We Come to Form Ourselves Bit by Bit

Over the past several decades, the implementation of democratic citizenship education has become a common prescription for the civic reconstruction of post-conflict societies. Across the globe, educational changes are seen as fundamental to the creation of peaceful, tolerant, and democratic civic identities, the key to “social reconstruction, a better future, and a lasting peace.” Drawing on qualitative data from varied schools in postwar Guatemala, this article illustrates a critical dilemma in post-conflict civic education: the difficulties of engaging directly with past and present injustice while moving toward a shared national identity. Global models of democratic, multicultural, and human rights education alone are inadequate for creating a new sense of citizenship in a country in which young people’s sense of belonging and their interpretations of the past are deeply connected to how their communities are positioned within a profoundly inequitable power structure.