative analysis drew attention to the influence on the developing person of

a variety of different levels of the social formation on childrens social development, in particular to the influence of the discursive processes and practices associated with living within particular and specific communities and to the contribution made by cultural contexts such as ethnicity, class, and gender to the
plots people lived by. In contrast to the ideology of the individual or to the argument that social situations had a dramatic influence on the individual, this was
much more consistent with a relationally embedded concept of social being
where knowledge was maintained in the meanings that passed between people in
their interactions.

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22 Journal of Transformative Education / January 2005

The Culture of Silence: My Colleagues

Wouldnt Touch That With a Bargepole
Northern Reticence, the tight gag of place
And times, yes, yes. Of this wee six I sing
Where to be saved you only must save face
And whatever you say, you say nothing
Smoke signals are loud-mouthed compared with us:
Manouvrings to find out name and school
Subtle discriminations by address
With hardly any exception to the rule
(Heaney, 1990, pp. 78-80)

Questions of partnership, of building bridges, bonding and linking relationships and of dialogue around the most difficult conversations must now become
central to how we do business in N. Ireland (Duncan Morrow, Chief Executive
of the Community Relations Council; Morrow, 2004, p. 4). Highlighted by Morrow (2004) and succinctly and eloquently described by Seamus Heaney (1990),
the issue of how to encourage school-based dialogue around the difficult conversations lies at the heart of the problem of school transformation for the 21st century in N. Ireland.
As illustrated earlier, throughout our Phase 2 study, narrative inquiry incorporating appreciative inquiry methodology proved to have enormous transformative potential for facilitating difficult conversations around ethnopolitical conflict. The following quote illustrates the imaginative potential of the process:
Maybe as primary teachers we should be more responsive for tackling some issues, 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 McGuiness
is, who Trimble is. Or the Secretary of State . . . you know things like that are
bandied about and they dont have a notion, certainly the Year 7s I have dont
have a notion . . . I dont think we try, Im sorry, I just dont think we try hard
enough [yes, from others] . . . I think we avoid it and run away from it. Im not
surprised we run away from it . . . because parents will come down around your
neck; but you know . . . Im past caring about that anymore.

An important principle of the transformative and emancipatory approach to

education is participation, enabling, for example, the voices of children and
young 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 that
some members of our communities of discourse had as a result of their interpretative experiences begun to think more imaginatively and move into new spaces
of meaning with respect to this issue:

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School Transformation for Peace 23

I dont know, I wonder should we do the exercise you [the group facilitators] did
with us . . . of asking children their thoughts. I think the last time I would have
asked 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 your
youngsters? Never . . . but it makes you think doesnt it!

Discussion
According to Mayo (2003), any assessment of the transformative potential of
an educational initiative would have to focus attention on the following questions: Does it contain a language of critique? Does it expose forms of institutional 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 evidence, only some of which was presented here, we would argue strongly that the
story-based approach and appreciative mode of school improvement met these
benchmarks.
Our work identified a number of contextual constraints that served to frustrate 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 connected with the culture of silence, the individuating cultural story (ideology of
the individual) that strongly influenced school knowledge and institutional sectarianism. Then there were the silences and gaps in the story forms available to
teachers within schools to help them make better sense of life, that is, from parents, children, and young people themselves. Yet, despite contextual restraints
such as these, the improvement projects pointed to the power of narrative dialogue for helping to open the status quo to possible transformation. Our work illuminated the potential of narrative dialogues for creating more open learning
organisations where adults could engage in critical self-reflection about the dominant institutional stories underpinning organisational life as well as engage
proactively with the divisions between the two main identity groups in N. Ireland. It demonstrated the way in which intergroup relationships and conflict were
defined in identity terms and encoded in aspects of community culture, in this
case, stories within the poetic genre. Consequently, as Senehi (2000) suggested,
because they were accessible, flexible, and used contextually, stories and other
popular expressive genres could be a means of reformulating cultural notions in
order to comment critically and persuasively on community life (p. 97). Or, as
Gergen (2003) remarked, people were very susceptive to accounts of what gave
personal meaning to the lives of others. Stories, he remarked, could form an extremely effective part in the successful outcomes of a socially transformative initiative.
Apple and Beane (1999) suggested that the frustrations involved in creating
democratic schools were only exceeded by the more ambitious task of maintain-

