Join the George C. Bond Center for African Education (CAE) for a conversation with our director Professor S. Garnett Russell, author of Becoming Rwandan: Education, Reconciliation, and the Making of a Post-Genocide Citizen. This event is co-sponsored by the Department of International & Transcultural Studies and the Institute for the Study of Human Rights.
About the book:
In the aftermath of the genocide, the Rwandan government has attempted to use the education system in order to sustain peace and shape a new generation of Rwandans. Their hope is to create a generation focused on a unified and patriotic future rather than the ethnically divisive past. Yet, the government’s efforts to manipulate global models around citizenship, human rights, and reconciliation to serve its national goals have had mixed results, with new tensions emerging across social groups. Becoming Rwandan argues that although the Rwandan government utilizes global discourses in national policy documents, the way in which teachers and students engage with these global models distorts the intention of the government, resulting in unintended consequences and undermining a sustainable peace.
About the author:
S. Garnett Russell is an assistant professor of international and comparative education and the director of the George Clement Bond Center for African Education at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York.
Dec. 4, 5:30 - 7:30PM
Russell Hall 306
Light refreshments will be served.