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24 Journal of Transformative Education / January 2005

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

ing them in the face of nondemocratic currents in public opinion and educational policy. Within a divided society, work to develop school effectiveness for
peace requires refined qualities, including an abundance of hope and optimism.
For us as professional educators, the story of this phase of our work did indeed
serve to reinforce an optimistic frame of mind, in tune with the message of narrative psychology taken from a constructionist frame that was itself profoundly
optimistic (Gergen, 1996). Despite the contextual constraints, the improvement
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School Transformation for Peace 25

projects pointed to the power of narrative dialogue for improving the quality of
organisational life for social transformation. As Cooperrider and Srivastva (1987)
suggested,
Accepting for a moment the argument of the social constructionists that social
reality, at any given point, is a product of broad social agreement (shared meanings), and further granting a linkage between the conceptual schemes of a culture and its other patterns of action, we must seriously consider the idea that alterations in conceptual practice, in ways of symbolising the world, hold
tremendous potential for guiding changes in the social order . . . the most powerful vehicle communities have for transforming their conventionstheir
agreements on norms, values, policies, purposes and ideologiesis through the
act 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 Figure
2). Gerards poem was the first to be drawn out of the hat combining both verbal
and visual texts. This made it possible to undertake a limited amount of integrated analysis around the meaning structures of both mediums.4 Gerards text
was read by the interpretative group as a local political story drawing on Republican community narratives, what we labelled peace with a big P. Teachers remarked on the list of characters, Weve got flags there, guns, shaking of hands
and there I presume prisoners. I wonder what that prisoner has got around the
side of his head, peace dead in 1999? This list of characters appeared to accurately reflect the internal debate within the Republican movement at this time.
As well as the narrative elements of drama, plot, and characterisation, group
discussion also focused on the narrative feature of detachment or distancing
marked by the elision of the personal pronoun indexical device or I. This was a
feature 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 interpretation that recognised the central position language played in the strategic
work of people having various purposes in mind. Specifically, it caused us to reflect on the place and function of rhetoric in communication as described by theorists within the discursive psychology strain of social constructionism. We interpreted detachment as an example of the silence that was part of the problem
in N. Ireland, that is, an example of the ability of children as young as 5 or 6 to
understand the socially accepted conventions of narrative accounting (see the
6
rhetoric of the real; Gergen, 1999) connected with the culture of silence and
avoidanceWhatever you say, say nothing! Since, a number of commentators
regard the community culture of silence and avoidance as central to understanding the way the sectarian system reinforces itself; this was a very imaginative interpretation having profound practical implications. It reinforced our view that a
critical pedagogy in N. Irish schools designed to facilitate difficult conversations,
incorporating narrative work with students as well as teachers, had to begin
earlyvery early.

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26 Journal of Transformative Education / January 2005

Notes
1. General Certificates of Secondary Education is the public examinations taken at the
end of compulsory schooling; approximate age 16.
2. Following the Education Reform (NI) Order 1989, Education for Mutual Understanding (popularly known as EMU) and Cultural Heritage became closely related and
statutory cross-curricular themes in the North Irish curriculum. Their inclusion within
the statutory curriculum carried an explicit expectation that teachers would attempt to address 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 Government
was 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 described 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 to
bring off versions of events that have desired consequences. Gergen (1999, 2000) was particularly interested in the social rules through which social intercourse was able to take
place; in other words, the tool bag of conventions (rhetorical or narrative devices) within
social groups that people learn to use to fashion socially acceptable accounts or accounts
that sound real to others. He called these conventions the rhetoric of the real. Gergen
identified a number of such conventions within Western cultures, including the use of distancing devices because reality talk was supposed to be about a world out there. However, social rules change from social group to social group. Our tentative yet very imaginative move was to apply this thinking to the culture of silence process in N. Ireland, the
process reinforcing sectarianism (Liechty & Clegg, 2001). This issue had not previously
been reported in the literature.

APPENDIX A
The Interpretative Community of Peace
Activists and Gergens Imaginative Function:
Summary of Content Analysis
ID
IM1
IM2
IM3
IM4

Theme
Focused community relations work in schools (all discourse suggesting this
was desirable/essential)
Implications for teaching-learning of childrens early awareness of the level
or the cultural protocols governing communication over sensitive issues
The desirability of cross-community contact (because e.g. children had difficulties envisioning peace)
Recognition of the desirability of dialogical pedagogy
(continued)
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School Transformation for Peace 27

APPENDIX A (continued)
ID

Theme

IM5
IM6
IM7
IM8

The teaching-learning implications of primary school children having a global

perspective on peace
Recognition of gender stereotyped views about peace
Childrens peace stories viewed as underdeveloped thin descriptions and the
need for alternative stories that created new possibilities
The place of storytelling in educational practice, for example, meeting attainment targets, developing generative talk, and potential for recognising emotions

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

APPENDIX B
The Education for Mutual Understanding (EMU) and
Cultural Heritage Coordinators, Appreciative Inquiry,
and Imaginative Thinking: Summary of Content Analysis
ID

Theme

IM1

Need for focused community relations

work

IM2

Listening to the students voice

Example Dialogue
I dont think we try [to shift the bias],
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 citizenship be part of our programme of
study when we cant teach our children
to be citizens in N. Ireland
I wonder should we do the exercise of
asking the children their thoughts . . . I
think the last time I would have asked
(continued)

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28 Journal of Transformative Education / January 2005

APPENDIX B (continued)

ID

Theme

IM3

Collaboration with parents

IM4

Role for the practitioner psychologist

working in an educational setting

Example Dialogue
children to do something like that was
a long time ago, if ever What type of
people are we trying to produce . . . for
peace in N. Ireland we need something
else . . . the quiet and gentle dont get
anywhere
A key requisite for development was
the relationship between a school and
its parent body . . . this has to be a prerequisite to doing anything meaningful Our practice would need to reflect
some partnership with parents in
those issues There was a good suggestion 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 of
dialogue with parents We 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 crosscommunity basis] it was actually received very well
Imaginative thinking stimulated in me
(with my participant researcher hat
on) concerned the role of the educational psychologist working in an educational setting. This referred to the
application or transfer of constructionist practices used within therapeutic
contexts to organisational change
processes, such as narrative therapy
(White & Epston, 1990) and solutionfocused therapy (Berg & de Shazer, 1993)

Note: Where included, the example utterances or dialogue represent the voice of the
participants. However, the dialogue included in row IM4 represents the voice of the researcher as participant.

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School Transformation for Peace 29

APPENDIX C
13 Propositions for School-Based Peace Education
Develop teaching-learning approaches that do not avoid controversial issues and that allow students to engage critically and reflectively with their own background and that
of 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 surrounding what can and cannot be said, talked about, or done
Have well-organised and -planned cross-community contact programmes where at some
stage group membership is made salient and a topic of discussion rather than ignored
Use active/collaborative learning methods
Include the study of distant places and the local environment from an early age
Give 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 disempower
Work collaboratively with parents to plan, develop, and implement peace education policies and practices
Allow students to have their voices heard in the design of the curriculum
Make storytelling a significant part of curriculum development and the professional development of teachers for peacemaking
Develop within schools a personal-communal set of cultural norms rather than rationalbureaucratic (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 Education
Authority chartered educational psychologist and educational adviser. He previously
worked as a youth worker and secondary school teacher. In September 2003, Ron completed his doctoral studies at the University of London, Institute of Education. He is
coauthor of a forthcoming book titled Improving School Effectiveness for Peace. Address correspondence to Ron Smith, 2 Drumcraig Road, Drumagore, County Londonderry,
Northern Ireland, BT47 2SE; E-mail: ronsmith@ireland.com.
June Neill is an adviser for community relations and citizenship in a Northern Irish
Local Education Authority. She is a member of a Department of Education Northern
Ireland Working Party concerned with improving community relations work in schools.
She is also a member of the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) Working Group, devising student materials in preparation for the introduction of a new statutory citizenship strand within the Northern Irish curriculum. June is coauthor of a forthcoming book, Improving School Effectiveness for Peace. E-mail: june_neill@
welbni.org.

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